On May 25, 2020, a 46-year-old man named George Floyd died while being pinned to the ground by a police officer in Minneapolis, U.S.A.
A video of the incident that has been circulated online shows an officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck even as he pleaded that he could not breathe.
Four police involved in the arrest have been fired. Derek Chauvin, the officer who pinned Floyd to the ground, has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
The incident has sparked protests across the United States with demonstrators clashing with police, looting stores, and setting fire to several buildings including a police station in Minneapolis.
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Hundreds of troops were deployed to the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul, while demonstrators were heard chanting, "I can't breathe."
U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter to post tweets that appeared to threaten violence against protesters. Twitter covered the tweet with a notice for violating its rules about “glorifying violence.” Trump then signed an executive order seeking to bring greater regulation to social media companies.
This incident has once again brought to the fore the issue of ill-treatment of the African-American community by the police.
In 2014, another man Eric Garner died after being held in a police chokehold in New York. Other incidents of police brutality include the shootings of 18-year-old Michael Brown and 12-year old Tamir Rice.
A 2019 study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says that about 1 in 1,000 black men and boys in America can expect to die at the hands of police.