US police brutality protests

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd, was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison on Thursday on federal charges.

Chauvin, who is white, pleaded guilty in December 2021 to violating the civil rights of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, during his May 2020 arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy a pack of cigarettes.

Chauvin is already serving a 22-and-a-half-year sentence after being convicted of state murder charges for Floyd's death, which sparked protests against racial injustice and police brutality across the United States. — AFP

A Minnesota jury begins deliberating the fate of three former police officers charged with violating the civil rights of George Floyd, the African American man whose murder sparked nationwide protests.

Tou Thao, 36, J. Alexander Kueng, 28, and Thomas Lane, 38, are on trial in federal court in Saint Paul for their roles in Floyd's May 2020 death in the sister city of Minneapolis.

"It's your duty to find the facts," Judge Paul Magnuson tells the jury of eight women and four men, "and then apply the law."

"Don't allow sympathy or prejudice to influence you," the judge says before sending the jurors off to begin their deliberations. — AFP

Sculptures of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, two Black Americans whose deaths at the hands of police in 2020 rocked the United States, are to be auctioned for charity after being exhibited in New York, Sotheby's said Thursday. 

The pieces will be on sale online until December 17 and the profits will go to associations founded by the families of the two victims, "We are Floyd" and "The Breonna Taylor Foundation," Sotheby's said. 

The two statues are the work of artist Chris Carnabuci, while the statue of Taylor has been decorated by Brooklyn-based Nigerian artist Laolu Senbanjo, also known as Laolu NYC, who has worked with Beyonce in the past.

The golden statue of George Floyd, who was killed last May at age 46 when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for some nine minutes, had been vandalized with spray paint while on display in Union Square in Manhattan. 

It has since been cleaned up, and the 1.8 meter (six foot) sculpture is expected go for between $100,000 and $150,000.  — AFP

A US court has handed down a four-year sentence to a former police officer charged with illegally beating a Black undercover colleague posing as a protester at a 2017 demonstration.

A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced Randy Hays, 34, to more than four years in jail after the former cop pleaded guilty in 2019 to using excessive and unreasonable force, according to court documents.

Hays, along with former officers Dustin Boone and Christopher Myers were accused of knocking to the ground an undercover officer who was monitoring protesters, and then kicking and striking the officer with a police baton. 

On Thursday, another former officer, Bailey Colletta, was given a three-year suspended sentence for lying to a federal grand jury during its investigation of the incident. 

Boone was found guilty by a jury in June and is due to be sentenced on September 15, exactly four years after the incident. — AFP

The family of African American George Floyd appealed Tuesday for sweeping police reform on the anniversary of his murder by a white officer as they met President Joe Biden at the White House.

The president and Kamala Harris, America's first female and first Black vice president, hosted several of Floyd's relatives in the Oval Office after the family spoke to top lawmakers hoping for progress on police reform.

The legislation being considered to increase police accountability would be named after Floyd, who suffocated after being pinned down under the knee of Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020.

"If you can make federal laws to protect the bird, the bald eagle, you can make federal laws to protect people of color," Philonise Floyd, George's younger brother, said as he emerged from the private meeting, which lasted over an hour. — AFP

Supporters and relatives of African-American man George Floyd marched Sunday ahead of the first anniversary of his murder by a white policeman, a killing that prompted a reckoning on racial injustice in the United States.

About 1,500 marchers in Minneapolis listened to speeches and joined members of the Floyd family and relatives of other Black people who died in encounters with the police.

Floyd, 46, was killed on May 25, 2020 by city police officer, Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Chauvin, convicted by a jury of murder and manslaughter, is to be sentenced on June 25.

The rally opened with speeches outside the Hennepin County Government Center in central Minneapolis, where Chauvin stood trial.

"It has been a long year. It has been a painful year. It has been very frustrating for me and my family," Floyd's sister Bridgett Floyd told the gathering. — AFP

Sacked police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter Tuesday in the death of African-American George Floyd in a case that roiled the United States for almost a year, laying bare deep racial divisions.

A racially-diverse jury of seven women and five men in the Midwestern city of Minneapolis took less than two days at the end of a three-week trial to find the white officer guilty in unanimous decisions on all three charges he faced.

Chauvin, 45, could be handed decades behind bars for Floyd's May 25, 2020 killing, which sparked protests against racial injustice around the world and is being seen as a landmark test of police accountability. —  AFP

The jury in the trial of the former Minneapolis police officer accused of murdering George Floyd retired on Monday to begin its deliberations in the closely watched case.

Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill issued final instructions to the jury after prosecutors and the defense attorney for Derek Chauvin made their closing arguments.

"You must be absolutely fair," Cahill said. "Consider and weigh the evidence and apply the law." —  AFP

High-ranking Congress member Maxine Waters called for an overhaul of policing in the United States as she joined the seventh consecutive night of protests in a Minneapolis suburb over the death of Daunte Wright, a young Black man shot dead by a white policewoman.

The 20-year-old was killed during what should have been a routine traffic stop, sparking anger and fresh protests against police brutality and racial injustice.

"Policing has got to be changed," Waters, chair of the House Committee on Financial Services, said Saturday shortly before the 11 pm curfew.

"We've got to reimagine how we can deal with the problems of our society, that young people and people of color in particular getting killed by police that we pay to protect and serve us."

Waters, a Democrat from California, was speaking to a crowd of nearly 300 people outside the Brooklyn Center Police Station. — AFP

Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo testifies that the neck restraint used by former police officer Derek Chauvin on George Floyd violated department policy.

Arradondo, testifying at Chauvin's murder trial, says the restraint was "not part of our policy, not part of our training, and it is certainly not part of our ethics or values." —  AFP

Demonstrators demanded justice and police reforms on Saturday as they marched on the one-year anniversary of the death of Breonna Taylor, a young Black woman mistakenly shot and killed by officers during a raid of her apartment. 

"We got two different Americas. We got one for Black Americans and one for white Americans," Benjamin Crump, an attorney representing Taylor's family, told the crowd of hundreds in Louisville, Kentucky.

"We got to get justice for all our people in America."

The deaths of Taylor and George Floyd, a Black man who died under the knee of a policeman in Minneapolis, became a focus of a wave of protests last yea r against police abuses and racism in the United States.  — AFP

Bearing a replica coffin covered in red roses, thousands of people marched Sunday in the US city of Minneapolis, the day before trial proceedings begin for the white police officer charged with killing George Floyd, a Black man.

The diverse crowd mostly stayed silent, occasionally chanting "No justice, no peace!"

Floyd was 46 when he died of asphyxiation, as then-officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes on May 25, 2020. His death triggered a nationwide protest movement against racism and police brutality.

Chauvin, who was fired by the Minneapolis Police Department, faces second-degree murder and manslaughter charges. —  AFP

Philadelphia's mayor said Thursday a curfew he had put in effect the previous evening over unrest that followed the police killing of a Black man would not be maintained for a second night.

Mayor Jim Kenney nonetheless called on residents to stay home except in case of emergency.

"There will not be a citywide curfew this evening," Kenney wrote on Twitter.

"However, we encourage residents to remain home, unless travel is necessary."

The curfew had been in effect overnight in Pennsylvania's largest city after unrest triggered by Monday's fatal police shooting of 27-year-old Walter Wallace, which was captured on video posted to social media.

Thousands of people had taken to the streets, with looting and violence breaking out. Fifty-seven officers have been injured, one seriously, a police spokesman said.

The two days of unrest have also seen 210 arrests. — AFP

One police officer was shot in the US city of Louisville in protests after charges were filed against only one policeman involved in the fatal shooting in March of black woman Breonna Taylor, police says

A police spokeswoman confirms the incident to AFP, without offering further details.

The condition of the police officer was not immediately known, the local Fox affiliate WDRB reports. — AFP

US President Donald Trump will travel next week to the Midwestern city where African-American Jacob Blake was shot and grievously wounded by a white policeman, the White House said Saturday.

Trump will go to Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday to meet with law enforcement officials and view damage from unrest triggered by Blake's shooting last weekend, White House spokesman Judd Deere said. — AFP

Demonstrators chanting "Black Lives Matter" exchange words with activists waving pro-Trump signs outside a fortified White House: America's Independence Day was marked in Washington on Saturday by confrontation and disunity. 

As it struggles to contain the coronavirus and reckons with waves of protesters demanding racial justice, the United States is deeply polarized, with the gulf seemingly insurmountable on a day usually marking patriotism and unity.

The one thing people outside the White House — surrounded by an imposing police cordon — and on the nearby National Mall seemed to be able to agree on was that this was not where they wanted America be. — AFP

One person was killed and another wounded in a shooting at a Black Lives Matter rally in the US state of Kentucky, police say.

