HOUSTON/LONDON/ WASHINGTON: Mourners gathered in Texas on Monday to pay their respects to African American George Floyd, who died in police custody two weeks ago, as pressure intensified for sweeping reforms to the US justice system in the wake of nationwide protests.
Demonstrators’ anger over the May 25 death of Floyd, 46, is giving way to a growing determination to make his case a turning point in race relations and a lightning rod for change in the way police departments function across the country, reported British wire service.
Floyd died after Derek Chauvin, the white officer accused of killing him, knelt on his neck for nine minutes in Minneapolis. A bystander’s cellphone captured the scene as Floyd pleaded with the officer, choking out the words, “I can’t breathe.”
In Houston, where Floyd grew up, American flags fluttered along the route to the Fountain of Praise church as hundreds of people waited in line to view his casket, some wearing T-shirts with the words, “I can’t breathe.” “It’s a great day today. A lot of changes are being made. It’s a tragedy a life had to be taken,” said Perence Mcintosh, a black Houston resident who was among those in line.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who is challenging Republican President Donald Trump in a Nov. 3 election, planned to meet Floyd’s family in Houston later in the day, according to his aides.
Floyd will be buried on Tuesday. Reverend Al Sharpton, a black civil rights leader, is expected to give the eulogy.
In Washington, Democrats in Congress unveiled legislation that would make lynching a hate crime and allow victims of misconduct and their families to sue police for damages in civil court, ending a legal doctrine known as qualified immunity.
The 134-page bill also would ban chokeholds and require the use of body cameras by federal law enforcement officers, restrict the use of lethal force, and facilitate independent probes ofpolice departments that show patterns of misconduct. It does not call for the funding of police departments to be cut or abolished, as some protesters and activists have sought. But lawmakers called for spending priorities to change.
“We have confused having safe communities with hiring more cops on the street ... when in fact the real way to achieve safe and healthy communities is to invest in these communities,” Senator Kamala Harris, seen as a potential running-mate to Biden in the Nov. 3 presidential election, said at a briefing.
Democrats vowed to bring the legislation in coming weeks to the floor of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, where it is likely to face at least some Republican opposition. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted support for the police and said, “Democrats want to defund you, but Republicans will never turn our backs on you.”
The support of the Republican-controlled Senate and Trump would be needed for the measure to become law if it passes the House. Democrats hope public support for the protests that have swept the country since Floyd’s death will propel the bill.
Though there was violence in the early days, the protests have lately been overwhelmingly peaceful. They have deepened a political crisis for Trump, who repeatedly threatened to order active duty troops onto the streets.
Huge weekend crowds gathered across the country and in Europe. The high-spirited atmosphere was marred late on Sunday when a man drove a car into a rally in Seattle and then shot and wounded a demonstrator who confronted him.
Floyd’s death was the latest in a string of deaths of black men and women at the hands of police that have sparked fresh calls for reforms here and renewed calls for racial equality as the United States reopens after weeks of unprecedented lockdowns for the coronavirus pandemic.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday he believed people were asking for fundamental, basic changes to policing and that departments would have to understand that they were operating in a different reality. “I think you will see a shift all across police departments,” Cuomo said.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced reforms aimed at building trust between residents and the police, including shifting money out of the police budget and toward youth and social services in communities of color.
Meanwhile, protesters around the world have taken to the streets in response to events in the United States, where the death in police custody of black man George Floyd has sparked a wave of anti-racism demonstrations.
Five people were interviewed in five countries about why they had taken to the streets in recent days and what they hoped to achieve. Here is what they said:
LONDON: Stedroy Cabey, a 30-year-old actor, who spoke while surrounded by hundreds of noisy protesters at the weekend: “As a black man it feels like your skin is a weapon. It feels like for some reason they feel like you’re a threat and you don’t understand why because you’ve never done anything to do that. Personally I haven’t done anything. When I first moved to the UK there was an incident where ... me and my cousin were on the bus and (a stranger) started looking at us in a weird way. When he got off the bus he ran up to us, he was like ‘go back to where you came from, you don’t belong here’. And I was speechless in that moment. I was a young boy, a young man coming from the Caribbean ... for a better life ... It was like wow. It reminded me that racism is actually real.”
PARIS: Bokar Ture, a US citizen and economist living in Paris, addressing his small daughter whom he held in his arms:”I said that there are some people who might think less of us because we’re black, but we know that’s not true, right? We know that we’re just as smart, just as intelligent, and you’re just as beautiful as anyone, OK? ... It doesn’t matter what other people think. OK? So you’re proud of yourself, OK? You can achieve anything you want and the colour of your skin, if other people are stupid enough to think that it should be a barrier, let them be stupid. You be smart, OK?”
BRUSSELS: Pauline Sobze, 17, a high school student living in Ath, western Belgium. “The reason why I come here to protest (was) because as you can see (from) the colour of my skin, it can happen to me, it can happen to my family, my friends. And it’s important for me to come here because we ... have to be together to protest for the things that matter to us.”
