HOUSTON — Years before a bystander’s video of George Floyd’s last moments turned his name into a global cry for justice, Floyd trained a camera on himself.

“I just want to speak to you all real quick,” Floyd says in one video, addressing the young men in his neighborhood who looked up to him. His 6-foot-7 frame crowds the picture.

“I’ve got my shortcomings and my flaws and I ain’t better than nobody else,” he says. “But, man, the shootings that’s going on, I don’t care what ‘hood you’re from, where you’re at, man. I love you and God loves you. Put them guns down.”

At the time, Floyd was respected as a man who spoke from hard, but hardly extraordinary, experience. He had nothing remotely like the stature he has gained in death, embraced as a universal symbol of the need to overhaul policing and held up as a heroic everyman.

But the reality of his 46 years on Earth, including sharp edges and setbacks Floyd himself acknowledged, was both much fuller and more complicated.

Once a star athlete with dreams of turning pro and enough talent to win a partial scholarship, Floyd returned home only to bounce between jobs before serving nearly five years in prison. Intensely proud of his roots in Houston’s Third Ward and admired as a mentor in a public housing project beset by poverty, he decided the only way forward was to leave it behind.

“He had made some mistakes that cost him some years of his life,” said Ronnie Lillard, a friend and rapper who performs under the name Reconcile. “And when he got out of that, I think the Lord greatly impacted his heart.”

___

Floyd was born in North Carolina. But his mother, a single parent, moved the family to Houston when he was 2, so she could search for work. They settled in the Cuney Homes, a low-slung warren of more than 500 apartments south of downtown nicknamed “The Bricks.”

The neighborhood, for decades a cornerstone of Houston’s black community, has gentrified in recent years. Texas Southern University, a historically black campus directly across the street from the projects, has long held itself out as a launchpad for those willing to strive. But many residents struggle, with incomes about half the city average and unemployment nearly four times higher, even before the recent economic collapse.

Yeura Hall, who grew up next door to Floyd, said even in the Third Ward other kids looked down on those who lived in public housing. To deflect the teasing, he, Floyd and other boys made up a song about themselves: “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Cuney Homes kid. They got so many rats and roaches I can play with.”

Larcenia Floyd invested her hopes in her son, who as a second-grader wrote that he dreamed of being a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

“She thought that he would be the one that would bring them out of poverty and struggle,” said Travis Cains, a longtime friend.

Floyd was a star tight end for the football team at Jack Yates High School, playing for the losing side in the 1992 state championship game at Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin.

He was an atypical football player. “We used to call him ‘Big Friendly,'” said Cervaanz Williams, a former teammate.

“If you said something to him, his head would drop,” said Maurice McGowan, his football coach. “He just wasn’t going to ball up and act like he wanted to fight you.”

On the basketball court, Floyd’s height and strength won attention from George Walker, a former assistant coach at the University of Houston hired for the head job at what is now South Florida State College. The school was a 17-hour drive away, in a small town, but high school administrators and Floyd’s mother urged him to go, Walker said.

“They wanted George to really get out of the neighborhood, to do something, be something,” Walker said.

In Avon Park, Florida, Floyd and a few other players from Houston stood out for their size, accents and city cool. They lived in the Jacaranda Hotel, a historic lodge used as a dormitory, and were known as the “Jac Boys.”

“He was always telling me about the Third Ward of Houston, how rough it was, but how much he loved it,” said Robert Caldwell, a friend and fellow student who frequently traveled with the basketball team. “He said people know how to grind, as hard as it is, people know how to love.”

After two years in Avon Park, Floyd spent a year at Texas A&M University in Kingsville before returning to Houston and his mother’s apartment to find jobs in construction and security.

Larcenia Floyd, known throughout the neighborhood as Ms. Cissy, welcomed her son’s friends from childhood, offering their apartment as refuge when their lives grew stressful. When a neighbor went to prison on drug charges, Ms. Cissy took in the woman’s pre-teen son, Cal Wayne, deputizing George to play older brother for the next 2½ years.

“We would steal his jerseys and put his jerseys on and run around the house, go outside, jerseys all the way down to our ankles because he was so big and we were little,” said Wayne, now a well-known rapper who credits Floyd with encouraging him to pursue music.

George Floyd, he said, “was like a superhero.”

___

Floyd, too, dabbled in music, occasionally invited to rap with Robert Earl Davis Jr. — better known as DJ Screw, whose mixtapes have since been recognized as influential in charting Houston’s place as a hotbed of hip-hop.

But then, the man known throughout Cuney as “Big Floyd,” started finding trouble.

Between 1997 and 2005, Floyd was arrested several times on drug and theft charges, spending months in jail. Around that time, Wayne’s mother, Sheila Masters, recalled running into Floyd in the street and learning he was homeless.

“He’s so tall he’d pat me on my head … and say, ‘Mama you know it’s going to be all right,'” Masters said.

In August 2007, Floyd was arrested and charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. Investigators said he and five other men barged into a woman’s apartment, and Floyd pushed a pistol into her abdomen before searching for items to steal. Floyd pleaded guilty in 2009 and was sentenced to five years in prison. By the time he was paroled, in January 2013, he was nearing 40.

“He came home with his head on right,” said friend Travis Cains.

At a Christian rap concert in the Third Ward, Floyd met Lillard and pastor Patrick “PT” Ngwolo, whose ministry was looking for ways to reach residents in Cuney Homes. Floyd, who seemed to know everyone in the project, volunteered to be their guide.

Soon Floyd was setting up a washtub on the Cuney basketball courts for baptisms by Ngwolo’s newly formed Resurrection Houston congregation. He joined three-on-three basketball tournaments and barbecues, organized by the ministry. He knocked on doors with Ngwolo, introducing residents as candidates for grocery deliveries or Bible study.

Another pastor, Christopher Johnson, recalled Floyd stopping by his office while Johnson’s mother was visiting. Decades had passed since Johnson’s mother had been a teacher at Floyd’s high school. It didn’t matter. He wrapped her in a bear hug.

“I don’t think he ever thought of himself as being big,” Johnson said. “There’s a lot of big dudes here, but he was a gentleman and a diplomat and I’m not putting any sauce on it.”

On the streets of Cuney, Floyd was increasingly embraced as an O.G. — literally “original gangster,” but bestowed as a title of respect for a mentor who’d learned from life experience.

In Tiffany Cofield’s classroom at a neighborhood charter school, some of her male students — many of whom had already had brushes with the law — told her to talk to “Big Floyd” if she wanted to understand.

Floyd would listen patiently as she voiced her frustrations with students’ bad behavior, she said. And he would try to explain the life of a young man in the projects.

After school, Floyd often met up with her students outside a corner store.

“How’s school going?” he’d ask. “Are you being respectful? How’s your mom? How’s your grandma?”

___

In 2014, Floyd began exploring the possibility of leaving the neighborhood.

As the father of five children from several relationships, he had bills to pay. And despite his stature in Cuney, everyday life could be trying. More than once, Floyd ended up in handcuffs when police came through the projects and detained a large number of men, Cofield said.

“He would show by example: ‘Yes, officer. No, officer.’ Very respectful. Very calm tone,” she said.

A friend of Floyd’s had already moved to the Twin Cities as part of a church discipleship program that offered men a route to self-sufficiency by changing their environment and helping them find jobs.

“He was looking to start over fresh, a new beginning,” said Christopher Harris, who preceded Floyd to Minneapolis. Friends provided Floyd with money and clothing to ease the transition.

In Minneapolis, Floyd found a job as a security guard at the Salvation Army’s Harbor Light Center — the city’s largest homeless shelter.

“He would regularly walk a couple of female co-workers out … at night and make sure they got to their cars safely and securely,” said Brian Molohon, director of development for the Army’s Minnesota office. “Just a big strong guy, but with a very tender side.”

Floyd left after a little over a year, training to drive trucks while working as a bouncer at a club called Conga Latin Bistro.

“He would dance badly to make people laugh,” said the owner, Jovanni Thunstrom. “I tried to teach him how to dance because he loved Latin music, but I couldn’t because he was too tall for me.”

Floyd kept his connection to Houston, regularly returning to Cuney.

When Houston hosted the Super Bowl in 2017, Floyd was back in town, hosting a party at the church with music and free AIDS testing. He came back again for his mother’s funeral the next year. And when Cains spoke with him last, a few weeks ago, Floyd was planning another trip for this summer.

By then, Floyd was out of work. Early this spring, Thunstrom cut Floyd’s job when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the club to close.

On the evening of Memorial Day, Floyd was with two others when convenience store employees accused him of paying for cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill, then called the police. Less than an hour later, Floyd breathed his last.

Those who knew him search for meaning in his death.

“I’ve come to the belief that he was chosen,” said Cofield, the teacher. “Only this could have happened to him because of who he was and the amount of love that he had for people, people had for him.”

It’s a small comfort, she admits. But, then, in Big Floyd’s neighborhood, people have long made do with less.

Four men are expected to be charged with murder on Tuesday over the mysterious daylight bashing of Vergel Velasquez in a western Sydney apartment block the day before New Year’s Eve.

Homicide squad detectives arrested four men, aged 41, 42, 50 and 49 on Tuesday in Moree in the state’s north-west – 620 kilometres from the Girraween complex where Mr Velasquez was left in the unit’s stairwell with head injuries.

It is expected they will be charged with murder to face court on Wednesday.

Mr Velasquez died in Westmead Hospital on New Year’s Eve.