The incident Saturday took place at Jefferson Square Park in the center of Louisville where protestors have gathered for weeks over the killing of African American woman Breonna Taylor. 

Her death in March helped fuel a campaign against racism and police brutality in the United States that has since spread across the globe. — AFP

Four men have been charged for attempting to remove a statue of former US President Andrew Jackson from outside the White House as part of anti-racism protests in the United States, authorities said on Saturday. 

US President Donald Trump, who is trying to position himself as a standard-bearer for "law and order" with less than five months to go before November's presidential election, also tweeted calls by police Saturday to identify more than a dozen other demonstrators who took part in the action. 

On Monday evening, a group of protesters attacked the statue of former President Johnson, a defender of slavery who led the United States from 1865 to 1869, which stands in Lafayette Park next to the White House. — AFP

A man was shot dead and another seriously injured Saturday in a police-free autonomous zone created by protesters in the US city of Seattle, where officers were prevented from accessing the victims, officials say.

The area, set up as part of the nationwide protest movement following the death of unarmed African American George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer, has been a frequent target of Donald Trump.

The US president has called it a "disaster" and said people there are anarchists from the "radical left." — AFP

As anti-racism protests broke out across the United States, Viet Hoai Tran knew exactly what he wanted to write on his poster — "Yellow Peril Supports Black Power."

"If we are talking about fighting for justice, for liberation, for change... all of us have to be part of this," said the 27-year-old, who was born in Vietnam, but grew up in the US. 

The death of George Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis police custody sparked nationwide protests — and a sense of reckoning in the Asian American community, which has historically fraught, even violent, ties with African Americans. — AFP

The US embassy in South Korea has removed banners celebrating the Black Lives Matter movement and gay pride after running afoul of President Donald Trump's administration.

The embassy had unfurled a banner on the building reading "Black Lives Matter" at the weekend in solidarity with the increasingly global movement that has emerged after the killing of African American George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody. — AFP

The police chief in the US city of Atlanta resigned after an officer fatally shot a black man during an arrest, the mayor says Saturday, with the new killing injecting fresh anger into protests against racism and police brutality.

Images on local media showed hundreds of protesters in the streets on Saturday and flames engulfing the Wendy's restaurant where 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was killed.

The officer who shot Brooks was dismissed Saturday and identified by Atlanta police as Garrett Rolfe. The second officer was placed on administrative duty, according to ABC News. — AFP

US police officers at the center of demonstrations that have roiled the country are caught between their commitment to the job and recognition that reforms are needed to address institutional racism within their ranks.

From California to Massachusetts, several officers interviewed by AFP said they were horrified by the killing of George Floyd while in police custody — a tragedy that sparked nationwide protests against police brutality and racism.

But those interviewed also hit back at accusations that the actions of the officers involved in Floyd's death reflected the values of law enforcement officers across the country. — AFP

Thousands of mourners files past George Floyd's coffin ahead of the African-American's funeral in his native Houston as a court set bail at $1 million for the white officer charged with his murder in a case that has sparked once-in-a-generation protests against police brutality.

Many well-wishers make the sign of the cross as they approach the open casket to say a last goodbye while others took a knee or bowed their heads in silent prayer for a man who has become emblematic of America's latest reckoning with racial injustice. — AFP

Taking a knee, banging drums and ignoring social distancing measures, outraged protesters from Sydney to London on Saturday kicked off a weekend of global rallies against racism and police brutality.

The death at police hands of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in the US state of Minnesota, brought tens of thousands out onto the streets during a pandemic that is ebbing in Asia and Europe but spreading in other parts of the world.

"It is time to burn down institutional racism," one speaker shouted through a megaphone at a hooting crowd of thousands outside the parliament building in London.

"Silence is violence," the throng shouted back in the rain, before mounted police moved in to disperse a small missile-pelting crowd trying to push its way closer to Downing Street.

Thousands more marched in the northern English city of Manchester. — AFP

President Donald Trump sparks controversy, calling it a "great day" for George Floyd, the man whose death in custody last week unleashed nationwide protests over police brutality against African Americans.

"We all saw what happened last week. We can't let that happen," Trump says of Floyd, who was killed as a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

"Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying, 'This is a great thing that's happening for our country.'" — AFP

Hundreds of mourners join in an emotional memorial service on Thursday for George Floyd, the African-American man killed by police last week, as civil rights leader Al Sharpton vowed the mass protests ignited by his death would continue until "we change the whole system of justice" in the United States.

