Our live coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests has moved here.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the United States past few days have been “traumatic” while addressing the demonstrations in the city over George Floyd’s death.
Garcetti said the struggle has been particularly difficult because of how the novel coronavirus pandemic has affected demonstrations.
Garcetti talked about making progress in racial injustice by having quiet conversations at dinner tables, in the workplace, or in neighborhoods.
“Racial justice is something that we all own,” he said.
Garcetti previously announced that Los Angeles will invest $250 million in communities of color. He added that $150 million in cuts from the Los Angeles Police Department’s budget “is not enough,” as he addressed the need for advancing police reform.
The Boston Red Sox say have apologized to former Minnesota Twins outfielder Torii Hunter, who said he was subject to racial abuse while in Boston or playing in the city’s famed Fenway Park.
Hunter, a five-time All Star and nine-time Golden Glove winner, told ESPN last week that has “been called the N-word in Boston 100 times. … From little kids, and grownups right next to them didn’t say anything.”
Hunter said he negotiated no trade-clauses in his contracts while playing professional baseball so he did not have to go to Boston.
Hunter is not the first professional athlete to complain about racial abuse in Boston. Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones told USA Today in 2017 he was racially abused and had peanuts thrown at him while playing in Boston. Celtics guard Marcus Smart told ESPN’s The Undefeated, the network’s platform that covers the intersections of race, sports and culture, he’s been called the n-word in the city.
The Red Sox have a troubled past when it comes to race. They became the last Major League Baseball team to integrate in 1959, 12 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
However, the team has been attempting to combat that narrative in recent years. Yawkey Way, an iconic street named after the late Red Sox owner who resisted integration, was renamed in 2017 because of Yawkey’s racist legacy.
Both Hunter and Jones posted on Twitter in support of the Red Sox’s statement published Wednesday.
The A&E television network is stopping production of “Live PD,” a show that follows police officers around the nation, amid the ongoing protests, the network said in a statement.
Here’s what A&E said:
A&E’s decision comes shortly after “Cops” was canceled after a 30 year-run. A spokesperson for Paramount Network said that it has no “current or future plans for it to return.”
Houston,Texas, Mayor Sylvester Turner signed an executive order on police reform on Wednesday.
At a news briefing announcing the order, Turner said he was listening to concerns “and taking some immediate steps which we believe will create a much better system for everyone involved.”
Here are some of the things included in the order, according to Turner:
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Philonese Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, joined CNN to discuss his testimony today in the US House of Representatives.
Floyd said he went to Capitol Hill because he “wanted to let them know about how the officer put his knee on my brother’s neck, and how my brother pleaded for his life.”
When asked by CNN’s Don Lemon if his message got across, Floyd said: “I think they heard me loud and clear.”
Benjamin Crump, the Floyd family attorney who appeared beside Philonese Floyd during the interview, said he came away encouraged.
Crump said key issues mentioned were qualified immunity for police, chokeholds and the use of body cameras
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US Sen. Kamala Harris said she and her colleagues are calling for an “immediate review” of the use of rubber bullets by police following their use last week by authorities to dispel protesters across the country.
Rubber bullets, flash bang grenades and tear gas are among some of the “less lethal” options commonly used by police trying to disperse large crowds.
Rubber bullets have the potential to maim, blind, disfigure and even kill people.
When aimed at the legs, rubber bullets can stop a dangerous person or crowd from getting closer to a police officer, Dr. Douglas Lazzaro, a professor and expert in eye trauma at NYU Langone Health, told Kaiser Health News.
But when fired at close range rubber bullets can penetrate the skin, break bones, fracture the skull and explode the eyeball, he said.
NBA superstar LeBron James and a group of other black athletes and entertainers are starting a group to help protect the voting rights of African Americans, The New York Times reported.
The organization is called “More Than a Vote.” Its purpose is to help get African Americans to register to vote and to cast a ballot in November.
Trae Young, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Jalen Rose, Draymond Green, and Udonis Haslem are some of the current and former basketball players joining to help the organization. Alvin Kamara of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints also joined, according to the Times.
Amber Ruffin, a comedian and writer on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” has been sharing stories about troubling experiences with police as a black woman on the show.