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) — For roughly 20 minutes on Thursday, a 19-year-old man charged with murder in the shooting death of a Washburn University football player conferred with his defense attorney, then decided she would continue to represent him.

Defendant Francisco A. Mendez in April had filed a motion seeking to replace his defense attorney, KiAnn Caprice, whom Mendez had asked the judge to replace Caprice, saying she had failed “to provide the defendant effective’ assistance of counsel.”

In the hand-written motion, Mendez said a “significant breakdown” in communication between Mendez and Caprice had occurred, and there was an “irrevocable breakdown” in the attorney-client relationship, that she failed to investigate Mendez’ case in his best interest, and she hadn’t filed meritorious motions in his behalf.

The prosecutor, a 13NEWS reporter, and two other observers were instructed by the judge to leave the courtroom on Thursday to allow Mendez and Caprice privacy.

When court re-opened to the public, Mendez, through Caprice, apologized for his conduct during an earlier hearing when he made “inappropriate” remarks about Caprice.

Mendez also withdrew his motion seeking a new defense lawyer.
Caprice said the defense would hire an investigator to examine questions Mendez has.

The COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing lurked Friday on the fringes of planning the Mendez trial.

Shawnee County District Court Judge Cheryl Rios broached the idea of conducting jury selection outside the Shawnee County Courthouse and in a larger room so prospective jurors wouldn’t be so close together when the jury is chosen.

In pre-pandemic times, people chosen for jury duty sat shoulder-to-shoulder in rows adjacent to each other in a courtroom as they answered questions. Then if chosen for duty, they sat in a jury box a few feet apart for up to eight hours a day.

On Thursday when spectators entered the courtroom, court personnel directed them to sit in rows that weren’t closed with yellow emergency tape, and people wore masks and exercised social distancing of at least 6 feet between each other.

People conducting business in Shawnee Shawnee District Court offices and courtrooms must wear masks.

On Thursday, Rios said no jury trials would be conducted during the summer months due to the pandemic and orders issued by the Kansas Supreme Court. The courthouse re-opened to the public on Monday after it was closed for three months since mid-March.

The Mendez trial is scheduled to start on October 26, and the ending date is up to November 20. It isn’t expected the trial will require almost a month.

Pre-trial hearings will be conducted on September 4 and 25.

Mendez is charged with offenses on April 28, 2019, of:
• Premeditated first-degree murder of Dwane Simmons, 23.
• Attempted first-degree murder of Corey Ballentine, who was wounded.
• Three counts of attempted first-degree murder of Channon Ross, Kevin Neal and James Letcher, who were with Simmons and Ballentine.

The five men were Washburn University football players. Of the 12 charges Mendez faces, five are tied to events on April 28, 2019.
Ballentine played the 2019-2020 season on the New York Giants football team.

Of the 12 charges he faces, Mendez also is charged with two aggravated robberies on April 27, 2019, in what is referred to as the “Central Park robbery.”

Mendez is also charged with five aggravated robberies on April 30, 2019.

According to testimony during Mendez’s preliminary hearing, Ballentine, Simmons and three other members of the WU football team were standing at S.W. 13th and Lane celebrating Ballentine’s good fortune to be drafted into professional football when Ballentine and Simmons were shot.

Contact sports writer Wesley Dotson at 864-943-2530 or follow him on Twitter @WesleyPDotson.

When Orlando Bowen, the former CFL player, watches the video of George Floyd pleading for air, he holds his own breath and relives his own nightmare with police.

“It was a flashback of sorts, because I am him,” Bowen said.

“It’s only by God’s grace or universal design why my life didn’t end, like that.”

Bowen, who is Black, is referring to a dark night in his life in the spring of 2004. At the the time, he was a successful linebacker, having three years under his belt with the Toronto Argos and a season with the Hamilton Tiger Cats.

His heart, he also says, was in community service — speaking in schools and even partnering with Peel Regional Police as a liaison for the Black community.

But life was about to take a drastic turn.

While waiting for his teammates in a Mississauga parking lot to celebrate a new extension he had just signed with the Ti-Cats, Bowen says he was approached by two men.

“One guy says, ‘Hey man, what you got? Got any drugs?’” Bowen remembers. After saying ‘no’, Bowen returned to the phone call he’d been having. But the men, who turned out to be plainclothes Peel police officers, weren’t so easily dissuaded and asked to search him.

Bowen said he complied and when nothing was found, in one surreal moment, everything escalated.

“They ended up grabbing me, punching me, delivering knee strikes,” Bowen recalls, punching his hand. “I’m saying, ‘Oh my gosh! What did I do? I didn’t do anything!…Talk to me! Like, what’s happening?’”

They never responded to him verbally, he said. They just kept punching.

“All I could think was, ‘God! Don’t let me die like this man, I got so much in me to give!” said Bowen.

His life was spared that night, but forever changed. The brutal injuries he suffered ended his CFL career, with a concussion meaning his days on the gridiron were over.

But when Bowen looks back, the now 44-year-old says the heaviest part is watching a similar scene of police brutality play out in the video of 46-year-old Floyd, dying–16 years later.

“As much as I knew it wasn’t me on the ground … I saw myself, like it was me,” Bowen said.

“It was taking me back to the moment where I was pleading to the universe and to God to intervene.”

It’s the reliving of these kinds of trauma and repeated viewing of high-profile incidents of racism and police brutality that can be deeply traumatic for Black people, says Monnica Williams, Canada Research Chair for Mental Health Disparities at the University of Ottawa.

“It’s been a huge drain on everyone that I know who is part of that community,” says Williams.

“We’re seeing people who look like us, our children, our brothers, our uncles, our fathers, laying dead on the road like roadkill, with no minimal amount of dignity.

“It’s unspeakable…it dehumanizes us, it makes us feel like we’re not worth anything, like our lives don’t matter.”

As for Bowen, he, who had before done racial sensitivity training for Peel police, was eventually arrested by the cops that night and taken to jail on assault and drug possession.

Stunned by the charges, Bowen said the drugs were planted on him by police and that they had assaulted him.

A year later, he was acquitted of all charges after one of the arresting officers was charged and later convicted of drug trafficking. An Ontario court judge ruled the testimony of police to be “incredible” and unworthy of belief.

But for Bowen, months of court battles, torment and what he felt was ultimately racial discrimination had left its scars.

“I remember having a hard time sleeping, probably averaging about 20 minutes of sleep per night,” said Bowen.

“It made me hyper-aware. I always went to bed last in my house. I often slept in between the two entrances to our house — front door entrance and the back door, just in case they came to, you know, finish.”

Williams says for Black people, especially Black men, navigating a world where your body is perceived as a threat can be incredibly taxing on Black mental health.

“Any encounter with law enforcement if you’re a Black person is potentially a life-threatening event,” Williams explained.

“You’re constantly having contact with law enforcement, and each time you have that contact, that’s a moment of anxiety, a moment where you have to look a certain way, talk a certain way, work really hard to alleviate white suspicion, fears, that you’re doing something wrong–and to be under that kind of stress, that pressure cooker all the time? It becomes unbearable.”

William says the psychological effects of these encounters and racism ripple.

“Everyday discrimination, major discrimination, covert discrimination, microagressions — all of these are tied to mental health problems that include anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use and even suicide,” said Williams.

“Every condition out there where we’ve looked at this, racism has either caused this or made it worse.”

Bowen said he has seen some of that pain first hand now, working with youth in the community. Pain, that often goes untreated.

“Feelings of anger…feelings of insignificance, insecurity, feeling like you don’t belong, feeling like you don’t matter, feeling like it doesn’t matter what you do, you have very little control over what’s possible for you,” Bowen lists them off.

“When people get to those states of being or feeling…people act out of those beliefs, and then they become somewhat self-fulfilling, that you end up going down a path.”

Williams whose research focus at the university is in mental health and disparities and cultural competence in research and healthcare, says Black people often have no where to turn for help with handling these emotions, with culturally sensitive mental health supports and services, meager.

“Black Canadians are incredibly underserved, our mental health needs are not being met,” said Williams.  “This is a province-wide, nation-wide problem. The clinicians who provide the care for the public, they’re not trained in how to work with people of colour in general, much less Black people. Those resources are very few, very thin.”

That gap is what fuels Bowen and his charity, ”One Voice, One Team”, where he works with and shares his experience with thousands of young people–turning his pain into hope.

“We have opportunities and I think an obligation to do something to protect people’s mental health,” Bowen said. “To try to create positive outlets and opportunities for them to be connected, their voice to be heard, for them to have safe and brave spaces…”

Bowen not only inspires with his words and story, but with his actions.

A few years ago, he wrote a public letter of forgiveness to the two officers he said who wronged him.

He “wasn’t angry,” Bowen said, reflecting on the decision. Rather, he chose to see the officers as people who needed help, who are hurting and broken “in a system that is also hurting, that needs help”.

More importantly, he says, the decision to forgive was for him to move on and flourish.

“What I realized was the forgiveness wasn’t even necessarily for them, but it was for us, for me, for my family who perhaps may have been in a position to hold on to some things, to the emotion of the moment where we can’t get to what we’ve been designed to do if we did that,” said Bowen.

“There’s a bigger purpose and a bigger plan, I’m convinced of that.”

• The police killing of George Floyd has triggered anti-racism protests around the world. A number of monuments with links to colonialism and slavery have been defaced or pulled down in Europe and the United States as protests for racial justice continue.

• Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, has testified before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, along with family lawyer Ben Crump and 10 others at the first congressional hearing to examine the social and political undercurrents that have fuelled weeks of protests nationwide and overseas.

• Floyd died on May 25 after a policeman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. His death sparked nationwide calls for policing reforms.

Thursday, June 11

11:15 GMT – US protests trigger calls by India’s Dalits to end discrimination

Spurred on by the anti-racism protests in the United States, Dalits (a marginalised community once referred to as “untouchables”) have called on India to acknowledge centuries of oppression they have endured.

Dalits find themselves outside the Hindu caste hierarchy – a membership determined at birth – and have historically faced violence, segregation and been barred from even having their shadows touch those of people from more privileged castes.

Read more here.

10:36 GMT – One of four Minneapolis police charged over Floyd’s death freed on bail

One of the four former Minneapolis police officers who were charged over the death of George Floyd has been released on bail.

The former police officer released, Thomas Lane, 37, had been held on $750,000 bail and was freed from Hennepin County jail, sheriff’s office records showed.

He was one of three officers charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in the 46-year-old Floyd’s death on May 25.

09:55 GMT – Washington D.C. volunteers preserve protest signs and posters as art 

Volunteers on the scene in the nation’s capital are working to gather and preserve hundreds of items that were posted during days of protests over the death of George Floyd in police hands in Minnesota.

Hundreds of signs and posters that had been on the fence enclosing Lafayette Square near the White House have been moved across the street and taped to the walls of a construction site, or strung together and hung from trees lining the street.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Smithsonian have expressed an interest in preserving the artifacts.

09:35 GMT – Bristol City Concil recovers Colston statue from harbour

A statue of a 17th-century slave trader that was toppled by anti-racism protesters in Bristol, England, has been fished out of the harbour by city authorities.

Bristol City Council says the bronze statue of Edward Colston was recovered to avoid drawing a crowd. The council says it has been taken to a “secure location” and will end up in a museum.

Colston built a fortune transporting enslaved Africans across the Atlantic and left most of his money to charity. His name adorns streets and buildings in Bristol, which was once the U.K.’s biggest port for slave ships.

09:03 GMT – Mapping the hundreds of Confederate statues across the US

Although many Americans recognise the immorality of historic colonialists, slave owners and anti-abolitionists, some say these symbols should be preserved as a reminder of the country’s past.

08:21 GMT – Basketball team the Knicks issues statement on George Floyd’s death

The New York Knicks and James Dolan, the executive chairman of the team’s parent company, The Madison Square Garden Company issued a statement about the death of George Floyd after coming under fire for their delayed response to the incident.

While most NBA organizations were quick to issue public responses, the American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan, only issued a statement 15 days after Floyd’s death.

Posting a statement on its social media accounts, the Knicks said: “Every one of us has a role to play in creating a more just and equal society, where there is no racism, bigotry, violence or hate. We stand with all who act for positive change.”

pic.twitter.com/q1Ui8N29ai

— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) June 9, 2020

07:53 GMT – Seven officers in LA removed from field duties over excessive use of force during protests

At least seven Los Angeles police officers were removed from their field duties after using excessive force during recent protests, the police department told CNN.

The move comes as police across the United States have come under attack for use of violence in response to demonstrators protesting police brutality.

Critics have pointed to the use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and physical attacks as examples of excessive use of force.

07:25 GMT – Sydney police warn Black Lives Matter protesters to stay home

Australian police have warned people not to attend a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Sydney on Friday unless they want to risk being arrested.

Mick Willing, New South Wales’ assistant police commissioner, said on the event is unauthorized because the organizers have not notified the police in advance.

The police would deploy “significant resources” to enforce Covid-19 restriction orders. People could face arrest if they choose to attend the event, Willing told reporters.

06:59 GMT – British statue of scout founder Baden-Powell to be taken down

A local authority in southern England said it would remove a statue of Robert Baden-Powell, the latest memorial to be taken down in the wake of anti-racism protests sparked by the death of George Floyd.

While Baden-Powell was hailed as far-sighted for setting up the scouts, critics said he held racist views and was a supporter of Adolf Hitler and fascism.

Poole council said the statue of Baden-Powell would now be moved from its location on the quayside of the seaside town where it has been for just over a decade to safe storage while there were discussions with local communities about its future.

“Whilst famed for the creation of the Scouts, we also recognise that there are some aspects of Robert Baden-Powell’s life that are considered less worthy of commemoration,” council leader Vikki Slade said.

05:25 GMT – Man injured as Confederate monument pulled down in Portsmouth

Protesters in Portsmouth, Virginia, beheaded and then pulled down four statues that were part of a Confederate monument, the Virginian-Pilot newspaper reported.

As the statues fell, a protester was hit on the head, causing him to lose consciousness. He was then taken to hospital.

All four have been beheaded tonight pic.twitter.com/uMRKFziPYb

— Saleen Martin (@Saleen_Martin) June 11, 2020

The toppled monument sits at a site where slaves were punished on a whipping post, according to the Virginian-Pilot, and efforts to tear one of the statues down began around 8:20pm, but the rope protesters were using snapped.

They then started to dismantle the monument one piece at a time as a marching band played in the streets and other protesters danced.

05:02 GMT – Statue of Confederate president toppled in Richmond

A statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was torn down along Richmond’s famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday night by protesters.

The statue in the former capital of the Confederacy was toppled shortly before 11pm and was on the ground in the middle of an intersection, news outlets reported. Richmond police were on the scene.

BREAKING: The Jefferson Davis statue on Monument Ave. has been pulled down tonight, this video is from a person in the area who tells me police are now on scene. @8NEWS
(Explicit language warning) pic.twitter.com/maZ2YxklLk

— Nick Conigliaro 8News (@NConigliaroNews) June 11, 2020

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam last week ordered the removal of an iconic statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee, which is four blocks away from where the Davis statue stood. A judge on Monday issued an injunction preventing officials from removing the monuments for the next 10 days.

04:40 GMT – New probe launched into custodial death of Black man in Tacoma

Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington state, has ordered an independent investigation into the death of a Black man who died while in the custody of Tacoma police.

The move comes after new information emerged this week that at least one sheriff’s deputy and a state trooper were at the scene when the man, Manuel Ellis, was detained and died on March 3. In a nearly nine-minute clip released by the lawyer representing Ellis’s family, the 33-year-old man is heard crying out “I can’t breathe, sir” while handcuffed.

The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide.

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department had been close to finishing an investigation, and a briefing with the prosecuting attorney was scheduled for Wednesday. Inslee said he ordered a new probe to make sure that the work is “done free of conflicts of interest” as officers from the sheriff’s department were present at the scene.

The police department has identified the four officers involved in restraining Ellis. They were put on administrative leave last week after the autopsy results were made public.

Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards and the victim’s family have called for those officers to be fired and arrested.

04:12 GMT – Biden says questions about 1994 crime bill are ‘legitimate’                

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, acknowledged concerns about his support for a 1994 crime bill that critics say contributed to the mass incarceration of racial minorities in recent decades.

Speaking during a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) town hall event on systemic racism, Biden said questions about his role in writing the bill are “legitimate”. But he insisted that people should judge him based on his current actions, not his past.

He said that while he has been “told all along” that young people oppose his past stances on criminal justice issues, “there is no polling evidence to sustain that. Nor is there voting evidence thus far to sustain that”.

“Watch what I do. Judge me based on what I do, what I say and to whom I say it,” he added.

04:01 GMT – Missouri paper owners resign in protest over racist cartoon

The co-owners of a family-owned Missouri newspaper resigned from their positions in protest after the publication of a racist syndicated cartoon that depicted a Black man stealing a handbag from a white woman while hailing funding cuts to police.

The cartoon published in the Washington Missourian on Wednesday shows a white woman asking for someone to call 911, but the masked Black man says, “Good luck with that, lady … we defunded the police.”

Washington Missourian owners and sisters Susan Miller and Jeanne Miller Wood said in an apology that the newspaper’s publisher – their father – made the decision to run the cartoon and did not let them know in advance.

“As co-owners we believe it was racist and in no circumstance should have been published,” they wrote of the cartoon. “We apologize to our readers and our staff for the obvious pain and offense it caused. For the record, we abhor the sentiment and denounce ANY form of racism.”

03:31 GMT – Police officer charged in Floyd’s death posts bail

Thomas Lane, one of four police officers charged in Floyd’s death, posted bail of $750,000 and was released from the Hennepin County Jail, with conditions, shortly after 4pm on Wednesday.

The other officers remain in custody.

Lane, 37, is charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter for his role in the arrest of Floyd, after another officer, Derek Chauvin, pressed his knee to the unarmed Black man’s neck.

Lane’s lawyer said last week that Lane was a rookie, and that the only thing he did was hold Floyd’s feet so he could not kick. The criminal complaint also says that Lane expressed concern about Floyd and asked Chauvin twice if they should roll Floyd to his side, but Chauvin said no.

03:13 GMT – Buffalo adopts policing changes after protester is hurt

Buffalo will replace its police Emergency Response Team with a new “public protection unit” following the suspension and arrest of two ERT members seen on video shoving a 75-year-old protester who fell and cracked his head, Mayor Byron Brown said.

The city will also halt arrests for low-level, non-violent offences like marijuana possession and make it easier for the public to view police body camera video under measures Brown introduced as “a critical first step” in making Buffalo more inclusive and equitable. 

