20 www.blackeoejournal.com Black EOE Journal
officially declared the day of his burial - Tuesday, June 9 - as George Floyd, Jr. Day. We must never forget the name George Floyd or the global movement he inspired, Hidalgo shared in a statement. It has taken far too long for us to get here, but we must lean forward and work to make meaningful change in our nation. The series of events - emotionally charged and heavy - was unfortunately not an anomaly. Floyds name joined a chorus of others on an ever-growing list Black lives lost to violence perpetuated by a system of institutional racism and bias.
Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor
In the months and weeks leading up to Floyds killing, the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and (to an initially less publicized extent) Breonna Taylor caught the nations attention. On February 23 in Glynn County, Georgia, 25-year-old Arbery was out jogging when he was chased, cornered, and gunned down by father and son duo Gregory and Travis McMichael, both white. Video of the shooting, leaked at the request of the elder McMichael - a former police officer and DA investigator - went viral and elicited immediate outrage. Recusals in two district attorney offices, however, contributed to a two-month delay in their arrests. They were finally arrested on May 7, and on what would have been Arberys 26th birthday four days later, tens of thousands across the country commemorated his memory with a 2.23-mile run. On June 24, both men, including a third who joined in the pursuit and recorded the footage, were indicted on nine counts, including malice murder, felony murder, and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment. Less than a month after Arberys killing, 26-year-old emergency medical technician Breonna Taylor was shot to death in her home by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers executing a no-knock warrant. Initially drawing little media attention, publicity on her case erupted as activists pushed to include her name in the narrative and a social media campaign to #SayHerName went viral. The three officers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative reassignment, but it took until June 23 - more than three months later - for just one termination to be made. In response to the tragedy, the Louisville, Kentucky, Metro Council unanimously passed Breonna's Law, which outlaws no-knock warrants and requires officers' body cameras to be turned on before and after every search. Separated by a razor thin margin of occurrence, the murders of Arbery, Taylor, and Floyd were a painful reminder of the injustices that Black Americans have endured for far too long. The pain that the Black community feels over this murder and what it reflects about the treatment of Black people in this country is raw and spilling out into streets across America, said Floyd's family in a statement. We need Minneapolis and cities across the country to ix the policies and training deficiencies that permitted this unlawful killing - and so many others - to occur.
Enough
Protests and demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have been ongoing for years. Since the birth of the movement in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martins murderer, dozens of names have been added to the list of Black lives snuffed out by racial prejudice and state- sanctioned violence. But the seemingly back-to-back killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd - compounded by disturbing video footage of the Arbery and Floyd murders and initial delays in charges being brought in all three cases - proved to be the boiling point. In the days following Floyds murder, streets in almost 4,000 cities and towns on four continents swelled with protesters marching, chanting, and demanding justice. And while the message - Black Lives Matter - was the same as all the years before, these protests were markedly different in both size and scope. Within weeks, support for the Black Lives Matter movement increased by nearly as much as it had over the previous two years, according to data from polling and analytics company Civiqs. The increase overwhelmingly included white people who had been previously silent about, blind to or critical of the existence and prevalence of systemic racism and the reality of police brutality among the Black community. The protests themselves are very similar to the ones that followed other police shootings and fatal assaults of unarmed Black men, such as Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, with one
Members of George Floyds family speak during a memorial service at North Central University on June 4, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
STEPHEN MATUREN/GETTY IMAGES
A button that reads I cant breathe adorns the jacket of a mourner before the private funeral for George Floyd at The Fountain of Praise church on June 9, 2020 in Houston, Texas. Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis Police officers on May 25, sparking global protests.
GODOFREDO A. VSQUEZ - POOL/GETTY IMAGES
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