Latest news with #NekimaLevyArmstrong
Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
Backlash: The Murder of George Floyd review — did Black Lives Matter fail?
It is five years since an American police officer killed George Floyd in plain sight, crushing the life out of him with his knee for nine minutes and 29 seconds as the world heard his dying words 'I can't breathe'. To call what has happened since 'eventful' would be quite the understatement. The outrage sparked an international insurgence demanding equal rights for black people and an end to institutional racism. Black Lives Matter marches were staged, statues of slave traders were toppled, footballers took the knee, and it seemed that something had permanently shifted especially when that police officer, Derek Chauvin, was jailed for 22 years. But a backlash was waiting. 'What the hell happened?' asked Nekima Levy Armstrong, a US lawyer and social justice
New York Times
21-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
End of Federal Oversight Plan for Minneapolis Police Draws Criticism Over Timing
The Trump administration's announcement on Wednesday that it was withdrawing from federal oversight plans for the Minneapolis Police Department came as the city was preparing to mark the five-year anniversary of George Floyd's killing at the hands of the police. Officials and residents expressed dismay about the administration's decision, saying that oversight had been aimed at ending what federal authorities had described as a longstanding pattern of violent, racist and unconstitutional practices by the city's Police Department. The timing of the announcement, during a week when Mr. Floyd's death is being observed with panel discussions, concerts, vigils and other gatherings in Minneapolis, struck many in the city as insensitive. Mr. Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020, when a police officer held his knee on Mr. Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes. 'The Trump administration is sending a signal that they don't care about Black lives,' said Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights lawyer and activist in Minneapolis. Officials in Minneapolis said they had long anticipated that the Trump administration would withdraw from an agreement that had been signed just days before President Biden left the White House. The agreement included a series of policies aimed at overhauling how police officers are trained, monitored and held accountable for misconduct. Under the agreement, compliance would have been assessed by an independent group and a federal judge over several years. Announcing withdrawals from the decrees in Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky, the head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, Harmeet K. Dhillon, told reporters on Wednesday that such agreements — known as consent decrees — have tended to be ineffectual. She said they often cost too much and last too long. Justice Department officials said the timing of the announcement was unrelated to the anniversary of Mr. Floyd's death. The department faced court deadlines this week to notify federal judges in Minneapolis and Louisville how it intended to proceed on consent decrees negotiated by the Biden administration. Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said his administration remained committed to sweeping changes outlined in the federal agreement, even though the Trump administration would no longer be involved. 'We will comply with every sentence of every paragraph of the 169-page consent decree that we signed this year,' Mr. Frey said. 'People have been demanding for years that we do this work, and we're not going to let them down.' In a statement, the Minneapolis police union said it was pleased that the Department of Justice had abandoned the agreement, which had not yet taken effect. 'Today's decision reflects recognition that additional oversight is unnecessary,' the union said in a statement. The statement added: 'We acknowledge there is work that remains to be done to rebuild community trust.' Mr. Frey called the timing of the Trump administration's announcement callous, saying 'what this shows is that all Donald Trump cares about is political theater.' Late last month, Mr. Trump signed an executive order outlining steps his administration intended to take to empower local law enforcement agencies to 'aggressively police communities against all crimes.' Those included reassessing whether consent decrees and other measures negotiated under the Biden administration might 'unduly impede the performance of law enforcement functions.' Minneapolis officials said on Wednesday that the city had made significant strides in its efforts to limit the use of force, improve training and hold officers accountable for misconduct. Still, the Minneapolis police chief, Brian O'Hara, acknowledged that changes will take years to put in place and that the effort has been vexing for a department that lost hundreds of officers in the aftermath of Mr. Floyd's murder. 'This is a police force that has been depleted over the last few years, while the demands of crime and investigations have risen dramatically,' Chief O'Hara said. Crime in Minneapolis rose significantly in the years after Mr. Floyd's death but has been on a downward trend more recently. In addition to the federal consent decree, Minneapolis had previously entered into a legal agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, promising an overhaul of police practices. The state agreement will remain in effect and includes provisions that overlap with many of the changes the Police Department promised to make under the federal agreement. 'The state court consent decree isn't going anywhere,' said Rebecca Lucero, the commissioner of the Department of Human Rights. She added that a 'tremendous amount of work' lies ahead for the city's Police Department. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat who prosecuted the police officer who killed George Floyd, called Mr. Trump's decision regrettable but hardly surprising. 'This dismissal, as predictable and shameful as it is, does not erase D.O.J.'s historic finding that Minneapolis engaged in a pattern of racially discriminatory, unlawful and unconstitutional policing,' Mr. Ellison said in a statement.