“We will shift policing in Buffalo away from enforcement and to a restorative model that promotes stronger community bonds, civic engagement and an end to young Black men, Black people, being caught in a cycle of crime and incarceration by consciously limiting their negative engagement with police,” Brown said at a news conference.

03:03 GMT – Biden says US policing reforms ‘long overdue’

Speaking at a virtual NAACP town hall on systemic racism, Biden backed calls for reforms in US policing methods

“This is an inflection moment in American history, a moment where we must make substantive changes now, changes the American police as the police is long overdue,” the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate said.

There is systemic racism not just in our law enforcement but also in housing, education, and everything we do — and we have to do the hard work to end it. pic.twitter.com/w9H77Jbuqa

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 11, 2020

Biden highlighted his proposals for additional community policing funds. But still, he avoided a major flashpoint in the conversation around such reforms – whether he would support reparations for African Americans.

Pressed multiple times on his stance, Biden said only that a study should be done and that his support for cash reparations “would depend on what it was and if it will include Native Americans as well”.

02:51 GMT – Amazon bans police use of its facial recognition software

Amazon banned police use of its facial-recognition technology for a year, making it the latest tech giant to step back from law-enforcement use of systems that have faced criticism for incorrectly identifying people with darker skin.

The Seattle-based company did not say why it took action now.

Civil rights groups and Amazon’s own employees have pushed the company to stop selling its technology, called Rekognition, to government agencies, saying that it could be used to invade people’s privacy and target minorities.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Amazon said that it hoped Congress would put in place stronger regulations for facial recognition.

02:39 GMT – Protesters tear down Christopher Columbus statue in Saint Paul

A group of protesters pulled down a statue of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the latest US monument to be torn down amid nationwide demonstrations against police brutality and racial inequalities.

The 10-foot bronze statue was pulled from its granite base by several dozen people led by a Minnesota-based Native American activist, Mike Forcia, outside the state Capitol.

“It was the right thing to do and it was the right time to do it,” Forcia told Reuters news agency, in apparent reference to more than two weeks of protests over the police killing of Floyd, an unarmed Black man. 

Native American activists have long objected to honouring Columbus, saying that his expeditions to the Americas led to the colonisation and genocide of their ancestors.

01:45 GMT – Australian officials warn of arrest, fines at BLM rallies

Australian police are warning those that attend public rallies in support of Black Lives Matter risk fines and arrest if they breach social distancing restrictions, as politicians warn the events risk spreading the disease.

Tens of thousands attended rallies last weekend, and more protests are planned on Friday.

“We will start writing tickets of 1,000 Australian dollars ($700), and we can use all our powers to move people on,” New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller told local radio station 2GB Radio. “If you don’t move on, you’ll be arrested.”

The Black Lives Matter movement has refocused attention on Australia’s treatment of its Indigenous people and the high number of Aboriginal deaths in custody.

01:10 GMT – US Soccer lifts 2017 ruling banning protests during anthem

The US Soccer Federation says it has repealed a 2017 requirement that all players stand during the national anthem.

The sport’s governing body introduced the policy after Megan Rapinoe, a member of the US women’s team took a knee before a match in 2016 to show her solidarity with American football player Colin Kaepernick who took a knee to bring attention to racial injustice.

“We apologize to our players – especially our black players – staff, fans and all who support eradicating racism,” the federation said in a statement.

“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.”

00:30 GMT – Owners of Minnesota Twins pledge $25m for racial justice

The Pohlad family – the owners of the Minnesota Twins baseball team – have pledged $25m for racial justice.

“Black people have experienced oppression and racism for far too long in this country,” Bill Pohlad, the president of the Pohlad Family Foundation, said in a statement. “We condemn racism in all its forms, and we are firmly committed to helping enact meaningful change. We know this will take time and effort and we are committed to this work beyond this seminal moment in our country’s history.”  

The Pohlad Family Announces $25 Million Commitment to Racial Justice in the Twin Cities. https://t.co/53gbM27IWA pic.twitter.com/EGaTssIGhe

— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) June 10, 2020

Wednesday, June 10

22:10 GMT – US House Speaker demands Confederacy statues removed

Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to the House-Senate panel in charge of the National Statuary Hall collection in the Capitol to take down the likenesses of 11 Confederate soldiers and officials that she said “pay homage to hate, not heritage”.

Calling the halls of Congress “the very heart of our democracy” she said the statues should embody Americans’ “highest ideals” – not men “who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end”.

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 U.S. Capitol of the 11 statues representing Confederate soldiers and officials. These statues pay homage to hate, not heritage.

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) June 10, 2020

The letter is the latest move in the wake of global protests over racism, to remove statues of those associated with perpetrating it. Across the United States and internationally, statues have been toppled, removed or covered. 

21:23 GMT – NASCAR to ban Confederate flags at events 

US professional stock-car racing league NASCAR says will ban Confederate flags at future events, according to a report in the Washington Post.

“The presence of the Confederate flag … runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry,” NASCAR said in a statement.

The decision comes two days after Bubba Wallace, the only African American driving in the NASCAR Cup Series, requested NASCAR ban the flag viewed as a symbol of hate for many. 

Wallace used a #BlackLivesMatter livery on his Richard Petty Motorsport Chevrolet for a race at Martinsville Speedway on Wednesday.

? pic.twitter.com/GzkbpEAROM

— Bubba Wallace (@BubbaWallace) June 7, 2020

“I think it’s going to speak volumes for what I stand for, but also what the initiative that NASCAR, the whole sport, is trying to push,” Wallace said before the decision.

19:15 GMT – White House says finalising proposals on police reform 

The White House says it is putting the finishing touches on proposals to reform the police, and that reducing immunity for officers is a “non-starter”.

Speaking at a White House briefing, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said administration plans to address protester concerns about police brutality are reaching “final edits,” and said the proposals could be made public in the “coming days”.

19:00 GMT – Trump rules out renaming US bases named for Confederate leaders

President Donald Trump rejected any proposal to rename US military bases that are named for Confederate leaders from the 1860s civil war.

As many as 10 bases carry the names of Confederate leaders, including Fort Bragg in North Carolina, one of the largest in the United States, and Fort Hood in Texas. Discussions about renaming them emerged as a way of racial reconciliation.

“The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations…” Trump wrote in a tweet.

…history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020

17:45 GMT – Boston to offer COVID-19 testing to protesters

Boston is offering those who joined street protests following Floyd’s death access to coronavirus testing.

Mayor Marty Walsh said in a news conference that his administration was reaching out to organisers of the demonstrations and is working to create a mobile pop-up testing site in a Boston neighbourhood that will be open to everyone, whether or not they are showing signs of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

“There is no special screening or requirements,” Walsh said. “As people lift their voices to fight racism and injustice, we want to make sure that we keep them safe, as well.”

16:35 GMT – Thousands attend Black Lives Matter demo in Amsterdam

Thousands of people demonstrated in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in a park in Amsterdam named for South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.

It was the latest in a series of protests in Dutch cities that have taken place in recent days.

“We are here to hold up a fist against the global pandemic of racism,” protester Mitchell Esajas told the crowd.

Public debate about racism, discrimination and historical links to the slave trade have intensified in the Netherlands since Floyd’s death.

A Dutch human rights organisation called on the government to appoint a coordinator to help tackle what it called “structural discrimination” in the Netherlands.

15:45 GMT – Minneapolis police chief takes on union, promises reform

The Minneapolis Police Department will withdraw from police union contract negotiations, Chief Medaria Arradondo said as he announced the first steps in what he said would be transformational reforms to the agency.

Arradondo said a thorough review of the contract is planned. He said the contract needs to be restructured to provide more transparency and flexibility for true reform. The review would look at matters such as critical incident protocols, use of force and disciplinary protocols, including grievances and arbitration.

He said it was debilitating for a chief when there were grounds to terminate an officer and a third-party mechanism worked to keep that person on the street.

“This work must be transformational, but I must do it right,” Arradondo said of changes to the department.

He also promised new research and strategies to spot and intervene with problem officers.

“We will have a police department that our communities view as legitimate, trusting and working with their best interests at heart,” he said, adding that the department has to address issues of racism head-on.

15:00 GMT – ‘Teach them what necessary force is’: George Floyd’s brother calls for police reforms

Legislators heard urgent pleas from George Floyd’s brother, who called for reforms and better training for police officers.

“Teach them what necessary force is,” he said, “Teach them that necessary force should be used rarely, and only when life is at risk.”

He also reminded the panel that police were called because his brother had allegedly used a counterfeit $20 bill.

“George wasn’t hurt anyone that day. He didn’t deserve to die, over $20. I’m asking you. Is that what is that what a Black man is worth – $20? This is 2020. Enough is enough. The people watching in the streets are telling you enough is enough,” he said.

The judiciary panel is preparing to shepherd a sweeping Democratic package of legislation aimed at combating police violence and racial injustice to the House floor by July 4, and is expected to hold further hearings next week to prepare the bill for a full House vote.

14:40 GMT – ‘I’m tired, I’m tired of the pain,’ George Floyd’s brother says

George Floyd’s brother testified on Wednesday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on issues of racial profiling, police brutality and lost trust between police departments and the communities they serve.

“I’m tired. I’m tired of the pain I’m feeling now, and I’m tired of the pain I feel every time another Black person is killed for no reason,” Philonise Floyd said during his testimony.

“I’m here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain. Stop us from being tired,” Floyd said. “George’s calls for help were ignored. Please listen to the call I’m making to you now, to the calls of our family, and to the calls ringing out in the streets across the world.”

