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    Supreme court rejects Chauvin’s appeal of George Floyd murder conviction

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    The US supreme court rejected on Monday a conviction appeal for the former Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd.The decision affirms Derek Chauvin’s conviction for second-degree murder and sentence of more than 20 years in prison.In October, Chauvin’s legal defense requested the highest court in their nation take up their client’s case, arguing he was denied a fair trial in 2021 because of prejudice in the pretrial due to publicity.They also argued juror misconduct, alleging that it was in the jurors’ best interest to find Chauvin guilty to avoid threats of violence from the public.The supreme court did not provide comment on its decision to refuse Chauvin’s appeal.Floyd, who was Black, was killed by police on 25 May 2020, igniting global protests calling for his murderers to be brought to justice and an end to police brutality and racism worldwide.Chauvin, a white officer, pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for nine and a half minutes outside the convenience store where Floyd was suspected of trying to use a counterfeit $20 bill.A video captured by a bystander showed Floyd’s final moments as he called out for his mother and said, “I can’t breathe,” which became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement.Three other former officers involved in Floyd’s murder – J Alexander Kueng, Tou Thao and Thomas Lane – received lesser state and federal sentences.Chauvin is separately appealing his conviction on federal civil rights charges. More

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      ‘It looked like Chauvin would get away with it’: Minnesota’s top attorney on how he won justice for George Floyd’s family

