Unic Press UK: Millions of people around the world continue to voice outrage over the death in police custody of George Floyd, 46, a black American, with a former United States president, Barack Obama, issuing a statement denouncing what he described as an abnormality that is “normal” in America.
Obama wrote: “But we have to remember that for millions of Americans, being treated differently on account of race is tragically, painfully, maddeningly ‘normal'” – whether it’s while dealing with the health care system, or interacting with the criminal justice system, or jogging down the street, or just watching birds in the park.”
Obama’s points also bring to the burner, two of the many incidents this year: Ahmaud Arbery, 25yo, black American man shot/killed February by two white men while he was jogging in Georgia; and an unruly behaviour of a white woman, Amy Cooper, earlier this week in New York City’s Park when the woman called the police on a black man, Christian Cooper, an African American bird-watcher who asked her to leash her dog. Amy lied to the police that Christian threatened her life, and it is claimed that her intent was to weaponize the police in dealing with the incident.
My statement on the death of George Floyd: pic.twitter.com/Hg1k9JHT6R
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 29, 2020
In the video, one could see a firmly restrained Floyd lying on the ground, pinned to the ground as the left knee of a police officer held his neck in what appears to be a deliberate chokehold, despite the fact that Floyd was shackled with handcuffs, and is heard on the video groaning: “Please, I can’t breathe” and “don’t kill me”.
