Black Lives Matter
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Black lives matter is a movement that is both social and political and it is dedicated to fighting police brutality and racism against people who are black living in America. The movement is a political issue that is of great importance to America since it has fought racism via political actions, non-violent protest, and letter writing campaigns. The movement condemns unjust killings of people who are black by the police since black people are mostly killed by the police in the United States compared to whites. The movement also started due to high demand where the society values humanity and the lives of blacks the same way it mostly value humanity and lives of whites. The movement was confounded as online and it was formed after George Zimmerman was put on charges after he had shot Trayvon Martin who was a black teenager and unarmed one. Currently in the year 2020, black lives matter movement has continued to play an important role of demonstrating against racism and police brutality and a good example is killing of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and Aubrey who got killed this year.
Breonna Taylor death who was a black Medicaid worker happened when he was shot dead by the police while she was at her home on 13th March 2020. The officers got inside her apartments at Louisville Kentucky while she was asleep where they fired multiple gunshots. After her death, her name appeared all over the country as mass protested against the actions of police brutality which caused her killing (Miah, 2020). One of the officers who was involved in the shooting faced the charges where he was to face a penalty of five years in prison. One of the grand jury members requested that the proceedings be made public in order for people to know the truth. Taylor had been shot eight times by the law enforcement and basing on the lawsuit that was filed by the family, her death was caused by botched drug warrant execution. From the investigation there were no drugs found and the warrant targeted another individual who was living far and had already been caught by the police before they entered Taylors home.
The case of Taylor languished for some weeks before it attracted the whole nation and the family retained lawyer Crump who filed the lawsuit on April 27th 2020. The lawsuit accused the police for causing wrongful death, gross negligence and use of excessive force. According to the family’s lawsuit, police officers who were not in their uniform got inside Taylor’s apartment at midday on 13th March 2020. Taylor was asleep in her bedroom together with her boyfriend Kenneth Walker and they work up after realizing that someone was breaking in their house (Miah, 2020). Three officers entered the house without knocking or identifying themselves as police officers but the officers denied by saying that they had knocked the door many times and identified themselves as police who were having a warrant search. According to the Walkers police interrogation, there was bang at the Taylor’s door but officers failed to identify themselves as police an act that made them have the gun since they never knew who knocked the door.
After the officer failed to identify themselves, the door exploded and its hinges got removed since the police hit it using battering ram. Taylors mother reported that she had been called by walker informing her that someone was trying to break in to their house. Walker then fired a shot as a sign of self defense where he struck an officer on the leg. In response the police shot more than twenty times in Tylor’s house where they entered all rooms and this time Taylor got shot eight times where she died on the scene (Miah, 2020). After the occurrence Walker also got arrested and charged that he had attempted to kill a police officer. Later after his arrest he got released out of jail to his home on incarceration. On May 26th his case was dismissed while the three officers who got involved in shooting were put on administrative reassignment waiting for their investigation on May.
Police officers went ahead to claim that Taylor was not their main investigation subject but they had focused on Glover who was Taylor’s exe boy friend since he had been seen by one officer leaving Taylors home where he drove to the known person drug house. Taylor’s family lawyer reported that Glover was already at police custody before police visited her home. According to the interviews done from public integrity, police agreed that Taylor was the soft target whom the officers had targeted. Walker continued to insist that police had failed to identify themselves as officers and that they caused verbal harassment to Taylor and Walker. Taylor lawyers also said that Glover had been accused falsely on the issue about drugs since was living in a multimillion-dollar city (Miah, 2020). After the case the police officers involved in shooting were found guilty but several months passed without being charged. On September 15th 2020, Taylor’s family reached a settlement with Louisville city where they were offered 12 million dollars as a settlement for wrongful death lawsuit. According to lawyer Cramp, the amount offered to Taylor’s family was the largest amount paid in history concerning the death of a black woman who got killed by the police.