Floyd's attorney tell mourners he would find justice for the 46-year-old Floyd, who died during a May 25 arrest when a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

"It was not the coronavirus pandemic that killed George Floyd," said Benjamin Crump, who is representing Floyd's family. "It was that other pandemic. The pandemic of racism and discrimination."

The crowd in Minneapolis stood in silence for the eight minutes and 46 seconds that officer Derek Chauvin spent with his knee on Floyd's neck, a scene captured on videotape. — AFP

US President Donald Trump vowed to order a military crackdown on once-in-a-generation violent protests gripping the United States, saying he was sending thousands of troops onto the streets of the capital and threatening to deploy soldiers to states unable to regain control.

The dramatic escalation came a week after the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed when a white police officer knelt on his neck, leading to the worst civil unrest in decades in New York, Los Angeles and dozens of other American cities.

In the Midwest, police were early Tuesday trying to bring the city of St Louis under control after a night of looting and violence in which four officers were shot, police chief Colonel John Hayden said, adding their injuries were not life-threatening. — AFP

US President Donald Trump on Monday slams protests in Washington in which some properties and monuments have been vandalised as police struggled to disperse crowds.

"What happened in the city last night was a total disgrace," he says. "As we speak I am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults and wanton destruction of property." — AFP

Journalists covering nationwide protests over the death of a black man at police hands in Minneapolis have found themselves under attack, by police and at times by protesters.

The arrest and handcuffing Friday of a black CNN journalist by police in Minneapolis -- even as he was reporting live on camera following the death of George Floyd -- may have drawn the widest coverage. 

The journalist, Omar Jimenez, was released an hour later after the Minnesota governor personally intervened.

But there have been several other serious incidents across the country, notably in Louisville, Kentucky, where a riot-squad policeman fired what appeared to be pepper-spray pellets at a local TV crew filming the scene. — AFP

Protests sweeping the United States over the death of George Floyd reverberated on the other side of the globe Monday when thousands marched in solidarity on the streets of New Zealand. 

The rallies were peaceful in contrast to the days of violent protests in the US after Floyd, an African-American, died after being handcuffed and as a white police officer, who has since been charged with murder, knelt on his neck. 

In Auckland, about 2,000 people marched to the US Consulate chanting "no justice no peace" and "black lives matter". 

Another 500 gathered in Christchurch, and a large crowd was expected to maintain a candlelit vigil outside the parliament buildings in Wellington. — AFP

World champion Lewis Hamilton criticizes the "biggest of stars" in "white-dominated" Formula One for failing to speak out against racism as protests erupted around the United States.

The Mercedes driver warned "I know who you are and I see you" as he accused his fellow drivers of "staying silent" following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, during his arrest in Minneapolis.

The videotaped incident has triggered unrest in several cities and led to an outpouring of condemnation from top athletes including Michael Jordan and Serena Williams.

"I see those of you who are staying silent, some of you the biggest of stars yet you stay silent in the midst of injustice," Hamilton wrote on Instagram. — AFP

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden visits the scene of an anti-racism protest in the state of Delaware on Sunday, saying that the United States was "in pain".

"We are a nation in pain right now, but we must not allow this pain to destroy us," Biden writes in Twitter, posting a picture of him speaking with a black family at the cordoned-off site where protesters had gathered on Saturday night.

"As President, I will help lead this conversation — and more importantly, I will listen, just as I did today visiting the site of last night's protests in Wilmington." — AFP

Police in riot gear charged protesters defying a curfew in Minneapolis Saturday, firing tear gas and stun grenades to keep them away from a police station, an AFP photographer said.

Officers, assisted by National Guard soldiers, had until then held back from confronting demonstrators out of fear of aggravating the crisis and because they were initially low in number.

Minneapolis has been gripped by several days of violent protests following the death of an unarmed black man during an arrest in the city on Monday. — AFP

Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Atlanta were among several US cities to announce curfews Saturday in a bid to stem violent anti-police protests breaking out across America.

A nighttime curfew was also implemented in Louisville, Kentucky as the United States continues to be rocked by demonstrators angry at the death of a black man during an arrest in Minneapolis on Monday.

George Floyd was handcuffed and died after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, sparking the widespread protests against police brutality. — AFP

Photo: Demonstrators confront secret service police officers outside of the White House on May 30, 2020 in Washington DC, during a protest over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, who died after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes. Demonstrations are being held across the US after George Floyd died in police custody on May 25. Jose Luis Magana / AFP