The Guardian
08-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘We're going backwards': Black Lives Matter's Nekima Levy Armstrong on Trump's US and the murder of George Floyd
As momentous as the murder of George Floyd was, Nekima Levy Armstrong was not particularly shocked when she first heard the news. 'Was it a surprise that the Minneapolis police department killed yet another unarmed Black man? No,' she says. 'There had been a series of circumstances in which they had used deadly force unjustifiably.' As a civil rights lawyer, past president of the Minneapolis National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a spokesperson for the local Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapter, Armstrong was all too familiar with such incidents. Owing to her standing in the city, she was also one of the first to learn of Floyd's death. She was in for a long night. Armstrong was at home with her family that evening. It was Memorial Day, 25 May 2020. She saw that an activist friend had tagged her in a Facebook post. 'Someone had told her that MPD [the Minneapolis police department] had killed someone by choking them or crushing their throat,' she recalls. This was within hours of Floyd's death. At around 8pm that night, as police bodycam footage later showed, he had been pulled from his parked car outside a grocery store by police officers, on suspicion of having paid with a fake $20 bill. He was apologetic, confused and anxious. He resisted attempts to manhandle him into a patrol car, saying he was claustrophobic and asking them to put him on the ground outside instead. Then commanding officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nine and a half minutes, ignoring Floyd's repeated pleas that he could not breathe, until he was dead. Armstrong searched for more information online. Finding nothing, she called MPD chief Medaria Arradondo. Armstrong had a good relationship with him; Arradondo, the city's first Black police chief, was trying to reform the MPD. The two of them would often communicate when incidents of police violence happened. 'I said: 'Hey, Rondo, did MPD kill someone today?'' she recalls. 'And he's like, 'No, Miss Nekima, not that I know of.' Basically, 'MPD didn't kill anyone today, but someone died as a result of a medical emergency.' And I said: 'Are you sure?' And he said: 'Well, that's what they reported.'' Knowing the MPD as she did, Armstrong was immediately suspicious. 'I went directly to social media after my call with him and let people know: something happened … This is what the chief said, now we need to see some video.' Soon after, 17-year-old Darnella Frazier tagged Armstrong when she posted her now infamous 10-minute video, documenting Floyd's murder in all its tragic, drawn-out callousness. Armstrong cannot forget seeing that video: 'I was horrified. I wept after looking at that. I knew I had witnessed a murder – a very egregious murder, and what I felt was a racially motivated murder at the hands of those who were supposed to protect and serve. I also saw that the police treated George Floyd as if he were expendable, just an object, not a human being.' Equally horrifying to her was that the crowd, mostly African American, pleaded with Chauvin to stop, but felt powerless to intervene, 'because the reality is that they would have been, at a minimum, arrested, but potentially also shot and killed … So that also was just very disturbing to me – that this type of regime was in place.' She spent most of that night on the telephone and social media. She got a call from the mayor, Jacob Frey, apologising for what had happened. Arradondo asked her to come to a meeting at City Hall at 7.30 the next morning with Black leaders and law enforcement officials. She also called Jess Sundin, another well-known local activist. 'I said: 'Jess, I think we need to plan a protest.'' This was in the midst of the Covid outbreak, when public gatherings were being discouraged. But, 'after seeing that video, I'm like, Covid or no Covid, I don't know who will show, but we have to go out there. And Jess agreed, so we were on the phone together in the middle of the night, putting the first demonstration together in honour of justice for George Floyd.' After a short nap, she arrived for the morning meeting at City Hall. Then Arradondo held a press conference where he announced he was firing Chauvin and the three other officers involved – itself an unprecedented step for the MPD. Armstrong spoke shortly after him. She applauded his swift action, but also demanded that the officers responsible face criminal charges for Floyd's death. 