“If his death ends up changing the world for the better. And I think it will. I think it has. Then he died as he lived. It is on you to make sure his death isn’t in vain,” he said.

Read more here.

14:35 GMT – White House defends Trump’s conspiracy theory tweet on Buffalo protester

The White House on Wednesday defended President Donald Trump’s promotion of an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about a 75-year-old protester injured by police in Buffalo, saying it was Trump’s “prerogative” to raise questions about the incident.

The protester, Martin Gugino, was shoved by police and critically injured when he approached them during a march against racism and police brutality in an incident that was captured on video and led to criminal charges against the officers involved.

Trump, offering no evidence, tweeted on Tuesday that Gugino’s fall could be a “set up” with ties to the anti-fascist movement Antifa.

Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2020

“The president was just raising some questions, some legitimate ones, about that particular interaction. And it’s his prerogative to do so,” White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told Fox News on Wednesday.

A lawyer for Gugino called Trump’s statement “dark, dangerous, and untrue,” according to media reports. Gugino told USA Today he had “no comment other than Black Lives Matter” and that he has been released from intensive care and “should recover eventually”.

Buffalo Police Officers Aaron Torgalski, 39, and Robert McCabe, 32, face felony assault charges over the incident.

14:30 GMT – Twitter, Square to make June 19 a holiday to support racial diversity

Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of Square Inc and Twitter Inc, said June 19, popularly known as “Juneteenth”, would be a permanent company-wide holiday in the United States to show support for racial diversity.

Both Twitter and Square are making #Juneteenth (June 19th) a company holiday in the US, forevermore. A day for celebration, education, and connection.https://t.co/xmR3fWMiRs

— jack (@jack) June 9, 2020

June 19 commemorates the US abolition of slavery by President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which was belatedly announced in the state of Texas on June 19, 1865, after the end of the Civil War.

14:25 GMT – US top doctor expresses concerns about protests spreading coronavirus

The US top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, expressed concern that recent mass protests against police brutality and racism would spread the novel coronavirus because of a lack of social distancing.

Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told ABC’s Good Morning America he is not surprised that members of the Washington, DC National Guard who mobilised in response to the protests had tested positive, but he called the development “disturbing”.

“The issue of physical separation is important. Masks can help, but it’s masks plus physical separation and when you get congregations like we saw with the demonstrations, like we have said – myself and other health officials – that’s taking a risk,” Fauci said. “Unfortunately, what we’re seeing now is just an example of the kinds of things we were concerned about.”

14:15 GMT – Netflix launches Black Lives Matter collection for viewers

Streaming service Netflix announced that it is promoting a new “Black Lives Matter” collection to US subscribers, featuring more than 45 movies, television shows and documentaries about racial injustice and the experience of Black Americans.

The collection includes Da 5 Bloods, 13th, When They See Us, Mudbound, Orange Is the New Black, Dear White People, as well as Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning Moonlight.

When we say “Black Lives Matter,” we also mean “Black storytelling matters.”

With an understanding that our commitment to true, systemic change will take time – we’re starting by highlighting powerful and complex narratives about the Black experience.

— Netflix (@netflix) June 10, 2020

“When we say ‘Black Lives Matter,’ we also mean ‘Black storytelling matters,'” Netflix said in a tweet. “With an understanding that our commitment to true, systemic change will take time – we’re starting by highlighting powerful and complex narratives about the Black experience.”

12:50 GMT – George Floyd’s brother to address US House panel on police reforms

One of the brothers of George Floyd is due to speak to a Democratic-led congressional panel as legislators take on the twin issues of police violence and racial injustice.

Philonise Floyd, 42, will testify before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, along with family lawyer Ben Crump and 10 others at the first congressional hearing to examine the social and political undercurrents that have fuelled weeks of protests nationwide and overseas.

The judiciary panel is preparing to shepherd a sweeping package of legislation, aimed at combating police violence and racial injustice, to the House floor by July 4, and is expected to hold further hearings next week to prepare the bill for a full House vote.

12:45 GMT – Confederate monument in Virginia covered with rubbish bags

Protesters in Portsmouth, Virginia, covered a Confederate monument in the city with rubbish bags and sheets, several hours after the city’s council members had a meeting to figure out ways to relocate it.

A white sheet that read “BLM” – the acronym for Black Lives Matter – covered the fence in front of the monument hours after the Portsmouth city council met to discuss who owns the figure, a local TV channel reported. The question about who owns the monument has been the main roadblock in the city’s years-long quest to remove it.

In Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Christopher Columbus was torn down by protesters, set on fire and then thrown into a lake on Tuesday. The statue was toppled less than two hours after protesters gathered in the city’s Byrd Park chanted for the statue to be taken down, news outlets reported.

12:40 GMT – Corrections officer among group that mocked Floyd’s killing as protesters marched by

A white man seen in a video circulating on social media mocking George Floyd’s death included a corrections officer in South Jersey, local media reported.

The man – whose identity has not been verified – was filmed kneeling on another man, recreating how Floyd died on May 25, while Black Lives Matter protesters marched by.

The New Jersey Department of Corrections confirmed in a statement that the man in the video was a corrections officer at Bayside State Prison and that he has been suspended while the agency conducts an investigation.

“We have been made aware that one of our officers from Bayside State Prison participated in the filming of a hateful and disappointing video that mocked the killing of George Floyd,” an NJ Department of Corrections statement said. 

---

Catch up on Tuesday’s updates here.

Years before a bystander’s video of George Floyd’s last moments turned his name into a global cry for justice, Floyd trained a camera on himself.

“I’ve got my shortcomings and my flaws,” Floyd says in one video, addressing young men in his neighborhood. His 6-foot-7 frame crowds the picture.

“But, man, the shootings that’s going on, I don’t care what ’hood you’re from … Put them guns down.”

At the time, Floyd was respected for speaking from hard, but hardly extraordinary, experience. He had nothing remotely like the stature he has gained in death. But the reality of his 46 years was both fuller and more complicated.

Once a star athlete offered a partial scholarship, Floyd returned home to bounce between jobs before serving nearly five years in prison. A mentor in a housing project beset by poverty, he decided the way forward was to leave it behind.

“He had made some mistakes that cost him some years of his life,” said Ronnie Lillard, a friend and rapper who performs as Reconcile. “And when he got out of that, I think the Lord greatly impacted his heart.”

Floyd’s mother, a single parent, moved the family from North Carolina to Houston when he was 2. They settled in the Cuney Homes, a warren of more than 500 apartments in Houston’s Third Ward.

Long a cornerstone of Houston’s black community, it has gentrified in recent years. But incomes remain half the city average, with unemployment nearly four times higher.

Larcenia Floyd invested hopes in her son, who as a second-grader wrote of aspiring to be a Supreme Court justice. Floyd was a star tight end at Jack Yates High School, but atypical for a football player.

“If you said something to him, his head would drop,” said Maurice McGowan, his coach. “He just wasn’t going to ball up and act like he wanted to fight you.”

On the basketball court, Floyd won attention from George Walker, coach at what is now South Florida State College. The school was 17 hours away, but school administrators and Floyd’s mother urged him to go.

“They wanted George to really get out of the neighborhood, to do something, be something,” Walker said.

Floyd and other players from Houston stood out for their size and city style.

“He was always telling me about the Third Ward,” said Robert Caldwell, a friend and fellow student. “He said people know how to grind, as hard as it is, people know how to love.”

After two years in Florida and one at Texas A&M University in Kingsville, Floyd returned to Houston to work in construction and security.

When a neighbor went to prison on drug charges, Larcenia Floyd took in the woman’s preteen son, Cal Wayne, deputizing George to play older brother for the next two and a half years.

“We would steal his jerseys and put his jerseys on and run around …, jerseys all the way down to our ankles because he was so big and we were little,” said Wayne, now a well-known rapper who credits Floyd with encouraging him to pursue music.

Floyd, he said, “was like a superhero.”

Floyd, too, dabbled in music, occasionally rapping with Robert Earl Davis Jr. — better known as DJ Screw, whose mixtapes helped chart Houston as a hotbed of hip-hop.

But the man known throughout Cuney as “Big Floyd,” started finding trouble.

Between 1997 and 2005, Floyd was arrested several times on drug and theft charges, spending months in jail.

In 2007, Floyd was charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. Investigators said Floyd and other men barged into an apartment, where he pushed a pistol into a woman’s abdomen. Floyd pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years. When he was paroled in 2013 he was nearing 40.

“He came home with his head on right,” friend Travis Cains said.

At a Christian rap concert, Floyd met Lillard and pastor Patrick “PT” Ngwolo, whose ministry was looking to reach Cuney residents. Floyd volunteered to be their guide.

Soon Floyd was setting up a washtub on the basketball courts for baptisms by Ngwolo’s newly formed Resurrection Houston congregation. He knocked on doors, introducing Ngwolo to candidates for grocery deliveries or Bible study.

On the streets, Floyd was embraced as an O.G. — literally “original gangster,” but bestowed as a title of respect.

In Tiffany Cofield’s classroom at a neighborhood school, some of her male students — many of whom had already had brushes with the law — told her to talk to “Big Floyd” if she wanted to understand.

Floyd would listen patiently and try to explain life in the projects. After school, he often met up Cofield’s students outside a corner store.

“How’s school going?” he’d ask. “Are you being respectful? How’s your mom?”

In 2014, Floyd began exploring the possibility of leaving.

