Latest news with #racialinjustice
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Daily Mail
George Floyd's 11-year-old daughter Gianna shares what cruel bullies are doing to her at school
George Floyd 's young daughter has been targeted by school bullies who use 'the nasty things' people say about her father to harass her. Five years after Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police, his daughter Gianna, 11, and her relatives revealed the painful reality of the bullying she's faced at home in Texas. 'They've teased her at school,' read a column in the Minnesota Star-Tribune wrote. 'They know about her father and the nasty things bad people say about him, so they repeat those words.' Gianna's mother, Roxie, said that she wrestles with how to respond - torn between encouraging her daughter to stand up for herself and rushing to the school for answers. Gianna went viral in 2020 when, at just six years old, she sat on the shoulders of former NBA star Stephen Jackson, a close friend of her father's, and shouted to the crowd, 'Daddy changed the world!' Five years later, the legacy of his death has become a source of cruelty for his daughter. On May 25, 2020, white police office Derek Chauvin fatally pressed his knee into Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds outside a Minneapolis convenience store after arresting him on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes. His death sparked global protests against police brutality and racial injustice. Chauvin was convicted in April 2021 of murdering Floyd and sentenced to more than 22 years in prison. Since his killing, critics and commentators have repeatedly pointed to Floyd's personal history - his past addiction, criminal record, and the toxicology report from his autopsy - in an attempt to discredit the movement his murder ignited. Gianna and her relatives revealed the painful reality she faces: relentless bullying tied to the tragic and highly publicized circumstances of her father's death Floyd had openly battled opioid addiction, a struggle he shared with his girlfriend, Courteney Ross. During Chauvin's trial, Ross testified that both she and Floyd became addicted after being prescribed opioids for chronic pain. His family has acknowledged those struggles, but emphasized they do not justify the way he died. Floyd's criminal record included multiple arrests, mostly for nonviolent offenses. In 2009, he pleaded guilty to a 2007 aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and served five years in prison. One of his earlier convictions - from 2004, for having a small amount of cocaine - was later scrutinized due to the involvement of a Houston police officer who was later indicted for fabricating evidence in other cases. A toxicology report from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office found fentanyl and methamphetamine in Floyd's system at the time of his death. Chauvin's defense team argued the drugs contributed to his death, but medical experts - including Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker - testified that Floyd died of 'cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression,' with drug use considered a contributing factor, not the primary cause. Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has launched an effort to pardon Chauvin with an open letter to Donald Trump, calling his conviction 'the defining achievement of the Woke movement in American politics The letter claims that Chauvin did not murder Floyd because he was 'high on fentanyl' and 'had a significant pre-existing heart condition,' complaining of trouble breathing before the incident that ended his life. 'Perhaps most significantly, there was massive overt pressure on the jury to return a guilty verdict regardless of the evidence or any semblance of impartial deliberation,' Shapiro said. Elon Musk reposted a video on X of Shapiro arguing for Chauvin to be pardoned by the president and commented: 'Something to think about.' Shapiro added that the incident would allow the country to 'turn the page' on the 'Woke' era and end 'the weaponization of the American justice system.'
The Guardian
16-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Fire engulfs much of Louisiana plantation house with deep legacy of slavery
Flames ripped through a massive mansion in Louisiana, destroying much of the historic structure that was used as a plantation house when it was completed in 1859 before eventually becoming 'a place of reflection, education and dialogue' given the more than 150 people who were enslaved there before the abolition of slavery in the US, authorities said. The fire that engulfed the Nottoway plantation house on Thursday devastated the building along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Chris Daigle, the president of Iberville parish (Louisiana's term for county), said on social media. Nearly a dozen fire departments from surrounding towns battled the blaze, he said. No injuries were reported. Before the fire, the mansion was a resort and event venue, and its website described it as 'the south's largest remaining antebellum mansion'. Daigle called it 'a cornerstone of our tourism economy and a site of national significance'. In a statement on Facebook, Daigle also made it a point to touch on the structure's history of racial injustice during a time when enslaved Black people helped build the site and operate the sugar plantation that surrounded it. In 1860, 155 enslaved people were held at the property, according to National Park Service records. 'While its early history is undeniably tied to a time of great injustice, over the last several decades it evolved into a place of reflection, education, and dialogue,' Daigle said. 'Since the 1980s, it has welcomed visitors from around the world who came to appreciate its architecture and confront the legacies of its era,' he added. 'It stood as both a cautionary monument and a testament to the importance of preserving history – even the painful parts – so that future generations can learn and grow from it.' The 53,000-sq-ft (4,900-sq-meter) home on a former sugar plantation about 65 miles (105km) north-west of New Orleans had a three-story rotunda adorned with giant white columns and hand-carved Italian marble fireplaces, according to a description on its website. The mansion's owner, Louisiana attorney Dan Dyess, said in a written statement that the fire had led to a 'total loss' after all the time and money he invested in the building. 'We are devastated and heartbroken for this loss,' he said. 'This was my dream that has now been dashed.' Photos from local news outlets showed a giant orange wall of fire consuming the upper portion of the rotunda and sending a plume of thick smoke into the sky. The fire has been contained, and no other properties were harmed, said Maj Monty Migliacio of the Iberville parish sheriff's office. Other structures on the grounds have been preserved, parish officials said. 'We are at the beginning phases of the investigation, we don't know how the fire began and our objective is to determine how it started,' said Ken Pastorick, the public affairs director for Louisiana's office of state fire marshal.
BBC News
08-05-2025
- BBC News
Patrick Lyoya: Mistrial in murder case against officer who shot black motorist
A judge declared a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a verdict in the murder trial of a Michigan police officer who fatally shot a black man during a traffic Schurr was charged with second-degree murder for the killing of 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on 4 April 2022. The killing of Mr Lyoya, a Congolese immigrant, sparked widespread protests and put the question of racial injustice and policing in the spotlight."It hurts. My family, my wife, we are bleeding," Mr Lyoya's father said after the judge declared mistrial. "We will continue to fight under we get the true justice for Patrick." The mistrial is a partial victory for Mr Schurr, who still could face another 4 April incident was caught in graphic detail and from multiple angles on a police bodycam and dashboard camera, an eyewitness' phone and a doorbell security system from a nearby home. Footage shows Mr Lyoya fleeing from Mr Schurr on foot following a traffic stop. The two men scuffle over Mr Schurr's Taser before he shoots Mr Lyoya, who was face-down on the scuffle over the Taser was central to Mr Schurr's defence, who testified that he was in great fear because a Taser can cause "excruciating pain" and injury."I believed that if I hadn't done it at that time, I wasn't going to go home," Mr Schurr said of shooting Mr Schurr, an officer in the Grand Rapids police department for seven years, was fired soon after he was charged in Lyoya came to the US with his family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2014. He had lived in Grand Rapids for about five years, according to the office of civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing the Lyoya killing sparked protests in Grand Rapids, renewing questions around police brutality and why traffic stops involving black men so often result in tragedy. The mistrial comes just one day after three former Memphis police officers were acquitted of murder in the killing of Tyre Nichols, a black man who was beaten during a traffic stop in 2023.
