Our live coverage of the global George Floyd protests has moved here.
“He’s going to change the world.”
The poignant eulogy to George Floyd delivered by his brother Rodney on Tuesday is already at least partially true, although how deep and enduring that change is will be decided by future struggles.
In a span of mere days, the death of a black man with a white policeman’s knee on his neck became a parable in America’s aching racial story and a rallying point for action that resonated far beyond Minnesota, where he died, and disrupted politics, business, culture and sports. Floyd’s impact has spanned continents – sparking debate and reflections across the Atlantic in Europe.
Barely known outside his own circle, Floyd suddenly became the most famous man in the world, shouldering the pain of the racially oppressed everywhere with his dying words, “I can’t breathe.” Yet he will never know of his fame nor perceive the change he has wrought.
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A friend of Martin Gugino, the man pushed to the ground by Buffalo police, said the 75-year-old man preaches nonviolence and is a “loving person.”
The friend, Vicki Ross, said President Trump’s tweet of an unfounded conspiracy theory tying Gugino to the Antifa movement was “baseless.”
Ross said Gugino is an active participant at the Western New York Peace Center, which she directs, and “his signature characteristic is nonviolence.”
Gugino moved from the intensive care unit: Ross said that Gugino “has been in a lot of pain” but was moved out of intensive care recently.
“We’ve been very worried, but the fact he’s now out of the ICU we’re feeling very encouraged, but it’s going to be slow. That’s what they say, it’s going to take a while,” she said.
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Wanda Cooper, the mother of Ahmaud Arbery – a black man who was shot and killed while jogging in Georgia – spoke to CNN about her experience attending George Floyd’s funeral in Houston in Tuesday.
CNN’s Don Lemon asked Cooper if the fact that Floyd called out for his mother before dying resonated with her.
Cooper said she believes her son did the same.
Cooper said she “stands with all other mothers who have lost their sons to these events.”
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Jonathan Veal met George Floyd in the sixth grade, but the two didn’t really become close until high school.
Veal told CNN that in 11th grade, Floyd said “he wanted to touch the world.”
“It’s hard to wrap your mind around the weight of that statement at 17 years old,” Veal recounted in an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon.”
Veal said he was reminded of that moment when recently saw an Instagram post of Floyd’s from when he was alive in which he said “don’t count big Floyd out, I’m going to touch the world.”
Veal said at Floyd’s funeral today, he struggled to find a moment to personally grieve his friend, but took solace in the fact that his pain was shared by so many.
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The Washington, D.C. Council, the legislature for the United States capitol, unanimously passed an emergency bill to reform policing in the city.
The measure bans police from using chemicals such as tear gas and pepper spray on protestors, as well as “less-lethal projectiles” like rubber bullets and stun grenades. It also makes it unlawful for police to restrain someone by the neck, as in a chokehold.
The bill also prevents the Metropolitan Police Department from hiring law enforcement officers who were fired from a policing job in another jurisdiction, or resigned ahead of pending disciplinary action or termination.
Tuesday’s vote enacts the changes for 90 days, the Washington Post reported, which can be extended to 225 days with a second vote. The council must hold public hearings and vote again in order to make the measures permanent.
Councilmember David Grosso wanted an additional amendment capping the city’s police force at 3,500 members. However, Grosso’s fellow members voted that down. The District currently has 3,863 sworn officers.
Georgia’s secretary of state and state House speaker on Tuesday called for investigations into voting delays in Atlanta and across Georgia on the day of the state’s primary.
The announcement of the investigations came after a rocky start for the state’s primary on Tuesday morning as voters, primarily in the populous Atlanta area, were met with long lines and delays.
“The voting situation today in certain precincts in Fulton and DeKalb counties is unacceptable,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said. “My office has opened an investigation to determine what these counties need to do to resolve these issues before November’s election.” The city of Atlanta is encompassed in the two counties.
Separately, Speaker David Ralston has directed the House Governmental Affairs Committee to investigate irregularities in Tuesday’s primary election across Georgia, particularly in Fulton County, where a majority of issues have been reported.
Read more about the voting issues in Georgia here:
Following a weeklong review, prosecutors in Texas’ Harris County – which is home to the city of Houston – are dismissing 796 criminal cases related to protest charges, the district attorney’s office said in a statement.
The review divided cases “between those people who sought to do harm others and property vs. those arrested for simple civil disobedience.” Nonviolent misdemeanor offenses, mostly obstructing a highway and trespassing, were dismissed, according to the statement.
Of the 654 individuals charged, only 51 adults and one juvenile now face active cases.
District Attorney Kim Ogg called the results of the review “astounding.”
At least 11 cities and municipalities in the United States are starting to ban or have banned the use of choke holds in policing, according to information gathered by CNN.
Those include:
States moving on chokehold bans: California Gov. Gavin Newsom has directed police in the state to stop training officers to use carotid holds, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) has said he wants police across the state to restrict the use of chokeholds.
