Latest news with #GeorgeFloyd
Washington Post
5 hours ago
- General
- Washington Post
Discrimination cases unravel as Trump scraps core civil rights tenet
For decades, the federal government has used data analysis to ferret out race and sex discrimination, winning court cases and reaching settlements in housing, education, policing and across American life. Now the Trump administration is working to unwind those same cases. In recent weeks, the Justice Department backed out of an agreement with an Atlanta bank accused of systematically discouraging Black and Latino home buyers from applying for loans. The Education Department terminated an agreement with a South Dakota school district where Native American students were disciplined at higher rates than their White peers. And federal prosecutors have dropped several racial discrimination reform agreements involving state and local police departments — including that of Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered by an officer in 2020.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Minneapolis isn't sorry about George Floyd
I wish it was different. I wish that, five years after former Minneapolis Police officer Derick Chauvin murdered George Floyd on Memorial Day in 2020, the city could point to many, many things that have changed as a result of the outcry. I wish, five years after a global uprising and protest that started here, that Minneapolis was a different city, with better policing, better public safety, and in a better place on the city's long-standing racial inequality. I wish we could say that Minneapolis was sorry about George Floyd's murder and that we worked quickly—and then consistently continued to work—to address the systemic problems of policing and race, of neighborhood gaps in development and opportunities, of media narratives that whitewash many of those problems. I wish we could say the city rose to the moment, changed things, and became a leading example of how to address police violence for the rest of the country. But Minneapolis hasn't changed, and Minneapolis isn't sorry. Is the city different five years later? Absolutely. But not when it comes to the liberal underpinnings that defined, and in many ways still do define, Minnesota as 'The Jim Crow of the North.' And certainly not enough to prove that anything has changed. In different ways, residents of Minneapolis put in work after the civil unrest. There was a very brief time, immediately after the protests and violent police response, when vibrant murals decorated the boards covering destroyed buildings, neighbors connected for new attempts at mutual aid networks, and flowers and tributes filled the now historic site at Chicago & 38th. Even the most cynical people in Minneapolis tried to look at the potential future for the city where George Floyd was murdered, and everyone from state and national politics, to news media, to hometown corporations jumped to make new pledges to do better for Black and other marginalized residents. But like many rebellions in fiction and reality, the empire swiftly struck back at attempts for change, and much of the city fell in line. People working towards change quickly saw that white fragility's fury and retribution are as systemic as they are individualistic. Minneapolis leadership and their backers immediately did their own work to support the police department, while many officers coordinated en masse to retire with claims of PTSD—or 'medical' as they sometimes code to astounding 144 MPD officers were given settlements totaling over $22.2 million, even officers with previous records of misconduct. These same leaders used different parts of city bureaucracy, like the Minneapolis Charter Commission, to entangle the process of police reform, and they also used large sums of money to fund a local Political Action Committee that spread disinformation about the reform. 'Defund the Police,' they argued, somehow meant the metro would descend into lawlessness overnight. It's no wonder that national conservative groups have continued to amplify and expand the fear-mongering message, and it's no wonder that, years after the civil unrest, many still claim that Minneapolis defunded the police, despite the MPD budget for 2025 being double that of 2014. By the time the next city election took place in 2021, the political push not only meant that the police department didn't change, but the mayor in office didn't change, and Minneapolis voted to pass a city amendment that the city council who called for reforms would have less authority, too. Four years later, the same PAC still remains a big driver of local politics and elections. Even more, the revelations of the MPD's years of egregious behavior, inarguably revealed in a federal Department of Justice report and a state Department of Human Rights report which lead to two separate consent decrees to try and force sweeping changes (that is until President Trump rescinded the federal decree this week, leaving the state decree), have proven to hold enough importance to be anything but occasional talking points for local politics through the past few years. Case in point: City Council candidate Soren Stevenson was shot in the face by a non-lethal round when police escalated violence during the protests; Stevenson lost an eye as a result, and the officer who shot him