WHAT IS GOING IN MINNEAPOLIS?

EARLIER this week, a 46-year-old black man named George Floyd died after a white policeman kneeled on his neck for seven minutes.

On Tuesday hundreds of protesters gathered at the spot where Floyd died. Over the course of the week those protests have turned into large scale demonstrations and unrest.

WHAT’S THE STORY?

ON Monday, a shopkeeper phoned police to say that someone had tried to pass him a counterfeit bill.

Police turned up and arrested Floyd. Surveillance video footage shows a compliant man being led away in handcuffs.

But footage taken just a little later on a smartphone shows an officer pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck.

Despite protests from onlookers, the policeman and his three colleagues refused to budge.

Floyd can be heard repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe,” and then, “I’m about to die.”

When the officer eventually removes his knee, Floyd’s body is limp and unresponsive.

Someone nearby can be heard saying: “They just killed him.”

Floyd was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A police statement said that Floyd appeared to be in “medical distress” but made no mention of his being pinned to the ground.

Footage of the arrest and the death of Floyd soon went viral.

THE DEMONSTRATION

ON Tuesday hundreds of protesters, many wearing face masks to guard against Covid-19, went to the spot where Floyd died.

Police cars were pelted with rocks, and officers responded by firing tear gas.

The four officers implicated – Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J Alexander Kueng – have been fired. The incident is now under federal investigation.

Last night, Chauvin was arrested, but earlier, prosecutors would only say they had not made a decision. This infuriated protesters and crowds gathered outside the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct station house. Some threw fireworks and other items at officers, while the police fired projectiles back.

The stand-off soon spiralled out of control, with officers retreating from the police station in vehicles just after 10pm on Thursday.

Protesters then stormed the building, and started fires.

Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, said at a news conference yesterday morning that he had made the call for officers to flee the Third Precinct, saying: “The symbolism of a building cannot outweigh the importance of life.”

‘GLORIFYING VIOLENCE’

PRESIDENT Trump, unsurprisingly, has not calmed the situation down.

Through he previously called the video of Floyd’s death “shocking” he also appeared to threaten violence when he tweeted: “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen.

“Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

That prompted Twitter to take the highly unusual step of attaching a warning to the tweet, saying that it violated the company’s rules about “glorifying violence”. The “looting starts, shooting starts” phrase has racial overtones, having previously been used by Walter E Headley, a Miami police chief in the late 1960s known for his heavy-handed policies.

Headley announced a “get tough” campaign in a December 1967 news conference that prompted angry reactions from black leaders, The New York Times reported at the time.

“We haven’t had any serious problems with civil uprising and looting,” he said, “because

I’ve let the word filter down that when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

“We don’t mind being accused of police brutality,” Headley also said at that news conference. “They haven’t seen anything yet.”

Trump also criticised Frey, accusing him of “a total lack of leadership”.

“Either the very weak radical left mayor, Jacob Frey, gets his act together and brings the city under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right,” he added.

Frey responded, telling reporters: “Let me say this: weakness is refusing to take responsibility for your own actions. Weakness is pointing your finger at somebody else at a time of crisis.”

He added: “Donald Trump knows nothing about the strength of Minneapolis. We are strong as hell. This is a difficult time, yes, but you better be damn sure that we’re going to get through this.”

CNN’S ARRESTED REPORTERS

ON Friday morning, state police arrested a CNN crew while they were reporting on the unrest. The whole incident was captured on live television.

Reporter Omar Jimenez, producer Bill Kirkos and cameraman Leonel Mendez were released about an hour later.

“A black reporter from CNN was arrested while legally covering the protests in Minneapolis. A white reporter also on the ground was not,” the network said in a statement.

CNN’s worldwide president, Jeff Zucker, said that Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, had personally apologised to him for the incident.

ACROSS THE UNITED STATES

PROTESTERS have turned out in cities across the US, with demonstrations from Los Angeles to New York. One Minneapolis protester said the protests were about more than Floyd’s death.

“This is how our people react, you know? When we’ve been done wrong for so long,” he said.