Ruffin joined CNN’s Anderson Cooper to share some of her stories and talk about why she’s sharing them in public now.
In the past, Ruffin said, it has “just felt safe to not be running around talking about it, you know what I mean? And that’s kind of sad, but true.”
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The US Soccer Federation released a statement Wednesday announcing it has repealed its policy that had required players to stand during the National Anthem.
In the statement the organization said it became clear that this policy detracted from the message of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Sports are a powerful platform for good, and we have not used our platform as effectively as we should have. We can do more on these specific issues and we will,” the statement said.
The US Soccer Federation also apologized to players, saying “we have not done enough to listen.”
“We are committed to this change effort, and we will be implementing supporting actions in the near future,” it added.
As civil rights protests continue in the streets of Seattle, Washington, the city’s police chief is ordering officers working at demonstrations to leave their body cameras on.
The announcement puts the department in line with an executive order signed by Mayor Jenny Durkan earlier in the week
Some context: Previously, department policy called for no recordings to be made of “people lawfully exercising their freedom of speech, press, association, assembly, or religion unless they have probable cause to believe that criminal activity is occurring or when ordered to record by a supervisor.”
“I recognize that public trust and confidence is broken – people want body cams on to provide additional accountability,” Durkan tweeted Monday.
Bre Gamble, the mother of Javier Ambler’s two sons – a black man in Texas who died while in police custody at the end of March – said the reason incidents like this keep happening is because “we’re not getting any justice.”
Body camera video released Monday by the Austin Police Department shows sheriff’s deputies from Williamson County arresting Ambler after a vehicle pursuit.
The video shows him saying “I can’t breathe” several times not long before he died.
She said she wants the district attorney to bring the highest charges and that she’s “tired of seeing a slap on the wrist.”
“We’re tired of seeing a slap on the wrist. That’s all these officers get, manslaughter with two years in prison and they go out – if they even go to prison,” Gamble said. “We’re not getting anybody who’s getting made an example,” she added.
Gamble said the death of Ambler was traumatic for her son.
“The stereotype is that black men aren’t around, and the state of Texas has allowed Williamson county go on like this for so long, and they have made my children statistics now,” Gamble said. “That’s an empty feeling. He was a good dad.”
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Gov. Tate Reeves discussed the Mississippi state flag which is the only one of the United States to feature a Confederate symbol.
The governor added that some people want to keep the flag while some people want to change the flag and that sooner rather than later, “people may decide to change.”
“There is no doubt that there’s a lot of conversation surrounding that issue right now. And it’s very important to have a conversation. That’s certainly ongoing. I’ve made it clear what my position is and, and my position is consistent today as it was in 2019,” Reeves said. “I believe that if we’re going to have real change in our state. We’ve got to deal with the issue of the flag in such a way in which all Mississippians can come together and can rally around one another.”
The Mississippi flag is the same one that has flown over the state since 1890, but it wasn’t an official state flag until 2001, after the vote by the Mississippi Legislature, according to Reeves.
“As we look back on many of the decisions that were made by the politicians in ’01 and no one probably wouldn’t make the same decisions that they made them,” Reeves said.
These comments come the same day that NASCAR banned the display of the Confederate flag at all events.
Bubba Wallace, the only full-time African American driver in the Cup Series, responded to NASCAR’s decision to ban the Confederate flag saying, “bravo.”
Wallace was interviewed on FOX Sports 1 ahead of this evening’s race in Martinsville, Virginia.
NASCAR announced the decision in a statement earlier today saying “the display of the Confederate flag will be prohibited” from all events and properties.
“There’s a lot of emotions on the racetrack and off the racetrack that are riding with us. Tonight is something special. Today has been special. Hats off to NASCAR,” Wallace said.
Some background: Wallace told CNN’s Don Lemon he wanted NASCAR to go further than 2015, when it asked fans not to bring the Confederate flags to races –– instead prohibit it all together.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said systems on every level, from federal to local governments, need to shift the way they prioritize budget dollars and invest in underserved communities.