was never disciplined and is still on the force. Many of the corporations that made swift commitments for new hires and funding for BIPOC causes used the opportunity to simply reallocate some existing funding for arts and culture organizations and events. These same businesses are now using their DEI rollbacks to eliminate most of their corporate giving entirely. Many people have pointed out the fact that Target commissioned murals featuring power fists on their Lake Street location, which was looted during the riots, that starkly contrast with the company's public rollback of its DEI initiatives. The regional news media, themselves targets of some uprising protests, made some long-overdue diversity hires and briefly wondered aloud if they should take everything that the police force says as unquestionable facts—reporters did, after all, originally take the MPD's report that Floyd's death was simply a 'medical incident' and moved on from the story until the video began to spread across social media—have since been a staunch ally in the routing of meaningful reform, with skewed both-sides coverage and commentary. Their ramp-up of stories and angles for the anniversary of Floyd's murder highlights the sensational nature of their current coverage and the lack of change in day-to-day reporting. The former police chief just last week made the rounds of local news to push his new book, unironically entitled 'Securing Justice for the Murder of George Floyd,' with little pushback. The current police chief now routinely receives similar coverage without pushback, even going so far as to say, without rebuke in a recent press event, that police are the ones who are 'starting to heal, it's been a long five years.' My kids were really little when the ash from the burned-down Minneapolis Police Third Precinct floated into our yard down the street. They've now doubled in age, but while they've changed over and over, year after year, the city around them hasn't. I wish we could point to a reformed police force, but the only significant changes in Minneapolis policing are that the number of employed officers is at a record low, that more and more people (not just BIPOC residents) are sharing stories of officers with chips on their shoulders, and that the city is still returning to earlier lower levels of crime. I wish we could point to a new robust corner of Minnehaha and Lake Street where the condemned Third Precinct still blights the corner, but we can't. Barricades still remain, even though a new wrap was just put up on the chain link fence. I wish we could point to George Floyd Square as both a place of commemoration of what happened and the history, but also as a place to show the city's change in direction. But we can't. Community members are the only ones who have been stewarding the historic site of George Floyd Square, a grassroots site that regularly receives visitors from all over the country who make the pilgrimage to see another ground zero in the push for—and against—modern civil rights. It's one thing to say sorry. It's another thing to be sorry and move forward with changes. And Minneapolis has done neither.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Five years after riots, La Mesa reflects on the unrest and resilient recovery
LA MESA, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) — On this day, five years ago, peaceful protests following the death of George Floyd and violent arrest of Amaurie Johnson devolved into destructive riots in the city of La Mesa. The riots on May 30, 2020 became a local flash point in the wider reckoning around policing and criminal justice reform, leading law enforcement agencies to end the use of chokeholds as a form of restraint and put a greater emphasis on community-police relations. Hundreds of protestors flooded the streets, eventually making their way onto Interstate 8. When they arrived in La Mesa, the demonstrators were met with police, who fired tear gas and bean bag rounds among other projectiles towards them in an effort to disperse the crowd. San Diego Police Department to encrypt radio communications Hours later, the city's downtown area was ablaze. A bank and several cars were burned. Grocery stores and local businesses were vandalized and looted. Some were even left disabled by injuries sustained in the chaos. The next morning, La Mesa residents were left to pick up the pieces. While most of the physical remnants of the protests have long since been repaired, the memory of the day lives on for those who lived through it. Pierre Farhat, who owns Pierre's Jewelry on La Mesa Boulevard, saw the events in downtown La Mesa unfold. He remembers seeing people clad in black break into his store, as the small city center descended into what he described as a war zone. 'That night when it happened, I thought I'm done. I'm not gonna come back,' he said. 'I had people come in the next day, people wanted to help, wanted to clean, they boarded the windows. Some customers wanted to give me money to help me out. It was amazing.' Craig Maxwell, owner of Maxwell's House of Books, similarly recalls being heartened by how the community came together after the events of that fateful night, even though he remains on edge about law enforcement activity again getting out of hand. 'We all did what we had to do to protect each other and ourselves that night and subsequently rebuild our businesses. It was all on our own,' he said. 'I'm very proud of everybody here. We all pulled together well.' KUSI's Dan Plante contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Wall Street Journal