After fathering five children, he had bills to pay. And more than once, Floyd ended up in handcuffs when police came through the projects, Cofield said.

“He would show by example: ‘Yes, officer. No, officer.’ Very respectful,” she said.

Floyd followed a friend who had moved to Minneapolis through a church program offering to help men change their environment and find jobs.

In Minnesota, Floyd got a security job at a Salvation Army shelter, then trained to drive trucks while working as a club bouncer, until the pandemic forced its closure.

On Memorial Day, convenience store workers accused Floyd of paying for cigarettes with a counterfeit bill, then called the police. Less than an hour later, Floyd breathed his last.

Those who knew him search for meaning in his death.

“I’ve come to the belief that he was chosen,” said Cofield, the teacher. “Only this could have happened to him because of who he was and the amount of love that he had for people, people had for him.”

It’s small comfort, she admits. But in Big Floyd’s neighborhood, people have made do with less.

David J. Phillip | AP

In this Sunday, photo, the sun shines above a mural honoring George Floyd in Houston’s Third Ward. Floyd, who grew up in the Third Ward, died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on Memorial Day.

Luis Andres Henao, Nomann Merchant, Juan Lozano and Adam Geller, The Associated Press •
June 10, 2020 8:27 am

HOUSTON — Years before a bystander’s video of George Floyd’s last moments turned his name into a global cry for justice, Floyd trained a camera on himself.

“I just want to speak to you all real quick,” Floyd says in one video, addressing the young men in his neighborhood who looked up to him. His 6-foot-7 frame crowds the picture.

“I’ve got my shortcomings and my flaws and I ain’t better than nobody else,” he says. “But, man, the shootings that’s going on, I don’t care what ‘hood you’re from, where you’re at, man. I love you and God loves you. Put them guns down.”

At the time, Floyd was respected as a man who spoke from hard, but hardly extraordinary, experience. He had nothing remotely like the stature he has gained in death, embraced as a universal symbol of the need to overhaul policing and held up as a heroic everyman.

But the reality of his 46 years on Earth, including sharp edges and setbacks Floyd himself acknowledged, was both much fuller and more complicated.

Once a star athlete with dreams of turning pro and enough talent to win a partial scholarship, Floyd returned home only to bounce between jobs before serving nearly five years in prison. Intensely proud of his roots in Houston’s Third Ward and admired as a mentor in a public housing project beset by poverty, he decided the only way forward was to leave it behind.

“He had made some mistakes that cost him some years of his life,” said Ronnie Lillard, a friend and rapper who performs under the name Reconcile. “And when he got out of that, I think the Lord greatly impacted his heart.”

‘Big Friendly’

Floyd was born in North Carolina. But his mother, a single parent, moved the family to Houston when he was 2, so she could search for work. They settled in the Cuney Homes, a low-slung warren of more than 500 apartments south of downtown nicknamed “The Bricks.”

The neighborhood, for decades a cornerstone of Houston’s black community, has gentrified in recent years. Texas Southern University, a historically black campus directly across the street from the projects, has long held itself out as a launchpad for those willing to strive. But many residents struggle, with incomes about half the city average and unemployment nearly four times higher, even before the recent economic collapse.

Watch: Hundreds march through downtown to protest racial inequality

Yeura Hall, who grew up next door to Floyd, said even in the Third Ward other kids looked down on those who lived in public housing. To deflect the teasing, he, Floyd and other boys made up a song about themselves: “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Cuney Homes kid. They got so many rats and roaches I can play with.”

Larcenia Floyd invested her hopes in her son, who as a second-grader wrote that he dreamed of being a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

“She thought that he would be the one that would bring them out of poverty and struggle,” said Travis Cains, a longtime friend.

Floyd was a star tight end for the football team at Jack Yates High School, playing for the losing side in the 1992 state championship game at the Houston Astrodome.

He was an atypical football player. “We used to call him ‘Big Friendly,’” said Cervaanz Williams, a former teammate.

“If you said something to him, his head would drop,” said Maurice McGowan, his football coach. “He just wasn’t going to ball up and act like he wanted to fight you.”

Watch: Protesters chant “Black Lives Matter” in front of the capitol

On the basketball court, Floyd’s height and strength won attention from George Walker, a former assistant coach at the University of Houston hired for the head job at what is now South Florida State College. The school was a 17-hour drive away, in a small town, but high school administrators and Floyd’s mother urged him to go, Walker said.

“They wanted George to really get out of the neighborhood, to do something, be something,” Walker said.

In Avon Park, Florida, Floyd and a few other players from Houston stood out for their size, accents and city cool. They lived in the Jacaranda Hotel, a historic lodge used as a dormitory, and were known as the “Jac Boys.”

“He was always telling me about the Third Ward of Houston, how rough it was, but how much he loved it,” said Robert Caldwell, a friend and fellow student who frequently traveled with the basketball team. “He said people know how to grind, as hard as it is, people know how to love.”

After two years in Avon Park, Floyd spent a year at Texas A&M University in Kingsville before returning to Houston and his mother’s apartment to find jobs in construction and security.

Larcenia Floyd, known throughout the neighborhood as Ms. Cissy, welcomed her son’s friends from childhood, offering their apartment as refuge when their lives grew stressful. When a neighbor went to prison on drug charges, Ms. Cissy took in the woman’s pre-teen son, Cal Wayne, deputizing George to play older brother for the next 2½ years.

“We would steal his jerseys and put his jerseys on and run around the house, go outside, jerseys all the way down to our ankles because he was so big and we were little,” said Wayne, now a well-known rapper who credits Floyd with encouraging him to pursue music.

George Floyd, he said, “was like a superhero.”

Brushes with the law

Floyd, too, dabbled in music, occasionally invited to rap with Robert Earl Davis Jr. — better known as DJ Screw, whose mixtapes have since been recognized as influential in charting Houston’s place as a hotbed of hip-hop.

But then, the man known throughout Cuney as “Big Floyd,” started finding trouble.

Between 1997 and 2005, Floyd was arrested several times on drug and theft charges, spending months in jail. Around that time, Wayne’s mother, Sheila Masters, recalled running into Floyd in the street and learning he was homeless.

“He’s so tall he’d pat me on my head … and say, ‘Mama you know it’s going to be all right,’” Masters said.

Watch: Protesters gather outside Bangor Police Department

In August 2007, Floyd was arrested and charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. Investigators said he and five other men barged into a woman’s apartment, and Floyd pushed a pistol into her abdomen before searching for items to steal. Floyd pleaded guilty in 2009 and was sentenced to five years in prison. By the time he was paroled, in January 2013, he was nearing 40.

“He came home with his head on right,” his friend Travis Cains said.

At a Christian rap concert in the Third Ward, Floyd met Lillard and pastor Patrick “PT” Ngwolo, whose ministry was looking for ways to reach residents in Cuney Homes. Floyd, who seemed to know everyone in the project, volunteered to be their guide.

Soon Floyd was setting up a washtub on the Cuney basketball courts for baptisms by Ngwolo’s newly formed Resurrection Houston congregation. He joined three-on-three basketball tournaments and barbecues, organized by the ministry. He knocked on doors with Ngwolo, introducing residents as candidates for grocery deliveries or Bible study.

Another pastor, Christopher Johnson, recalled Floyd stopping by his office while Johnson’s mother was visiting. Decades had passed since Johnson’s mother had been a teacher at Floyd’s high school. It didn’t matter. He wrapped her in a bear hug.

“I don’t think he ever thought of himself as being big,” Johnson said. “There’s a lot of big dudes here, but he was a gentleman and a diplomat and I’m not putting any sauce on it.”

On the streets of Cuney, Floyd was increasingly embraced as an O.G. — literally “original gangster,” but bestowed as a title of respect for a mentor who’d learned from life experience.

In Tiffany Cofield’s classroom at a neighborhood charter school, some of her male students — many of whom had already had brushes with the law — told her to talk to “Big Floyd” if she wanted to understand.

Floyd would listen patiently as she voiced her frustrations with students’ bad behavior, she said. And he would try to explain the life of a young man in the projects.

After school, Floyd often met up with her students outside a corner store.

“How’s school going?” he’d ask. “Are you being respectful? How’s your mom? How’s your grandma?”

Strong but tender

In 2014, Floyd began exploring the possibility of leaving the neighborhood.

As the father of five children from several relationships, he had bills to pay. And despite his stature in Cuney, everyday life could be trying. More than once, Floyd ended up in handcuffs when police came through the projects and detained a large number of men, Cofield said.

“He would show by example: ‘Yes, officer. No, officer.’ Very respectful. Very calm tone,” she said.

Watch: Portland sees Maine’s largest rally over George Floyd

A friend of Floyd’s had already moved to the Twin Cities as part of a church discipleship program that offered men a route to self-sufficiency by changing their environment and helping them find jobs.

“He was looking to start over fresh, a new beginning,” said Christopher Harris, who preceded Floyd to Minneapolis. Friends provided Floyd with money and clothing to ease the transition.

In Minneapolis, Floyd found a job as a security guard at the Salvation Army’s Harbor Light Center — the city’s largest homeless shelter.

“He would regularly walk a couple of female co-workers out … at night and make sure they got to their cars safely and securely,” said Brian Molohon, director of development for the Army’s Minnesota office. “Just a big strong guy, but with a very tender side.”

Floyd left after a little over a year, training to drive trucks while working as a bouncer at a club called Conga Latin Bistro.

“He would dance badly to make people laugh,” said the owner, Jovanni Thunstrom. “I tried to teach him how to dance because he loved Latin music, but I couldn’t because he was too tall for me.”

