Tag: Black Lives Matter

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Protests erupt in US after Tyre Nichols beating footage

Protests in US after footage releases of Tyre Nichols being beaten by police in Memphis.(photo:vimeo.com/cityofmemphis)

Horrifying video footage was released of US police beating African-American Tyre Nichols in Memphis earlier this month, leading to injuries from which he later died.

Protests erupted across the US after the release of a footage which showed five former police officers in Memphis brutally beating an African-American man who died three days later after the gruesome incident.

The police officers, who are all Black and charged with murder, are seen taking turns to kick and punch the 29-year-old victim Tyre Nichols on January 7 as he screamed for his mother during the incident at a traffic stop, the BBC reported.

On Friday, the Memphis Police Department released four graphic videos, totalling more than an hour of footage.

The first video shows officers pulling Nichols out of his vehicle and shouting at him to get on the ground.

“I didn’t do anything!” he says. Officers demand that he lie down flat.

Within seconds, one of the officers fires a Taser at the victim, who leaps up and manages to run away.

A separate video, from a CCTV camera mounted on a utility pole, shows officers beating Nichols after catching up with him in a residential area.

Two officers are seen holding him down while others take turns kicking and punching him and striking him with an expandable baton.

They drag him across the ground and prop him sitting up against a squad car.

The third and fourth videos show police body camera footage of the beating, with Nichols being held down, pepper-sprayed and assaulted as he repeatedly shouts: “Mom!”

The five officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III, and Justin Smith — were fired last week and were taken into custody on Thursday, the BBC reported.

Each faces charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

Four of the five posted bail and were released from custody by Friday morning, according to jail records.

Shortly after the footage was released, protests erupted in New York and Memphis.

Rallies and demonstrations were also planned to be held in Washington, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Dallas, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego, Atlanta and Portland.

President Joe Biden, who has called for demonstrations to remain peaceful, said in a statement: “Like so many, I was outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols’ death.”

ALSO READ: Ex-cop sentenced for manslaughter in George Floyd murder case

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Ex-cop sentenced for manslaughter in George Floyd murder case

Flowers are seen outside the church where George Floyd's funeral is held in Houston, Texas, the United States, on June 9, 2020. The funeral of African American George Floyd was held Tuesday in the southern U.S. city of Houston, where he was brought up and spent most of his life, two weeks after his tragic death in police custody in Minneapolis. (Photo by Chengyue Lao/Xinhua/IANS)

The former Minneapolis police officer J. Alexander Kueng serving three years in federal prison for violating Floyd’s civil rights.

A former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s back has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for his role in the latter’s murder in 2020.

On Friday, a Hennepin County Court judge sentenced J. Alexander Kueng to 42 months — 3.5 years — in prison for aiding and abetting manslaughter for a state charge, reports Xinhua news agency.

This sentence will run concurrently with Kueng’s federal sentence.

He is serving three years in federal prison for violating Floyd’s civil rights.

Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, died on May 25, 2020, after an encounter with the Minneapolis police, during which officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Kueng and two other responding officers, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, were also present and on duty.

Video footage of the arrest shows Kueng and Lane assisting Chauvin by helping to hold Floyd down.

Thao, meanwhile, kept concerned bystanders away.

Chauvin was sentenced in a federal court to 21 years in prison earlier this summer for violating Floyd’s civil rights.

The sentence is running concurrently with Chauvin’s state sentence of 22.5 years after he was convicted for second and third-degree murder, as well as second-degree manslaughter.

In February, Kueng, Lane and Thao were also found guilty on federal civil rights charges.

The officers were charged with showing “deliberate indifference to (Floyd’s) serious medical needs” during the attempted arrest.

Floyd’s death sparked outrage and protests across the US in the summer of 2020 against police brutality and systemic racism.

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Protests erupt in Michigan after cop kills black man

Photo taken with a mobile phone shows police and investigators working at a nearby street after a shooting took place at a subway station in Brooklyn, New York, the United States, on April 12, 2022. At least five people were shot and 13 were injured on Tuesday morning at the subway station in Brooklyn, local media reported, citing law enforcement sources. (Xinhua/Zhang Mocheng/IANS)

The protests first erupted on Wednesday after the Grand Rapids Police Department released several videos of an officer’s encounter with Patrick Lyoya earlier this month, reports Asian Lite News

The killing of a black man by a white police officer sparked a series of protests during the past three days in Michigan’s Grand Rapids.

The protests first erupted on Wednesday after the Grand Rapids Police Department released several videos of an officer’s encounter with Patrick Lyoya earlier this month, including two that show the fatal shot during a struggle after a traffic stop, Xinhua news agency reported citing the local media.

Lyoya, 26, a refugee from Congo, was killed in the garden of a house in Grand Rapids after a brief chase followed by a struggle with the officer, who has not been named.

On Wednesday night, after videos of the incident were released, barriers went up at the Grand Rapids police station as hundreds marched downtown, chanting and demanding the department release the name of the officer who shot Lyoya, local TV channel WZZM reported.