'I was on high alert that if things go the way that they normally do, these officers are going to be acquitted,' she says. The MPD already had a long history of racial discrimination, abuse and killing innocent Black men, and its actions were rarely punished. In 2013, police shot and killed 22-year-old Terrance Franklin in south Minneapolis, following what they claimed was a violent altercation. They were acquitted at the time but the MPD later settled a lawsuit by Franklin's family. In 2015, two MPD officers shot and killed 24-year-old Jamar Clark after they claimed he had tried to grab one of their guns, though eyewitnesses gave different accounts. The killing sparked an 18-day occupation outside the 4th precinct police station and the blocking of a local freeway, during which Armstrong was arrested. In July 2016, 34-year-old Philando Castile was shot in his car by an officer. His passenger's recording of the incident, which also went viral, showed he had posed no threat. The officer was acquitted of all charges. In 2017, an MPD officer shot and killed Justine Damond, an unarmed white Australian woman, who had called for police assistance. Her killer served 38 months in prison. In most cases like this, says Armstrong, the police argue that their actions were a split-second decision, made in fear for their own safety, and are given the benefit of the doubt. She knew that no such excuse could justify Floyd's killing: 'This looked like they went and got somebody and rounded him up and lynched him.' The protest was packed that first day, Armstrong recalls. Chanting 'I can't breathe', the crowd marched from the site of Floyd's death – which is now named George Floyd Square – to the 3rd precinct police station, where the offending officers were based. By nightfall, the situation was escalating. Some protesters started throwing rocks at the police station and spraying graffiti; police came out in riot gear, and used flash grenades, pepper spray and rubber bullets. Over the next few days the city descended into rioting, looting and arson; the police station itself was burned down. The National Guard was called in three days later. Armstrong had no further part in organising the protest, but she was teargassed as she attempted to bring in medical supplies. She cannot condone the violent protests but she can understand them. Having grown up in Los Angeles, she remembers the infamous police beating of Rodney King in 1991, which was captured on video and again provoked riots. 'As a kid, I saw what can happen when the police inflict violence and harassment on our community. Where there's no accountability, where the system doesn't work, people take matters into their own hands.' Armstrong, who is now 48, wanted to be a lawyer since she was nine years old, she says, partly as a result of having moved to LA the previous year. The eldest of five sisters, she was born in Mississippi, but her mother moved to LA seeking better opportunities (she got a job with the state social security department; Armstrong's biological father remained in Mississippi). They lived in South Central, a low-income Black and Hispanic neighbourhood. This was the time of the so-called 'war on drugs', and police involvement was high. But her schoolteachers recognised her academic ability and, without her knowledge, put her forward for A Better Chance – a scholarship programme for people of colour. As a result, she spent the rest of her education at an elite, predominantly white boarding school in Massachusetts. It was a culture shock, she admits: 'I was thinking, 'What am I doing here?' But as I learned how their system functioned, the way that people thought about things, it just opened me up to a whole new world. Also, just because of some people's ignorance around low-income people, Black and Latinos, it made me want to dive more into my history to understand.' From there it was back to Los Angeles for university, majoring in African American studies, followed by law school in Illinois. Then, in her early 20s, she was hired by her former dean to run a family law clinic at the faith-based university of St Thomas, which is what brought her to Minnesota. The Twin Cities – Minneapolis and Saint Paul – had a reputation for being liberal and progressive. 'That's what I thought I was moving into, but once I put down the mainstream papers and started reading the Black newspapers, that's when I was like, 'Wait a minute. This is the Jim Crow north,'' she says, citing the pre-civil rights system of racial discrimination in the southern US. She saw similar levels of racial inequality everywhere: 'Educational disparities, socioeconomic disparities, police, community issues, and I just said to myself, like, how is this the same place? This doesn't make any sense. This is like a tale of two cities.' After meeting NAACP elders in the city, 'I was convinced that I needed to focus on civil rights'. Her work took her as a legal observer to Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, where protests over the police killing of another Black man, Michael Brown, spilled over into violent riots. It was the event that catalysed the formation of BLM as a sustained movement. On her return she helped found a local Minneapolis BLM chapter. (In 2015 she presciently told the Washington Post: 'Minneapolis and Ferguson are closer than you think. The ingredients are here for that kind of uprising.') The