Dounya Zayer, a woman who was shoved to the ground and concussed by police while protesting police brutality in New York City, spoke to CNN’s Chris Cuomo about her experience.
Video captured by Zayer and bystanders show an officer pushing her to the ground.
Officer Vincent D’Andraia, 28, turned himself in at a police precinct in Brooklyn Tuesday morning. He faces charges of assault, criminal mischief, harassment and menacing, Brooklyn district attorney Erik Gonzalez said in a statement.
Zayer was in the street when the officer “told her to move,” prosecutors said.
“As she asked why, the defendant allegedly smacked her cell phone out of her hand, and violently shoved her to the ground, according the investigation,” prosecutors said. “She can be seen rolling on the street and into a curb. Meanwhile, the defendant and fellow officers can be seen to continue walking.”
Zayer told Cuomo she “didn’t know a concussion felt this awful.”
“I haven’t been able to hold down food I’ve been very nauseous. My head hurts and my back. But I’m alive and I’m grateful,” Zayer told CNN’s Chris Cuomo.
Why she was recording it all: Zayer said she started filming the demonstrations when she “could see that things were getting out of hand” and others were getting hurt.
“I knew that the recording was important, it’s always important to record what’s going on when these things are going on. I didn’t think I would end up recording what happened to me in the process.”
Will she protest again: When asked if she’d go out and protest when she healed, Zayer responded emotionally that she wants to, but part of her is afraid.
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Filmmaker Spike Lee said he believes that the current racial injustice protests in the United States and around the world have the possibility to bring about real change.
Lee said he feels like this moment is similar to 1967, when he was 10 years old, when the antiwar, women’s liberation and black power movements were in full swing.
However, the Academy Award-winner said it’s crucial that people go out and vote. Lee, perhaps the best-known fan of the New York Knicks, used a sports metaphor to explain the situation:
We need police: When asked about the growing calls around the United States to defund the police, Lee said “I know people will get mad at me, but we need police. We need police. But we need a just police system.”
Lee also called out police unions for the lengths they go to to protect fellow officers, even if they are guilty of wrongdoing.
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Keith Giles, a friend of Martin Gugino – the 75-year-old Buffalo man who was pushed down by police – said he was “horrified” by President Donald Trump’s tweet claiming that Gugino could be an “ANTIFA provocateur.”
Gugino fell backwards and was hospitalized following the incident.
Giles described Gugino, who he said he’s known for the past 13 years, as a very kind and funny person – and one not technically savvy enough to use his phone to “scan police communications in order to black out the equipment,” as Trump said in his tweet.
“I promise you, he does not know how to turn his cell phone into some sort of high tech James Bond device,” Giles said.
Trump’s tweet cited a segment from a television report on a network that is openly pro-Trump and whose journalists don’t exactly live up to credo of being neutral and independent.
The person who did this segment on Gugino is named Kristian Brunovich Rouz, a man who, according to the Daily Beast, has worked both for OAN and Sputnik, a Russian government-controlled news wire service. (The intelligence community concluded that Sputnik played a role in the Russian meddling in the 2016 election.)
Read more from CNN’s Chris Cillizza about Trump’s tweet here:
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Attorney General William Barr jabbed back at the mayor of Washington, DC, in a letter Tuesday saying that the use of federal law enforcement and national guard troops in the nation’s capital was necessary because the unrest there had hit unprecedented and dangerous levels.
“The television footage of these events — viewed by people across the Nation and around the world — conveyed the impression that the United States was on the brink of losing control of its capital city,” Barr wrote of the weekend of protests in DC that followed the death of George Floyd late last month.
The missive was a response to a letter from Mayor Muriel Bowser sent on Friday to President Trump and other administration officials requesting the withdrawal of federal law enforcement and military personnel from the city.
On Sunday, Trump said that he had ordered the National Guard to begin withdrawing from Washington after days of peaceful protests.
In the letter, Barr said that certain federal law enforcement agencies — including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Prisons and some officials from the Department of Homeland Security — had been granted additional policing powers amid the protests, and defended the move to deploy the federal and military forces in DC as a “temporary response to an escalating security crisis.”
“Surely you understand that the President could not stand idly by when unrest at the seat of the federal government threatened the safety of federal law enforcement officers and the operations of the United States government,” Barr wrote.
“Let me assure you that the President shares your interest in returning to a situation where such additional forces are unnecessary to maintain law and order in the District,” he added.
The DC Council today unanimously passed an emergency bill to reform policing in the district, including measures that ban the use of tear gas and rubber bullets, and prohibit the hiring of officers who were fired from another police department.
The legislation prohibits DC police from using chemicals such as tear gas and pepper spray on protesters, as well as “less-lethal projectiles” like rubber bullets and stun grenades.
The bill also prevents the Metropolitan Police Department from hiring law enforcement officers who were fired from a policing job in another jurisdiction, or resigned ahead of pending disciplinary action or termination.
Tuesday’s vote enacts the changes for 90 days, the Washington Post reported, which can be extended to 225 days with a second vote. The council must hold public hearings and vote again in order to make the measures permanent.
