Tag: police brutality

May 28, 2020 – Citizens of the southern side of Minneapolis erupted into riots that carried into Thursday morning after an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, was killed while pleading for help as a police officer pinned him to the ground.

The Minneapolis Police Department released a statement Monday night detailing the response of police officers to the scene of an attempted forgery at around 8:00 P.M. The department stated in the report that “officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress” and was then “transported to Hennepin County Medical Center by ambulance where he died a short time later.”

However, security camera footage later revealed that there was no evidence of Floyd resisting arrest, but rather, he was thrown to the ground as officer Derek Chauvin dug his knee into Floyd’s neck, suffocating him to death. 

The three other officers at the scene, officers Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J Alexander Kueng, all stood by as Floyd repeatedly moaned in the video, “I can’t breathe…please, I can’t breathe.”  Bystanders at the scene begged the officer to stop, but Chauvin refused. 

Even as Floyd evidently lost consciousness, Chauvin continued to use his knee to pin him to the ground. Within the next hour and a half, Floyd was pronounced dead.

Enraged by the news of Floyd’s death, citizens in southern Minneapolis set fires, vandalized property, and ransacked stores; protestors set off fireworks and threw water bottles and rocks at police officers. 

Police responded with force, retaliating with rubber bullets, flash bombs and tear gas to push them back; gunshots were heard early Thursday morning leading to another fatality. 

Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota took to Twitter late Wednesday night to express grievances over the protests’ evolution into an “extremely dangerous situation” and to ask for cooperation in allowing firefighters and paramedics onto the scene. Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis responded as well, pleading for protestors to “help in keeping the peace tonight.” 

Since Floyd’s murder, many celebrities have expressed their grief regarding this act of violence. 

“This is what it means to be Black in America. Tried. Convicted. Killed for being black,” said How To Get Away With Murder starlet Viola Davis.

May 28, 2020 – The Muslim community is demanding justice for the killing of 47-year-old Sudanese-American Yassin Mohamed by police in Claxton, Georgia.

According to the police reports, Mohamed was shot by Evans County law enforcement on May 9 after throwing rocks at them. However, it’s speculated that Mohamed was experiencing a mental health episode during his encounter with law enforcement. 

This incident was just one of Mohamed’s multiple encounters with the police within 12 hours preceding his death. 

After encountering both the Glenville police department and Claxton police department, Mohamed was restrained and taken to the hospital where he refused treatment, leading the Georgia branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Georgia) to question the mental state of Mohamed. 

“We’re unclear as to the mental state of Mr. Mohamed, and until the culmination of the investigation we won’t know for sure,” said Murtaza Khwaja, the legal and policy director of CAIR-GA, as reported by Al Jazeera. 

Despite the unclear verdict on Mohamed’s mental state, Khwaja stated that “law enforcement is treating this as a mental health crisis.”