scale of the BLM protests in response to Floyd's death, across the US and across the world, overwhelmingly peaceful, surprised even Armstrong. It was one of the largest protests in US history. A year later, Chauvin was tried and convicted of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Armstrong played no part in the trial, but she had campaigned to raise the initial charge against Chauvin from just third-degree murder – on which MPD officers had avoided conviction on previous occasions. In 2020, she led a public protest outside the residence of the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, demanding more robust charges and that all four officers be charged. As a result, she met Walz and conveyed her view that, in the interests of a stronger prosecution, the case ought to be handled on a federal level, by the attorney general's Office, rather than on a local level by the county attorney's office, which had a history of failing to hold police to account. 'The governor, by the grace of God, actually listened.' Five years on from Floyd's death, with Donald Trump back in the White House, the picture no longer looks so bright. The political backlash against BLM began almost immediately. At its peak in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center, support for BLM in the US was 67%; by 2023 it had dropped to 51%. Trump himself was never a fan. In 2020, he reportedly ordered the military to 'beat the fuck out' of BLM protesters and even shoot them. Already in his second term, the teaching of Black history is being suppressed, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives have come under assault, prominent Black officials such as US air force general Charles Q Brown Jr have been demoted, including FBI officials who took a knee in support of BLM back in 2020. Rightwing commentator Ben Shapiro even called on Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin. In March this year, in what felt like a symbolic moment, the huge Black Lives Matter mural painted along a street a block from the White House was removed. 'Now we're in a place where it seems like we're going backwards, as a result of what's happening with the Trump administration,' Armstrong says. That doesn't mean Floyd's death did not result in lasting change. 'We saw laws change in various jurisdictions; we saw more police officers being prosecuted and even convicted, along with vigilantes who had killed Black people – that was a huge shift from the norm.' In the wake of the convictions for Floyd's killers, hundreds of police officers left the MPD. 'You had folks who were there for decades, who participated or who were silent, who I feel are just as guilty, who are part of that baked-in culture of violence and abuse,' she says. 'That to me, gives the department and the city an opportunity to start fresh.' There is still plenty of fighting to do and, like it or not, Armstrong is evidently very good at it. But she does have a life outside her work, including five children. Can she keep going? 'I mean …' she laughs. 'I would love to not feel that I have to spend so much of my life taking on these systems, and people within the systems. It's not that they can't do the right thing; they lack the political will a lot of times, and they fail to see our humanity in this society and in this community. 'But I think about the people whose shoulders I stand on, the folks who came before me, who fought with just their faith and their knowledge that something needed to change.' She speaks of the civil rights struggle and the fight to end the Jim Crow laws, of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. 'When you have folks like that who have persevered and fought against all odds and who didn't have the modern conveniences that we have access to, it's like, who am I to complain about the struggle for justice when it's something that we as a people have inherited? So I feel that it's part of my responsibility to continue to use my voice.' Backlash: The Murder of George Floyd is in UK cinemas from Friday and on BBC iPlayer and BBC Two on 21 May
The Guardian
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Backlash: The Murder of George Floyd review – timely, human-scale recap of momentous times
I t's been a long five years since the horrific murder of George Floyd – long enough to have forgotten the international uprising it provoked, perhaps, but also to ask what the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement really achieved. As the title hints, it's been a bumpy ride. This unfussy but hardworking British-made documentary is by no means a definitive answer but it provides a timely recap, and a human scale to one of the most momentous events in modern history. Its focus is mainly on the UK side of the story, but it begins and ends in the US; first with police bodycam footage of that fateful day in Minneapolis, as officers pull a confused and anxious Floyd from his car and lay him on the pavement, and also the now-infamous bystander footage of