There have been multiple protests and rallies on behalf of Lyoya. On Tuesday evening, dozens of people called for justice as they rallied outside a City Commission meeting. Community members in Grand Rapids gathered downtown at Rosa Parks Circle on Friday. The group marched downtown to the Grand Rapids Police Department headquarters to make their voices heard.

The deaths of George Floyd and other black men at the hands of police have led to protests across America in recent years. There have been 255 police shootings across the US this year, according to The Washington Post.

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Tulsa Mayor apologises for city’s role in massacre

“As the Mayor of Tulsa, I apologise for the city government’s failure to protect our community in 1921 and to do right by the victims of the Race Massacre in its aftermath…reports Asian Lite News.

G.T. Bynum, Mayor of Tulsa where hundreds of Black people were killed 100 years ago, has apologised for the US city’s role in the massacre.

“Tulsa’s city government failed to protect Black Tulsans from murder and arson on the night of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and from discrimination in subsequent decades,” Bynum wrote in the statement posted online on Monday.

“As the Mayor of Tulsa, I apologise for the city government’s failure to protect our community in 1921 and to do right by the victims of the Race Massacre in its aftermath.

“The victims – men, women, young children – deserved better from their city, and I am so sorry they didn’t receive it,” Xinhua news agency quoted Bynum as saying.

The city in the state of Oklahoma is commemorating the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre centennial with events and ceremonies to honour the victims.

On the night of May 31, 1921, a white mob descended the prosperous, all-black neighbourhood of Greenwood in north Tulsa.

In less than 24 hours, the mob burned what had been known as “Black Wall Street” to the ground leaving more than 10,000 residents homeless.

The exact death toll was not recorded, but an estimated 300 people died in the tragedy.

Historians believed that mass graves could be located within the city where digging is conducted.

ALSO READ-Half of Oklahoma Is Native American Land

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BLM activist critical after being shot in head

“A dedicated team of detectives is working tirelessly to identify the person or persons responsible for this shooting,” said Detective Chief Inspector Jim Tele…reports Asian Lite News.

UK Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson was shot in the head on Sunday and is currently in critical condition, said her political party.

“It is with great sadness that we inform you that our own Sasha Johnson has been brutally attacked and sustained a gunshot wound to her head… She is currently in intensive care and in a critical condition,” said the Taking the Initiative Party (TTIP) in a statement, reported CNN.

The party said the attack happened “following numerous death threats as a result of her activism.”

The London Metropolitan Police responded to reports of gunfire in southeast London about 3 am on Sunday, it said in a statement.

Police further said that paramedics transported a 27-year-old woman with gunshot wounds to a south London hospital, adding that the incident appeared to have happened near a house party in Southwark.

“A dedicated team of detectives is working tirelessly to identify the person or persons responsible for this shooting,” said Detective Chief Inspector Jim Tele.

According to CNN, Sarah Johnson rose to prominence last year during the Black Lives Matter protests, as a leader of the TTIP, which has been called “Britain’s first Black-led political party.”

The activist is a mother of three children and also works to deliver food and groceries to families in need, according to the party. (ANI)

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Columbus to pay $10mn to family of black man killed by police

The city of Columbus has also agreed to rename the gym located inside the Brentnell Community Center, which the victim frequented, the Andre Hill Gymnasium, reports Asian Lite News

 The US city of Columbus has agreed to pay $10 million to the family of Andre Hill, an unarmed African-American man who was shot dead by police in December 2020, local media reported.

The settlement, the largest in the city’s history, will move to the Columbus City Council for a vote on May 17, reports Xinhua news agency.

“No amount of money will ever bring Andre Hill back to his family, but we believe this is an important and necessary step in the right direction,” City Attorney Zach Klein said in a statement issued on Friday afternoon.

The city in the state of Ohio has also agreed to rename the gym located inside the Brentnell Community Center, which the victim frequented, the Andre Hill Gymnasium, according to local media reports.

Columbus
Protesters hold their hands in the air during a protest in Minneapolis, the United States. (Photo by Angus Alexander/Xinhua/IANS)

Hill’s daughter, Karissa, said at a press conference on Friday that the settlement is “one step but it’s not full justice”.

Hill, 47, was exiting a garage at a home where he was a guest around 2 a.m. on December 22, 2020, when he was shot and killed by then police officer Adam Coy, who was responding to a non-emergency disturbance call about a vehicle turning on and off.

Coy did not have his body camera on at the time of the shooting.

The camera’s look-back feature captured 60 seconds of video, but no audio, showing Hill held a cellphone in his hand and began walking toward the officers when he was shot four times by Coy.

Body camera footage from other responding officers showed more than 10 minutes passed before Hill was given any medical aid.

He died about 30 minutes after the shooting at a hospital.

Coy was sacked within a week of the shooting and has since been indicted on charges of murder, felonious assault and reckless homicide.

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