2 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
A Ruinous ‘Summer of Rage'
Mike Gonzalez's op-ed 'George Floyd's Death Almost Consumed America in Revolution' (May 24) evokes what Portlanders suffered during 100 days of Antifa and Black Lives Matter riotous mayhem. But it isn't over. Encouraged by a feckless city government that tolerated lawlessness, Portland's fiery summer of love spawned revolutionary harm still felt today. In 2020 Portland lost its former pleasant appeal and entered a doom loop cycle. It has one of the lowest office occupancy rates in the country. Skyscrapers are for sale at a fraction of their previous value. Many buildings remain boarded up and tents clutter sidewalks, while their drug-addled occupants wander around like zombies threatening bystanders. Regular pedestrian traffic has plummeted. Victimized businesses have left with few replacements in sight. All this in a city once called 'America's most liveable.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Since Floyd riots culled monuments 5 years ago, leaders in ex-Confederate capital lament ‘s—t didn't change'
Fragments of toppled Civil War monuments still lie in a lot beside Interstate 95, near the Richmond Wastewater Treatment Plant—just a stone's throw from the iconic "Marlboro Cigarette" in South Richmond, the onetime capital of the Confederacy. While Richmond's tobacco-trading past remains symbolized by that roadside oddity at the Philip Morris plant, it and other cities across the south took swift action to erase reminders of the Civil War and slavery. A report Thursday in the Richmond Times-Dispatch looked back at what has, or moreso hasn't, transpired as those who had sought the culling of the monuments had hoped in the heat of the George Floyd riots of five years ago this week. Virginia State Del. Mike Jones, D-Richmond, a reported opponent of the monuments, told the paper that "s—t didn't change when they came down," and that "real progress" was what was sought in erasing the South's pro-slavery and secessionist past. Dc To Begin Reconstructing Blm Plaza "As abhorrent as [they] are, give me life, give me real justice. You can keep your monuments." Jones told the paper. Read On The Fox News App One statue did find a new home, as Davis is now on display at the city's Valentine Museum. It still has paint marks on it from when it was besieged by protesters in 2020. Jones told the paper that gun violence and education-related issues still plague minority communities and also took a swipe at President Donald Trump in regard to the lack of change since the Floyd riots and monumental upheaval. Va Government Grinds To A Halt As Hospitals, Residents Hit By Colossal Water Plant Failure "We didn't really get the monuments because the spirit of [them] is in the White House right now," he told the Times-Dispatch. While monuments have either been toppled by protesters or removed by municipalities across the South, Richmond – as expected due to its past as the C.S.A. capital – had many in prominent places. The city's tree-lined Monument Avenue was reduced to a series of traffic circles around unremarkable granite pedestals after the removal of effigies of Gens. Robert E. Lee, James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart, President Jefferson Davis, and local scientist-turned-Confederate Naval officer Matthew Maury. Then-Gov. Ralph Northam's efforts to remove the last of the monuments, Lee's, were briefly blocked by a court – as it was originally constructed through private donations and the help of then-Democratic Gov. Fitzhugh Lee; the general's nephew. While efforts to rename Robert E. Lee Bridge on U.S. 301 – the major pre-I-95 crossing of the James River – have appeared to stall, signage that once greeted travelers bound for Petersburg is now muted. Fox News Digital reached out to lieutenant governor candidate Levar Stoney—who, as Richmond's mayor, led the effort to remove the monuments—for comment on reports that the removal has brought little meaningful change. During his mayorship, Stoney said in a video statement that protesters attempted to take down monuments themselves while the coronavirus raged, and that in response to the risk of "serious illness, injury or death." "It is past time, as the capital city of Virginia, we have needed to turn this page for decades," Stoney said, adding the city and "residents of color" had been "burdened" by its historical role as CSA capital. Fox News Digital also reached out to Gov. Glenn Youngkin, as well as Republicans in the greater Richmond area, for their response to the current sentiments, but did not hear back by press time. One Republican lawmaker told Fox News Digital the situation shows the focus should have been, and should be, on directly addressing crime and pressing issues like the city's water shortage crisis, which reemerged this week after Richmond and even the State Capitol were stopped in their tracks due to a catastrophic utility failure earlier this article source: Since Floyd riots culled monuments 5 years ago, leaders in ex-Confederate capital lament 's—t didn't change'
