First police officer indicted over death, but what will solve America’s issue with race?
WATTS 1965, Detroit 1967, LA 1992, Ferguson 2014 — and now Minneapolis 2020.
America has been here before — its treatment of black people an open wound running through a fractured society before exploding periodically into violent confrontation.
This time it is the killing of George Floyd that has set this country ablaze once again —another name to be chanted on the streets by a people “sick and tired of being sick and tired”. That name now resonates across
America, and Mr Floyd’s last words as he lay gasping for air — a policeman’s knee choking the life out of him — have become a rallying cry. From Minneapolis across to Los Angeles, New York and the nation’s capital, Washington, they chant: “I can’t breathe”.
The corner store where Mr Floyd’s life ended is something of a community hub in Minneapolis’ Southside — part convenience store, part cheque cashing business, with apartments above, and a mosque in the basement below.
But from the moment Mr Floyd (46) was filmed outside the shop gasping as he told police officers “I can’t breathe” last Monday night, the Cup Foods storefront has become a makeshift memorial to him. Hundreds of people have gathered at the site each night since the footage of Mr Floyd’s arrest circulated online last Tuesday, showing a white officer, Derek Chauvin, holding his knee into the neck of Mr Floyd, an African-American father of two and nightclub security guard, until he became motionless.
Mr Floyd’s offence? Allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes in a local shop.
Derek Chauvin has been dismissed and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. The three other officers involved have been fired and may also face charges, prosecutors said.
But this has done little to quell the public outcry over Mr Floyd’s death — just the latest in the roll call of hundreds of usually unarmed black men, women and children who die at the hands of those who pledge to protect and to serve.
Mr Floyd’s death, and his last desperate words, have resurrected the memory of Eric Garner, another black