Floyd kept his connection to Houston, regularly returning to Cuney.

When Houston hosted the Super Bowl in 2017, Floyd was back in town, hosting a party at the church with music and free AIDS testing. He came back again for his mother’s funeral the next year. And when Cains spoke with him last, a few weeks ago, Floyd was planning another trip for this summer.

By then, Floyd was out of work. Early this spring, Thunstrom cut Floyd’s job when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the club to close.

On the evening of Memorial Day, Floyd was with two others when convenience store employees accused him of paying for cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill, then called the police. Less than an hour later, Floyd breathed his last.

Those who knew him search for meaning in his death.

“I’ve come to the belief that he was chosen,” said Cofield, the teacher. “Only this could have happened to him because of who he was and the amount of love that he had for people, people had for him.”

It’s a small comfort, she admits. But, then, in Big Floyd’s neighborhood, people have long made do with less.

Associated Press writer Aaron Morrison and videographer John Mone contributed to this report.

Watch: Police departments speak on recent Portland protests

 

…

---

AGUSTIN PAULLIER/AFP via Getty ImagesBy JON HAWORTH, EMILY SHAPIRO, MEREDITH DELISO and MARC NATHANSON, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — The death of George Floyd, a black man who died on Memorial Day after he was pinned down by a white Minnesota police officer, has sparked outrage, protests and calls for police reform in Minneapolis, across the United States and around the world.

Second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter charges have been filed against Derek Chauvin, the ex-officer who prosecutors say held his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. The three other officers have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting manslaughter. All four officers have been fired.

Here is how the news unfolded on Monday. All times Eastern:

9:44 p.m.: Los Angeles will not prosecute peaceful curfew breakers

Demonstrators in Los Angeles who broke curfew during recent protests will not be prosecuted, officials said.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey announced that curfew violators and those who failed to disperse when ordered by police will not be prosecuted, and City of Los Angeles officials likewise said they will not prosecute those who were arrested “for nonviolent offenses during the protests.”

“Powerful, peaceful, passionate protest is inseparable from the American identity, and I am proud of the thousands of Angelenos who have filled our streets to call for justice, cry out for change, and demand racial equality for Black Angelenos and all communities of color,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement. “I fully support City Attorney Mike Feuer’s decision not to prosecute or seek any punishment for those who broke curfew or failed to disperse during the recent protests, unless those cases involve violence, vandalism or looting.”

City officials, however, said that those arrested will have to take part in a menu of programs or forums involving the “exchange of ideas,” instead of going to court.

7:32 p.m.: Minneapolis looking at ‘year of engagement’ in police plan

The Minneapolis City Council said that it is committed to a year of public engagement in its intent to disband the city’s police department in favor of a more community-oriented agency.

“I know that we have committed ourselves to a year of engagement. If we move faster than that, that’s awesome,” Councilman Jeremiah Ellison said Monday in a Zoom call with press hosted by the Justice Collaborative. “You also have to understand that the Minneapolis Police Department has been around for 150 years. So developing an entirely new apparatus for public safety, we’ve got to do our due diligence and communicate with the public about that.”

Councilwoman Alondra Cano, the council’s public safety chair, said she wants to get input from the police department in addition to the community.

The City Council said it plans to redirect funds from the police department to other community safety strategies. The council was set to receive an amended city budget from Mayor Jacob Frey on June 12 and make its final determination on June 30, though that timeline may have shifted, Cano said.

“I believe that we should and can redirect funds from MPD into other community safety strategies that can help inform and bring life to that new public safety system that we all want to create,” Cano said. “I do want to redirect funds from MPD when we get the chance to take that vote. I’m hoping that happens within the next 30 days.”

City Council President Lisa Bender noted that the city’s budget is in a “very different place” than it was a few months ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’ll be budgeting in a very different environment starting very soon in July,” she said, adding that that might impact the City Council’s priorities.

With the police union’s contract currently up for negotiation, Ellison said it’s unclear at this time if the council would move forward with the bargaining agreement.

6 p.m.: Attorney for accused officer says rookie cop committed no crime

An attorney for one of the former police officers accused in the death of George Floyd tells ABC News that his client did not commit a crime and will not be pleading guilty in the case.

Earl Gray, the attorney for former officer Thomas Lane, tells ABC News’ Alex Perez that Lane had been on the job for only four days at the time of the incident and that he relied heavily on the advice and training of 20-year veteran officer Derek Chauvin, who was seen on video holding Floyd down with his knee on Floyd’s neck.

Lane was “concerned about the guy,” and after medics arrived he “jumped in the ambulance” to perform CPR, Gray said.

Gray said that Lane asked three times, “Shall we roll him over?” but Chauvin refused.

“My client did exactly what he was supposed to do — followed the experienced officer’s advice,” Gray said. “He had no knowledge that Chauvin was killing this guy.”

Gray said that Lane would not be accepting a plea deal in the case.

5:25 p.m.: Portland police chief to resign

The chief of the Portland Police Bureau in Oregon says she’s stepping aside for new leadership following protests that have rippled through the city.

Jami Resch, who is white, is resigning as chief of the bureau and will be replaced with Lt. Chuck Lovell, who is black, the bureau announced Monday.

“Over the last 10 days I’ve watched our city, I’ve listened and I hear you,” Resch said at a press briefing.

Lovell said he’s heard concerns from the black community that “we don’t feel like you treat us the same.”

“I’m going to listen, I’m going to care about the community and I’m going to care about the people in the organization,” he said.

Resch, who was sworn in as chief in late December, said she will remain with the bureau in some capacity.

“When Chief Resch told me that she believed our community needed new voices to lead the conversation around community safety, I agreed,” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said at the briefing. “Together, we’re going to work on meaningful and bold reforms within the Portland Police Bureau.”

Last week, Resch asked the city to “come together to stop those who are holding our city with violence” after some protests resulted in vandalism, the Associated Press reported.

4:15 p.m.: France bans police chokeholds

France’s government on Monday announced a new ban on chokeholds by police.

“The French police are not the American police,” Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said, “but legitimate questions arose … I decided to take measures because no one should risk their life during an arrest.”

Castaner said the neck grips will be abandoned and no longer be taught in police schools, calling it a “dangerous method. “

Also, if a police officer “has to maintain someone on the ground during their arrest, it will now be forbidden to lean on their neck or back of neck,” Castaner said.

3:30 p.m.: Alleged KKK leader arrested for driving into protesters, prosecutor says

A Virginia prosecutor says she’s considering hate crime charges against a man who was arrested for allegedly driving into protesters Sunday night.

The suspect, “by his own admission and by a cursory glance at his social media, is an admitted leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a propagandist for Confederate ideology,” Henrico Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor said in a statement Monday.

Taylor said her office is “investigating whether hate crime charges are appropriate.”

At this time the suspect is charged with assault and battery, attempted malicious wounding and felony vandalism, prosecutors said. It doesn’t appear anyone was seriously injured Sunday night.

Taylor said, “Protesters acting peaceably, well within their constitutional rights of assembly, should not have to fear violence. We lived through this in Charlottesville in 2017. I promise Henricoans that this egregious criminal act will not go unpunished.”

2:50 p.m.: DC considering emergency police reform legislation

On Tuesday, the city council in Washington, D.C. will consider emergency legislation to ban chokeholds, speed up release of body camera video and increase funding for alternative measures to reduce and respond to crime.

City Council Chairman Phil Mendelson told reporters Monday that he believes the bill will pass and said that the council might also look at transferring funds from the police department to pay for alternative means of policing.

Mayor Muriel Bowser said she expects to support the bill, adding, “we want to make sure we understand the technicalities.”

This announcement comes amid a rallying cry to “defund the police,” a message seen on signs and streets during protests.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in D.C. to protest Saturday, the city’s largest protest in the wake of Floyd’s death.

D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said no arrests were made in connection to Saturday’s demonstration.

“I heard the protests described as largely without violence,” said Newsham. “I would correct that statement and say exclusively without violence.”

1:30 p.m.: Public viewing begins in Houston for George Floyd

A six-hour public viewing is underway for George Floyd at a church in Houston, his hometown.

Mourners in masks have lined up in the blazing heat to show their respects.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was among those in attendance.

Floyd’s funeral will be in Houston on Tuesday.

12:57 p.m.: Confederate monument taken down in Louisville

A monument of Confederate Officer John Breckenridge Castleman was taken down in Louisville, Kentucky, Monday morning after a judge ruled on Friday that the city had the right to do so.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer tweeted, “We have much more to do to dismantle the structures that got us here. This is just one step, & I promise to do everything needed so that African Americans in our city are afforded the justice, opportunity & equity they deserve.”

The statue will go to a storage facility where it’ll be cleaned. It’ll later be taken to the cemetery where Castleman is buried, city officials said.

This comes just days after officials announced the removal of Confederate-era monuments in Virginia and Indiana.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Thursday said Richmond’s statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee would be taken down.

Northam said the statue’s size and prominence in the city “sends a message” to young children who visit Richmond and ask about the towering monument.

“We can no longer honor a system that was based on the buying and selling of enslaved people,” he said.

Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett on Thursday said a monument dedicated to Confederate soldiers who died at a prison camp in the city will be removed from a local park.

The monument, initially in a cemetery, was put in the park in 1928 after “efforts by public officials, active in the KKK, who sought to ‘make the monument more visible to the public,’” Hogsett tweeted.