“What they’re saying is, if your funding is going just to law enforcement, and you’re not investing significant dollars in communities that have been under resourced and underserved for decades, you’ve got it all wrong,” Turner told CNN on Wednesday.
He said if governments invest in the communities that have been underserved for decades, then not as much money will need to be spent on policing.
Turner said people want good policing and accountability, but “if we continue to get it wrong” marches, protests and demonstrations will continue.
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Thomas Lane, one of the four former officers involved in George Floyd’s death, has been released from the Hennepin County Jail on bond, according to the jail website.
Some context: Earl Gray, attorney for Lane, told NBC’s Today Show on June 8 that his client “was doing what he thought was right.”
Lane, 37, had only been on the force for four days when he helped to restrain Floyd, according to his lawyer. Asked how his client could stand by and watch for nearly nine minutes, Gray said:
Chauvin, Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao were responding to a call about a $20 counterfeit bill on May 25 when they detained Floyd, who died while in custody.
The four officers were fired and are now facing charges in Floyd’s death.
Chauvin, 44, was charged last Wednesday with a new, more serious count of second-degree murder.
Kueng, Thao and Lane were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has renewed her call for the removal of the 11 statues representing Confederate soldiers and officials that are on display as part of the National Statuary Hall collection in the United States Capitol.
Pelosi made the request in a letter today to the congressional leadership of the Joint Committee on the Library.
In a tweet, Pelosi said, “The statues which fill the halls of Congress should reflect our highest ideals as Americans. Today, I am once again calling for the removal from the US Capitol of the statues representing Confederate soldiers and officials. These statues pay homage to hate, not heritage.”
The push from Pelosi is a renewal of a call she made in 2017 when she asked then-House Speaker Paul Ryan to join Democrats in backing legislation to remove the statues from the Capitol. That failed push from Democrats came after the violence in Charlottesville.
President Trump avoided commenting on police, protesters, and George Floyd’s death during an event with pro-Trump African-American community leaders at the White House on Wednesday.
Instead, Trump said historically black colleges and universities “were treated very, very badly and I treated them very good,” and said the black community is “doing very well now.”
Trump and other participants also blasted the media in vitriolic terms.
Republican political consultant Raynard Jackson accused the media of “putting more poison into the black community than any drug dealer” and “killing more black folks than any white person with a sheet over their face.”
The President didn’t respond directly, but later added, “The media is almost 100% negative. It’s incredible.”
Even when participants steered the conversation to the black community’s relationship with law enforcement, the President did not comment.
Kareem Lanier with the pro-Trump Urban Revitalization Coalition told the President that problems with police abuses run deep in the African American community.
After Lanier spoke, the President said that his comments were “well said,” and concluded the event.
Trump then took only one question from the press, but didn’t respond when asked twice about why the confederacy needed to be defended.
The event was not on Trump’s public schedule and was billed only as a “roundtable discussion.”
It’s been more than two weeks since the death of George Floyd at the hands of police, and demonstrators continue to peacefully protest across the country.
Floyd died on Memorial Day in Minneapolis, and bystander video showed a police officer kneeling on the side of his neck as officers tried to subdue him. That sparked days of massive protests in cities across the nation and a sweeping discussion about race relations, reform of policing and more.
Here’s a look at the protests across the country:
New York
Boston
Rapper and actor Chris “Ludacris” Bridges spoke with CNN about the importance of educating children on racial issue as the country continues to come to terms with the death of George Floyd.
Prior to Floyd’s tragic death, Ludacris had already been working on helping to eliminate racial bias with a new media platform called Kid Nation. Developed with his business partner Sandy Lal, Kid Nation aims to teach children about current events, mostly through music.
Lal and Ludacris are planning for a full launch of the platform in the fall, but moved up the release of two new songs tied to current events. They collaborated with various groups of kids, who sing the songs, while Ludacris created the lyrics and melodies.
“I’m being the change that I want to see. So by giving all the parents that are home schooling right now another opening and giving their kids something safe to look at,” Ludacris said. “We felt this was an emergency to put these song out. You’re right. Having these conversations is hard. That’s why I’m trying to do everything I can so the next generation doesn’t go through the problems and issues that we’re going through.”
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![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)
