Protest against police violence on Sunday

Three groups against police violence are calling for a demonstration outside Montreal police headquarters on St-urbain St. this weekend to denounce the death of George Floyd, the man who died after he was arrested in Minneapolis on Monday. The groups posted the event on Facebook, calling on people to join them in a protest Sunday at 5 p.m. They also asked people who participate to respect social distancing rules.

The groups, including Hoodstock, a community movement based in Montreal North, say the protest will also denounce other cases in which people have died, either while in police custody or during a police intervention. They are calling the protest “an initiative of several anti-police brutality and anti-racist activists and organizers in Montreal.”

Floyd died after he was arrested for a minor offence in Minneapolis. Parts of the arrest were recorded on video, including one in which a police officer could be seen pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck while he was laid down on the street. In the video, Floyd is heard telling the officer he couldn’t breathe. The police officer, Derek Chauvin, 44, was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Minneapolis on Friday.

“As we denounce recent police killings in the U.S.A., we also denounce police killings of black lives here in Montreal, from Anthony Griffin in (Notre-dame-degrâce) in 1987 to Bony Jean-pierre in Montreal North (2016), Pierre Coriolan in Centre-sud (2017) and Nicholas Gibbs in Notre-damedeGrâce (2018),” the groups state on the Facebook page.