officer Derek Chauvin mercilessly kneeling on Floyd's neck. One thing that is easy to forget is just how quickly events unfolded. The first protest in Minneapolis was the day after Floyd's death (local civil rights activist Nekima Levy Armstrong emerges as a powerful voice here); within a week, millions of BLM protesters were taking to the streets around the world, and John Boyega was giving an impassioned speech at a huge protest in London's Hyde Park. Just two weeks later, Edward Colston's statue was being pulled down in Bristol and chucked in the harbour. Days after that came the 'white lives matter' counter-protests in Britain, which often devolved into racist chanting and violence against the police. And all this during the Covid lockdowns, with both Donald Trump and Boris Johnson failing to rise to the moment. Fevered times. The levels of brutality might differ on either side of the Atlantic but Britain's history of slavery, societal racism and police violence against Black people is discussed in detail – from British victims of police violence such as Julian Cole and Dalian Atkinson, to activist Khady Gueye, who fought to stage a BLM protest in the predominantly white Forest of Dean and received racist abuse because of it. Other talking heads reminisce and speak of their lived experience, including Reni Eddo-Lodge, Miquita and Andi Oliver, police chief Neil Basu and satirist Munya Chawawa. The story ends with Chauvin's trial and conviction nearly a year later but there is no attempt to dress this up as a happy ending. We are left fearing for whatever progress has been made, especially with a Trump second term ongoing. 'There was a moment where we took charge of the narrative,' says Andi Oliver, 'and look how resentful people have been about it.' But this story underlines how BLM at least got people talking about racial injustice like never before, vindicating and emboldening communities that had been oppressed and ignored. That conversation is far from over. Backlash: The Murder of George Floyd is in UK cinemas from 9 May.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
More boycotts are planned against Target, Amazon and more. Here's what to know
After Friday's economic spending blackout, activists who support diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are preparing for further boycotts. The consumer economic spending blackout was a nationwide push encouraging Americans who support DEI to not shop for 24 hours. The Instagram handle "TheOneCalledJai" said the day of economic resistance was designed to show that "we the people are the system." The same group behind Friday's action is planning more boycotts targeting Amazon, Nestle, Target, Walmart, McDonald's and General Mills in addition to two more spending blackouts. Here's what Arizona shoppers need to know about the planned economic boycotts or blackouts, which businesses are being targeted and what to expect. After Friday's economic spending blackout, the same group of activists is planning a second boycott. The second economic blackout focuses on cutting spending with online retailer Amazon. The boycott will start on Friday, March 7, and last a full week, ending on Friday, March 14. "TheOneCalledJai" also shared a flier on social media that lays out a series of upcoming boycotts: Nestle: March 21-28 Walmart: April 7-14 and May 20-26 Second economic blackout: April 18 General Mills: April 21-28 Amazon: May 6-12 Target: June 3-9 McDonald's: June 24-30 Independence Day boycott: July 4 Target is also facing an indefinite boycott after phasing out its DEI initiatives. Minnesota civil rights activists encouraged consumers to stop shopping at the major retailer indefinitely until it changes its policies, said Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and founder of the Racial Justice Network. Pastor Jamal-Harrison Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia and an activist and author, has called on the faith community to start a 40-day fast from shopping at Target during Lent starting on March 5, which is Ash Wednesday. The website also has been created to offer information. Comedian and actress Leslie Jones announced on her Instagram account planned boycotts and buying actions starting in February and continuing through the end of the year. That plan explained in the video starts and ends with encouraging purchases directly from Black-owned businesses and then planned boycotts for one to two months at a time against Walmart, Target and Amazon. Latinos are also being encouraged to freeze spending in response to freezes on DEI policies, funding for the National Institutes of Health and actions on immigration. Both the #LatinoFreezeMovement and #LatinoFreeze movement urge Latinos to purchase essential items only and focus on shopping at "Latino American, Black American and Allied American Businesses that are supportive to this movement." This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: These companies are being boycotted in 2025. Here's what to know
