JUSTICE FOR GEORGE PROTESTS
As the US burns, president is accused of ‘fanning flames of racism’
SUPPORTERS of the Black Lives Matter movement hold placards and banners to protest against the police brutality in the US following the death of George Floyd, in front of the US Embassy to Germany in Berlin, Germany, yesterday.
DONALD Trump has been accused of “fanning the flames” of race riots by goading protesters who threatened to scale the walls of the White House, by saying they “would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, the most ominous weapons”.
In a series of inflammatory tweets, he also praised the Secret Service for controlling the “big crowd”, some burning US flags outside the presidential residence in Washington.
As America braced itself for a fifth night of riots in cities from Los Angeles to New York in protest at the death of black restaurant worker George Floyd, who was killed by a white police officer kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes last Monday, Trump refused to back down from an earlier inflammatory comment when he said: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
A spokesperson for the Black Lives Matters movement said: “This president has proved himself time and again to be a racist. He thinks nothing of fanning the flames of hatred and bigotry. He has blood on his hands.”
At the headquarters of TV news channel CNN in Atlanta, police snipers trained guns on youths who smashed their way into the building using rocks and a skateboard. Police stations in Minneapolis and Oakland, California, were set on fire while in Colorado shots were fired outside the state’s main assembly building.
Protests and looting erupted in Denver, Louisville, Dallas and Houston over the past days causing an estimated £200 million (R4.3bn) in damage.
Floyd’s death unleashed a toxic cocktail of pent-up emotions and highlighted America’s vast and bitter racial divide.
Floyd, 46, a so-called “gentle giant” was filmed on video pleading for his life after four police officers threw him to the ground outside Cup Foods convenience store in Minneapolis on Monday night after they suspected him of trying to buy a pack of cigarettes with a forged $20 note.
Policeman Derek Chauvin, 44, was filmed by bystanders choking a handcuffed Floyd with his knee pressed against his windpipe as Floyd begged for his life saying: “I can’t breathe”, and crying for his dead mother.
Chauvin has been charged with third degree murder and manslaughter and faces up to 35 years in jail. His beauty queen wife filed for divorce late on Friday night saying she was “devastated” for the dead man’s family.
Floyd’s brother Philonise said:
“People are torn and hurt seeing black men die constantly, over and over again. This is not a one-time thing, it’s going to last for ever. I’m never going to get my brother back.”
Official figures on the number of blacks killed by police are not published but university research in 2015 found that black residents of Minneapolis were almost nine times more likely than whites to be arrested for low-level offences.