A growing anger. Protests broke out in several major American cities Friday evening after the death of a black American at the start of the week during his arrest in Minneapolis, despite the charge of manslaughter of the police officer arrested after several days of riots. Hundreds of people have gathered across the country, including outside the White House in Washington, where hundreds of people have gathered, holding up banners with slogans like "Stop killing us."
Several hundred people angrily protesting the death of African-American George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis rally outside the White House, in tense scenes that have spread to several cities across the country https://t.co/qXg4XismY1 pic.twitter.com / i9L6fg4yrn
- AFP news agency (@AFP) May 30, 2020In New York, nearly a thousand demonstrators gathered to castigate the police, while in Denver, a highway was blocked. Rallies also took place in Dallas, Houston, the victim's hometown, or Las Vegas, Des Moines, Memphis and Portland. In Atlanta, police patrol vehicles were burned. In Louisville, Kentucky, clashes took place as residents sought justice for Breonna Taylor, a black woman killed by police in her apartment in March.
In Minneapolis, the curfew in force since Friday was defied by demonstrators who were subjected to tear gas.
The family of 46-year-old George Floyd, whom President Donald Trump announced he had spoken to, hailed the police officer's arrest as a first step on "the road to justice", but deemed it "late" and insufficient . “We want a charge of intentional homicide with premeditation. And we want to see the other (implicated) agents arrested, "she said in a statement.
So far, only police officer Derek Chauvin "has been detained," said Commissioner John Harrington of the Minnesota Department of Civil Protection.
The face of this agent has been around the world, since a video that went viral shows him violently calling on Monday for a minor crime George Floyd, and placing his knee on his neck. George Floyd begs and complains: "I can't breathe anymore", we hear him say.
Derek Chauvin is accused of having committed a cruel and dangerous act causing death and manslaughter, said the prosecutor of the county of Hennepin, where Minneapolis is located. He was dismissed, like the three other agents involved in the drama, and federal and local investigations were opened to establish their responsibilities.
"We've been crashing for far too long"
This development follows a third night of riots in this big city in Minnesota, in the north of the country, where protesters are demanding criminal sanctions commensurate with the violence suffered by the victim. The National Guard was deployed to try to restore calm and a curfew decreed from Friday evening, from 8 p.m. local until 6 a.m. the next day, while a police station was burnt down the previous night and several businesses looted .
"We've been crashing for far too long. We die, brother, with someone's knee on our neck when we have done nothing (…). So it's over, we're fed up. I mean, we're already dead, so we might as well die for a good cause, right? "Testified a protester met in Minneapolis, who only wanted to be identified by his first name, Chicago.
Donald Trump denounces the thugs
Donald Trump, who has repeatedly denounced a "tragic" crime, has attacked "thugs". "The looting will be immediately greeted by bullets," he added in a tweet, which the social network decided to report as an "apology for violence".
In a diametrically opposite tone, his democratic predecessor Barack Obama said he shared "the distress" of millions of black Americans, for whom "to be treated differently on the basis of race is tragically, painfully and rageously," normal "" .
The Garner affair in everyone's mind
The emotion crossed the American borders, and calls to make justice to George Floyd multiplied on the social networks in several countries. The case recalls the death of Eric Garner, a black man who died in 2014 in New York after being asphyxiated during his arrest by white police. He too had said “I can't breathe”, a phrase that has become a rallying cry from the Black Lives Matter movement. "Too much is too much," said her mother, Gwen Carr, in New York on Friday. "They have to stop coming to our neighborhoods and terrorizing and killing our young people."
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