A second incidence is the killing of George Floyd who was killed on 25th May 2020 where he was arrested by the police outside a shop at Minneapolis Minnesota. A white officer called Derek Chauvin was found kneeling on Floyd neck as he was pinned on the floor. Floyd had said more than twenty times that he was not able to breath since he was restrained by the officer. Floyd had gone to buy a pack of cigarette from cup foods which was a grocery store where a store employee reported him to the police officers (Herzfeld, 2020). The store employee had made a call to the police claiming that Floyd was drunk and that he could not control himself. After the call the police arrived while Floyd had sat with two individuals in a car which he had parked at the corner. One of the officers pulled the gun and ordered Floyd to show his hands. The officer pulled him out of the car where Floyd cooperated and repeatedly apologized for at the officers after they approached his parked car.
Floyd got strained by the officers while Chauvin placed his knee between his neck and head. Floyd told Chauvin that he could not breathe while he pleaded for his mother and at one point, he said that Chauvin was going to kill him. Chauvin responded to Floyd to stop yelling and talking since it took a lot of oxygen to do so (Herzfeld, 2020). A female bystander informed the officers that Floyd nose was bleeding but they ignored where later Floyd got silent and died. Floyd was rushed to the Hennepin County medical hospital where he was pronounced dead an hour after arriving. Immediately after his death on May 26th, the video concerning the incident had circulated all over in media. By midday almost everybody had gathered at the location where Floyd had been killed for a protest. Most people who joined this protest were protesting at first time where they said that Floyd death had made them feel not to stay at home any more.
On February 23rd 2020, Arbery who was a 25-year-old black man was also killed while he was coming out from a jog. A resident who was a neighbor told the police officers that Arbery resembled a suspect involved in the local break-ins and there were reports that were filed concerning the break-in s(Fausset, 2020). Arbery was found having two gunshots on his chest and one on his wrist and autopsy indicated that he had no alcohol in his system.
United state government was involved in Breonna Taylor death where the Louisville metro government accepted to pay Taylors estate 12 million dollars which is indicated to be the highest money ever paid in United States after police brutality actions that led to death black woman. In response to George Floyd death, the United States government came up with measures that would require police to wear ban chokeholds and body cameras to ease method of prosecuting officers. Other measures include defunding the police and using the money in important departments such as housing, health and education (Hoofnagle et al., 2020). Rewriting use of force policies is another measure where it is well indicated when police should use force, an example is where force used by Chauvin to Floyd was burned in New York. Dismantling the police is the third measure where Minneapolis police department was dismantled. Suing the police and firing the police officers who are found practicing racism. After the death of Aubrey, the President Donald Triumph reported that he had watched the video about this death and found it so disturbing. He continues to say that justice is the only thing that was going to solve situation about racism where he requested the law enforcement to fully examine what had happened.
Black lives matter is an essential movement and a political concern on United States since it helps to prevent racism actions and police brutality actions towards the blacks. This movement enables several Americans to gather in the street and protest against racism when George Floyd was killed by the police. After the death of Floyd, the movement appeared more racially diverse where there was large number of protesters who were whites combined with protesters from other races who stood with black activist (Hoofnagle et al., 2020). After the ruling of Taylor by the court, all black American protesters started demonstration since they felt despair that the officers were the ones responsible for black people deaths. Demonstrators also protested between them and the police after the death of Aubrey an act that made Louisville officers call for peace.
Racism is really affecting Blacks living in United States where most of them have been killed through police brutality. Black lives matter movement is so essential since it helps the black activist to protest against racism affecting Blacks in United States (Hoofnagle et al., 2020). United States Government should ensure that racism has been stopped completely in the country and that blacks and whites are treated equally.
Reference
Fausset, R. (2020). What we know about the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery. New York Times. May 22, 2020. Https://Www. Nytimes. Com/Article/Ahmaud-Arbery-Shooting-Georgia. Html. Accessed June, 2.
Herzfeld, N. L. (2020). “ I can’t breathe”: Bonhoeffer, the Bible, and the death of George Floyd.
Hoofnagle, M. H., Mubang, R. N., D’Andrea, K. J., Joseph, B. A., Christmas, A. B., & Zakrison, T. L. (2020). Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma Statement on Structural Racism, and the Deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. Annals of Surgery, 272(6), 911.
Miah, M. (2020). Outrage in Louisville-Cops’ justified’for murdering Breonna Taylor. Green Left Weekly, 1282, 15.