Protestants in San Diego join the sentiment against what happened to George Floyd
Protestants in San Diego join the sentiment against what happened to George Floyd
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The world is in shock after the events surrounding George Floyd on May 25 on the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin. Protests with signs that read “We can’t breathe” and “Black lives matter” were able to be seen in many cities throughout the United States, including in the state of California in the past few days.
On May 25, George Floyd, 46, bought a pack of cigarettes from a grocery store in Minneapolis with a $20 bill. However, the employee believed that the bill was counterfeit and reported it to the police. Shortly after, two police officers arrived and one of them, Thomas Lane, pulled out his gun and ordered Mr. Floyd to show his hands.
“Once handcuffed, though, Mr. Floyd became compliant while Mr. Lane explained he was being arrested for ‘passing counterfeit currency’”, the BBC explained in an article. It was then that a struggle began which led to Mr. Floyd falling to the ground in handcuffs and Mr. Chauvin placing his knee on his neck to keep him still.
Videos of the incident taken by witnesses show that Mr. Floyd expressed that he couldn’t breathe. A few minutes later he was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead an hour later.
Californians protest over the death of Floyd
“Over the weekend, in at least 140 cities across the country, demonstrators took to the streets in outpourings of grief and rage over the death of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man who, before he died, pleaded with the white police officer who had pinned him to the ground with a knee on his neck”, as you can read in The New York Times.
Some of these protests started out peacefully and then became violent, resulting in hundreds of people being arrested. In Los Angeles, several businesses were ransacked and curfews went into effect.
“In La Mesa, a small city in San Diego County, a crowd that had gathered in what started out as a peaceful protest on Saturday eventually blocked Interstate 8, set two banks ablaze and damaged City Hall, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune”, you can also read in the aforementioned website.
They were not only being supportive with people in Minneapolis, protesters said, but they were also aiming to draw attention to what they considered to be an unfair detention of a black man that took place the week before and that was also captured on video.
Other cities in California where protests took place during the last weekend of May were Sacramento and San Francisco.
President Trump fled to his bunker
According to information published by The Guardian, President Donald Trump fled to his underground bunker – which is reserved for war and terrorist attacks – on Friday, May 29, after chants from protesters took place in nearby Lafayette Park in Washington DC.
“Secret Service and DC and park police were required to push back demonstrators from barriers close to the White House, some of whom were throwing stones and water bottles”, the article said. On Monday, June 1, he returned to the White House and has been continuously criticized “for his response to the protests that have rocked the nation since video of Floyd’s death began spreading on social media”, they continued.
Until Monday evening, Trump had not yet addressed the nation about the incident and had sent several inflammatory messages over Twitter, as The Guardian described them.
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