Council member David Grosso wanted an additional amendment capping the city’s police force at 3,500 members. However, Grosso’s fellow members voted that down. The district currently has 3,863 sworn officers.
Martin Gugino — the 75-year-old protester who was pushed by two Buffalo, New York police officers — is in fair condition, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said Tuesday.
A video that has since gone viral revealed how two officers pushed Gugino to the ground causing him to hit his head while he was protesting in Buffalo, New York.
Poloncarz told CNN’s Erin Burnett that while Gugino is still hospitalized, it was confirmed to him that his condition has improved from serious to fair.
“Mr. Gugino is still at the Erie County Medical Center. He did announce earlier today through local media that he has moved out of the intensive care unit and I can confirm that,” Poloncarz said. “And he also, has been confirmed to me through the Erie County Medical Center, that he has been upgraded from serious to fair condition. So, he is doing better. I think we’re all very pleased to hear that.”
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NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley today urged professional athletes to be careful not to allow the issue of kneeling, which he supports, to distract from the real issues of police brutality and reform.
“You can kneel all you want to,” said Barkley, speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “I support any guy who wants to kneel but we got to stop kneeling and being worried about kneeling because kneeling has become the big story instead of police brutality.”
Barkley said players should not take cues from President Trump, who has seized the issue of whether or not athletes should take a knee during the national anthem to galvanize his base.
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Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey ordered investigators to stop using carotid restraints immediately, the district attorney’s office announced in a statement on Tuesday.
According to the statement, the policy change is effective immediately.
Peaceful protests continued today around the US and the world following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis two weeks ago.
Thousands of mourners gathered at The Fountain of Praise church in Houston today to pay their respects to Floyd, who will be buried next to his mother.
His death sparked protests in the US and around the world, which have called for changes in policing and law enforcement’s relationship with black and brown communities
Floyd was an “ordinary brother” from Houston’s housing projects who “nobody thought much about,” which makes his central role in a generational movement that much more powerful, the Rev. Al Sharpton said at his funeral today.
“God took the rejected stone and made him the cornerstone of a movement that’s going to change the whole wide world,” Sharpton said.
Here are what the protests look like across the US and the world:
Washington, DC
New York City
Dakar
Paris
Shouts of “George Floyd” were heard along the burial procession, as supporters gather to bid farewell to Floyd.
“Say his name” a man yelled as people yelled back “…George Floyd.” At one point people shouted “George” with others yelling back “…Floyd.” “I can’t” with others saying back “…breathe,” and finally some saying “get your knee” with the group yelling back “…off my neck.”
As the procession approached, cheers could be heard.
Floyd’s horse-drawn carriage, along with a carriage in front and one behind him, is on its way Houston Memorial Gardens in Pearland, Texas, where he will be buried.
Colorado Senate Democrats said in a statement they passed police reform legislation.
Now that the state Senate passed the bill, it will go to the House.
The bill ends the use of qualified immunity, which Colorado Democrats said “has been shielding bad actors from civil responsibility for years.”
Officers also have a duty to intervene when excessive force is being used, according to the statement.
“In so many cases of unacceptable police violence, other officers were present and did nothing to halt the incident — supporting a bystander’s culture that allows abuse to continue,” the statement read.
The bill outlined protections for protesters and limits when and how police can use projectiles and chemical agents against crowds, according to the statement.
It also required compiling data and publicly reporting incidents “surrounding use of force, stops and searches of civilians, and forced entries into homes.”
![Kenyan mural artist Brian Esendi, known as Bankslave, carries his ladder after painting a graffiti mural in the Kibera slum in Nairobi on June 3, 2020, depicting the American, George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, in the United States. (Photo by Gordwin ODHIAMBO / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION - TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION / The erroneous mention[s] appearing in the metadata of this photo by Gordwin ODHIAMBO has been modified in AFP systems in the following manner: [Kenyan mural artist Brian Esendi, known as Bankslave, carries his ladder after painting a graffiti mural in the Kibera slum in Nairobi on June 3, 2020, depicting the American, George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, in the United States.] instead of [Kenyan mural artist Allan Mwangi, also known as Mr.detail.seven, carries his ladder after painting a graffiti mural in the Kibera slum in Nairobi on June 3, 2020, depicting the American, George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, in the United States.]. Please immediately remove the erroneous mention[s] from all your online services and delete it (them) from your servers. If you have been authorized by AFP to distribute it (them) to third parties, please ensure that the same actions are carried out by them. Failure to promptly comply with these instructions will entail liability on your part for any continued or post notification usage. Therefore we thank you very much for all your attention and prompt action. We are sorry for the inconvenience this notification may cause and remain at your disposal for any further information you may require. (Photo by GORDWIN ODHIAMBO/AFP via Getty Images)](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/200608165002-04-george-floyds-face-in-different-countries.jpg?q=x_0,y_100,h_1125,w_1999,c_crop/h_144,w_256)