MADRID: US national Frank Bradford, who now lives in Madrid, speaking through a face mask: “I grew up in America’s south, Mississippi. It has one of the darkest histories of racism and I’ve seen it on a day-to-day basis, growing up in school, the university, at work and I think it’s a major problem that we have to deal with.” “I have seen it around day-to-day like in the grocery store or supermarket, on the street. It’s been something challenging. Also I’m a teacher, so I see it at the school a little bit and I try to correct students and try to teach them a better way, to recognise racism and fight against it.”
LOS ANGELES: KC Coleman, a 55-year-old former police officer from Inglewood, California. “I am protesting today because I’m a bi-racial woman. I have faced racism in my life. As an ex-police officer I faced racism, and now it’s time for a change. So, I’m here to support the cause for justice for all, freedom for all, equal rights for all. I am very optimistic about the protests and (them) leading to change, because at first it was just the black and the minorities that were out here but now you have a nation that’s all coming together as one. So, as I go out to these protests, it’s not just the African-Americans that are out here, it’s everyone out here so we’re finally united as one. So change is definitely coming and I’m feeling extremely positive about the change.”
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers knelt in silent tribute to George Floyd in the US Congress on Monday before unveiling a package of sweeping police reforms in response to the killing of African Americans by law enforcement.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were joined by some two dozen lawmakers in Emancipation Hall — named in honor of the slaves who helped erect the US Capitol in the 18th century.
They knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds to mark the length of time a white police officer pinned his knee on the neck of the 46-year-old Floyd, whose May 25 death in Minneapolis unleashed protests against racial injustice across America.
The Democrats said their bill aimed to create “meaningful, structural change that safeguards every Americans’ right to safety and equal justice.” The legislation seeks to “end police brutality, hold police accountable (and) improve transparency in policing,” a statement said.
Pelosi, who like other kneeling lawmakers was draped in a colorful Kente cloth scarf that pays homage to black Americans’ African heritage, spoke afterward of the “martyrdom of George Floyd” and the grief over black men and women killed at the hands of police. “This movement of national anguish is being transformed into a movement of national action,” she said.
The Justice and Policing Act, introduced in both chambers of Congress, would make it easier to prosecute officers for abuse and rethink how they are recruited and trained. Its chance of passage in the Senate, where Republicans hold the majority, is highly uncertain.
Donald Trump, who is running for re-election in November, has cast himself as the law-and-order president and accuses Joe Biden, his Democratic rival for the White House, of seeking to defund police forces. “The Radical Left Democrats want to Defund and Abandon our Police. Sorry, I want LAW & ORDER!” he tweeted on Monday.
The former vice president has not made any public statements supporting the defunding of law enforcement.
His campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement that Biden “supports the urgent need for reform” including funding community policing programs that improve relationships between officers and residents and help avert unjustifiable deaths.
Biden, who has said he believes the nation is at “an inflection point” given the magnitude of the protests, was traveling Monday to Houston to meet Floyd’s family.
The policing legislation, introduced by Congressional Black Caucus Chair Karen Bass and two black senators, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, would ban the use of choke holds and mandate the use of dashboard cameras and body cameras for federal officers.
Meanwhile, the British government on Monday denounced the toppling of a slave trader’s statue during anti-racism protests, urging campaigners to use democratic means for change rather than breaking the law.
But the action won some support, including from the city’s mayor, against a backdrop of public pressure to re-examine representations of the country’s colonial past.
Demonstrators pulled down the 18-foot (5.5-metre) bronze monument to Edward Colston in the southwest English city of Bristol and threw it into the harbour on Sunday. The protest was one of many across Britain in recent days in response to the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of police in the United States.
Most marches were peaceful but there were flashes of violence, including in London, where the statue of World War II leader Winston Churchill in Parliament Square was defaced.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the clashes as “a betrayal of the cause they (protesters) purport to serve”. Johnson’s spokesman told reporters on Monday the violence was “unacceptable”, while the removal of the statue in Bristol was a criminal act that should be prosecuted. “We fully understand the strength of opinion but in this country we settle our differences democratically,” he added.
In parliament, Home Secretary Priti Patel said there had been 135 arrests in protests across Britain and 35 police officers injured in London alone. She described those behind the clashes as “thugs and criminals”.
Historic England, a government heritage body, said the local community must now decide what to do with the fallen statue but “we do not believe it must be reinstated”. “We recognise that the statue was a symbol of injustice and a source of great pain for many people,” it added.
British institutions and local authorities have in recent years been re-examining their public monuments in the face of demands to better represent the country’s colonial past.
Churchill’s legacy has come under scrutiny for his wartime policies that are blamed for the death of millions during famine in the Indian state of Bengal in 1943. “No debate about the way we run our public spaces should ever be finished,” mayor Rees said. “We should be constantly wrestling with who we are and where we’ve come from.”