“Whatever original purpose this grave marker might once have had, for far too long it has served as nothing more than a painful reminder of our state’s horrific embrace of the Ku Klux Klan a century ago,” Hogsett said. “Time is up, and this grave marker will come down.”

12:07 p.m.: Cuomo says he’ll sign police reform bills ‘as soon as they are passed’

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said he’ll sign new policing and criminal justice reform bills “as soon as they are passed.”

He said proposals in new state legislation include: disciplinary record transparency; banning chokeholds; and appointing the state attorney general as a special prosecutor in police shooting cases to promote objectivity.

“How many times do you have to see the same situation before you act? And we are going to act in the state of New York,” Cuomo said.

“We worked with the legislature over the weekend — I think we have an agreement on the bills that are going to be introduced,” Cuomo said. “If they pass the bills that we have discussed, I will sign the bills and I will sign them as soon as they are passed.”

11:26 a.m.: Mom speaks out after son shot dead by officers during protests

The mother of David McAtee, a black man shot dead by officers during protests, said Monday, “the only thing I want for my son is peace and justice.”

At about 12:15 a.m. on June 1, members of the Louisville, Kentucky, police and Kentucky National Guard were trying to disperse a crowd when they “were fired upon,” Gov. Andy Beshear said last week.

The local police and National Guard returned fire, resulting in McAtee’s death, officials said.

McAtee then appeared to fire a gun outside his restaurant, toward the officers, police said.

Officers took cover and returned fire, police said.

McAtee’s mother, Odessa Riley, said at a news conference Monday that McAtee “had nothing in his hand” in the video and did not fire the first shot.

Steve Romines, an attorney for McAtee’s family, said police claim McAtee fired first in an effort “to steer public opinion against the victim.”

If the officers’ body cameras were on, a lot of questions could be answered right now, the attorneys for the family said.

Romines said he does not believe McAtee fired a weapon at all — especially if the restaurant owner knew it was law enforcement there.

“David loved law enforcement,” he said.

After McAtee was shot, Riley said that “no ambulance showed up — my son laid in there for 12 long hours.”

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer last week said “it was outrageous his body was left at the scene.”

Fischer said this case did not have as many investigators as usual because of the protests. Homicide investigators had to interview hundreds of National Guard members before the body could be removed, he said.

Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad was fired after it was announced that no body camera footage was available of McAtee’s shooting.

Conrad previously said he would retire at the end of June after facing immense pressure following the March death of Breonna Taylor, a young black woman who was shot dead by police while in her home.

No charges have been filed in connection with Taylor’s death.

Congressional Democrats took a knee inside the Capitol Monday morning to observe a moment of silence in honor of George Floyd.

The moment of silence lasted 8 minutes and 46 seconds — the length of time Chauvin allegedly pinned Floyd to the ground.

Those participating included Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and California Sen. Kamala Harris.

The moment of silence came just before House and Senate Democrats held a news conference to unveil the Justice In Policing Act of 2020.

Goals of the legislation include: removing the barrier of prosecuting police misconduct; demilitarizing the police; and combating police brutality by requiring body cameras and dashboard cameras.

“This has never been done before at the federal level,” Schumer said at the news conference.

“We cannot settle for anything less than transformative, structural change,” Pelosi said.

Schumer called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring the bill to the floor of the Senate before July.

“A divided nation cannot wait for healing, for solutions,” Schumer said.

7:14 a.m.: Minneapolis mayor: ‘Am I for completely abolishing the police department? No I am not’

Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, spoke with ABC News’ Good Morning America Monday about addressing the Minneapolis City Council’s intent to move toward dismantling the city’s police department and police reform.

In the interview, Frey doubled down on his opposition to abolishing the police department.

“Let me be clear, I am for massive structural and transformational reform to an entire system that has not for generations worked for black and brown people.” Frey said. ” We have failed them and we need to entirely reshape the system. We need a full on cultural shift in how our police department and departments throughout the country function. Am I for entirely abolishing the police department? No, I’m not.”

Frey said he is looking forward to working with the Minneapolis City Council on coming up with a solution and that he would be working with them directly on coming up with a compromise and clarified the kinds of reforms he will be pushing for in the coming days.

“There are so many areas where both mayors and chiefs, elected officials and otherwise, have been hamstrung for generations because we can’t get that necessary culture shift because we have difficulty both terminating and disciplining officers and then getting that termination or discipline to stick,” Frey continued. “And so let me be very clear, we’re going after the police union, the police union contract, the arbitration provisions that mandate that we have arbitration at the end of the process and oftentimes that reverts the officer right back to where they were to begin with. We need to be able to have the culture shift and if we’re going to do that it also means we need to have the ability to discipline officers to begin with.”

Frey also reiterated the importance of using the momentum that has been building toward fundamental and structural reforms of the existing system.

But his opinion has not been a popular one within his own community.

On Saturday the mayor was booed out of a protest after he said he did not support abolishing the police department.

A protester asked Frey if he supported defunding the police department, however, he did not answer that question and instead said he “did not support the full abolition of the police.”

Boos quickly permeated through the crowd and protesters chanted, “Go home Jacob! Go home!”

Activists have called for defunding police departments in the U.S., often meaning taking money out of the police budget and putting it toward the community. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced such a measure earlier this week.

Said Frey: “I support people expressing their first amendment rights even when it means that they’re calling me out. So is it difficult? Yes, of course, it’s difficult. But let’s remember this is not about me. This is about the tragic murder of George Floyd by a police officer. We need to be grounded in that as we move forward.”

6:41 a.m.: Family of George Floyd appeals to UN to intervene in case

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, the legal team, and the family of George Floyd have submitted an Urgent Appeal to the United Nations to intervene in the case of Floyd’s death and make recommendations for systemic police reform in the U.S., according to a statement released by Crump.

In a June 3 letter, Crump and George Floyd’s family urged the UN to investigate the circumstances around the death of Floyd at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers and sent recommendations for systemic police reform.

“Among the reforms requested were deescalating techniques, independent prosecutions and autopsies for every extrajudicial police killing in an effort to stop further human rights abuses including torture and extrajudicial killings of African Americans to protect their inherent and fundamental human right to life,” the statement read.

Said Crump: “The United States of America has a long pattern and practice of depriving Black citizens of the fundamental human right to life … The United States government has consistently failed to hold police accountable and did not bring Federal criminal charges even in cases with irrefutable video evidence. When a group of people of any nation have been systemically deprived of their universal human right to life by its government for decades, it must appeal to the international community for its support and to the United Nations for its intervention.”

1:35 a.m.: Trump reignites NFL feud with tweet aimed at football commissioner

President Donald Trump reopened the national anthem debate with the NFL after tweeting a response late Sunday night to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s video.

The video, released on June 5, said the NFL erred in how it dealt with player protests of police brutality and systemic racism.

Trump’s tweet read: “Could it be even remotely possible that in Roger Goodell’s rather interesting statement of peace and reconciliation, he was intimating that it would now be O.K. for the players to KNEEL, or not to stand, for the National Anthem, thereby disrespecting our Country & our Flag?”

Trump seems to have taken issue with Goodell’s statement on Friday.

Goodell had said in a June 5 video, “We, the National Football League, condemn racism and the systematic oppression of black people. We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest.”

“We, the National Football League, believe black lives matter. I personally protest with you and want to be part of the much-needed change in this country,” Goodell said.

An NFL spokesman told ABC News on Sunday that Goodell’s statement was a direct response to a plea from a group of NFL players who directly addressed the league in a message posted on Friday and called on the NFL to “listen to your players.”

Goodell’s message did not address the national anthem, the American flag or kneeling.

In September 2017, Trump, while speaking in Alabama, encouraged team owners to release players who knelt during the anthem.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b—- off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired,’” Trump said at the time.

In a video titled “I am George Floyd” and posted on the NFL’s Twitter page, a group of NFL players including Deshaun Watson, DeAndre Hopkins and Tyrann Mathieu, delivered this message: “How many times do we need to ask you to listen to your players? What will it take? For one of us to be murdered by police brutality?”

“We will not be silent. We reserve our rights to peacefully protest,” the players said.

12:41 a.m.: Seattle police chief and mayor announce new policies

Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best announced that in an attempt to de-escalate tensions between police and protesters, there will be a reduction of officers outside the East precinct where clashes have happened, and the officers will remove some of their protective gear.

It’s of “paramount importance that we meet peace with peace,” she said.

Best also said that her family is out protesting.

Meanwhile, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said she’ll examine the budget of the police department to reprioritize spending and will look for $100 million in the city budget to redirect to a new community commission of Seattle’s black community.

She also announced an emergency order requiring police to turn on their body cameras during demonstrations.

10:56 p.m.: Hollywood march draws upwards of 20,000
Sunday’s protest march in Hollywood drew an estimated 20,000 demonstrators, according to aerial footage from Los Angeles ABC station KABC-TV.

As part of the protest, a Black Lives Matter flag flew atop Hollywood’s iconic Capitol Records building.

In New York City, demonstrations extended into the evening after authorities lifted the curfew that had been in effect.

Largely peaceful protests occurred in Manhattan’s Union Square, Washington Square Park and Columbus Circle, as well as locations throughout Brooklyn.

Protests continued in Boston, Chicago, Miami and Pittsburgh, among other cities.

ABC News’ Dee Carden, Deena Zaru, Marilyn Heck, Ibtissem Guenfoud, Bonnie Mclean and Kirit Radia contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.