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      When he recalls seeing Derek Chauvin in court for the first time, Keith Ellison references “the banality of evil”, a phrase coined by writer and philosopher Hannah Arendt when covering the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust.“The point of the whole book is that Nazis were not these big, scary people that your imagination conjures,” Ellison, Minnesota’s top law enforcement official, says in a phone interview. “They’re ordinary, they’re plain, they’re very regular and they’re a lot less than you assume they would be and that’s how I felt about Derek Chauvin. He looked like a relatively small man – I bet he didn’t weigh 140lb. Here’s this guy who acted so monstrously: it’s just a man, not a very big one.”Chauvin, a white former police officer, was found guilty of murdering George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man in Minneapolis, after kneeling on his neck for nine minutes. He was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison and has appealed his conviction.The prosecution was directed by Ellison, who led every meeting, assigned duties to the team and sat in court every day scribbling observations in old notebooks from his 12-year spell in the House of Representatives (he was the first Muslim elected to Congress). When those were full, a friend at a law firm gave him more.The notes were invaluable to prosecutors as the trial unfolded and served as raw material for Ellison’s recently published book, Break the Wheel: Ending the Cycle of Police Violence, which offers a blow-by-blow account of the case and spotlights a culture in which the training manual often receives lip service and complaints about “bad cops” are too easily ignored. It asks what role prosecutors, defendants, heads of police unions, judges, activists, legislators, politicians and media figures can play in reforming a criminal justice system that fails people of color.The book begins on the day three years ago last week when Ellison, attorney general of Minnesota, was woken by his phone at 4.45am by an urgent message. He watched a mobile phone video that showed Floyd, trapped under Chauvin’s knee, shouting “Mamma! Mamma! I’m through!” and, repeatedly, “I can’t breathe!” Ellison could not believe how long the torment continued.The 59-year-old recalls: “Even though I have been working on police accountability and brutality issues for years, I was still shocked. I was still blown away by the inhumanity of what I saw.”The side of every police car in Minneapolis displays the words: “To protect with courage, to serve with compassion.” The first statement from the city police department about Floyd was entitled “Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction” and made no mention of officers restraining him on the ground with a knee on his neck.The state attorney general comments: “I did not expect to see basically a whitewashing of what happened to George Floyd. It said he died of a medical emergency – sounds like a heart attack or a stroke. It does not sound like positional asphyxia with a knee on the neck and so I found that dumbfounding as well.”With America already traumatised by the coronavirus pandemic and Donald Trump’s divisive presidency in the summer of 2020, the killing ignited protests against police brutality and racial injustice. Ellison had expected the conscience of Minneapolis to be shocked but was not prepared for the demonstrations that took hold everywhere from Bogotá to Lisbon.“In cities all over the world you saw an outrage. When I thought about it, I understood it because nowhere in the world do people tolerate arbitrary government force. They always protest it no matter what.”America began a racial reckoning but, Ellison notes, around the world the issue transcended race. “In America everything is racialised but it’s not racialised in every country in which people were shot. There were protests in Lagos – everybody is Black in Lagos. People still recognised government abuse of power and state-sponsored violence and they protested it.”Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, tapped Ellison, who had spent 16 years as a criminal defence lawyer but served less than two as attorney general, to lead the prosecution when the Chauvin case came to trial. Ellison accepted but, even with video evidence and witnesses, did not take the outcome for granted.A murder conviction of a police officer for an on-duty death is uncommon. The officers accused of beating Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991 were acquitted, while Breonna Taylor, Mike Brown and Eric Garner’s cases never made it past the grand jury. “History was on Derek Chauvin’s side,” Ellison says. “It looked a lot more like Chauvin would get away with it than not.”The makeup of the jury was a key concern. “We grow up on TV shows like Dragnet or Hill Street Blues or Law and Order. We all are raised on a certain amount of media that reinforces this idea that you should trust the police.“And yet here on this video we see officers who don’t deserve to be trusted, don’t deserve to be believed, and so part of the job that we had assigned to us is to help people believe their eyes, trust their instincts, listen to their neighbors. The people who stopped on that street corner were as inclined to believe the police story as anyone but they couldn’t deny it because it was unfolding right in front of them. As we picked the jury, we wanted the jury to identify with that randomly selected group of people who assembled to object to the treatment that George Floyd was receiving.”Ellison succeeded in impaneling the most gender and racially diverse jury of his career. Fellow officers and even a police chief took the witness stand to testify against Chauvin, who did not testify on his own behalf.In April 2021, on the day of the verdict, several hundred people gathered outside the courthouse and 23 million people watched on live television. The jury found Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Ellison felt a rush of relief but took no joy at the sight of a man whose life had changed forever.On the faces of the Floyd family he saw “validation” and “vindication”, he recalls. “More than anything else, their brother was treated like human trash and the verdict said, no, he’s a human being worthy of respect like anyone. To them, it was extremely emotional – tears – and then they were surprisingly calm. They’re a very dignified family, very dignified people. They were clearly relieved: they didn’t know what the jury was going to decide.”In November that year, however, Ellison suffered a defeat. The residents of Minneapolis voted on a ballot proposal that would in effect replace the police department with a public safety department putting an emphasis on public health. The attorney general endorsed the measure but more than 56% of people voted against it.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEllison explains: “Sadly, after the death of George Floyd, we experienced what you might describe as de-policing and a lot of officers quit and a lot of officers said we’re not going to engage criminal conduct.“Some of the folks who are inclined to commit crimes felt they had a freer hand and we saw crime statistics go up. Because of that, a lot of people were more concerned about their personal safety than they were about police accountability and that is one reason why the measure failed.”A second cause of rising crime, he argues, was a breakdown in trust between police and community. “People who commit crimes know this. They’re like, ‘Look, I know in this neighborhood people don’t call the police, therefore I’m freer to sell dope, carry guns, harm others, extort people.’ It is very important for the sake of public safety to hold police accountable on a consistent ongoing basis because, if you don’t, it will allow crime to thrive and grow, which is nobody’s benefit.”Centrist Democrats took the ballot result as a sign that the phrase “defund the police” had turned politically radioactive and become a gift to Republicans eager to portray them as soft on crime. Former president Barack Obama warned young progressives that it would turn off many voters.But Ellison, a former deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, believes that “defund the police” has been unfairly weaponised by a Republican party that, given its unwillingness to address gun violence, has no credibility on public safety.He points out that police misconduct lawsuits in Minneapolis and elsewhere in recent years have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars – money that could have been spent on hospitals, parks, public transport or schools. “It’s going to compensate victims of police misconduct. What if we just stop the misconduct?”The failure of the ballot measure in Minnesota hinted at a broader loss of momentum after that seemingly revolutionary summer. The Black Lives Matter signs that adorned many front gardens gradually gave way to Ukrainian flags as new causes took hold. Congress failed to reach a bipartisan agreement on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Police shot and killed at least 1,096 people – a record – last year, according to a count by the Washington Post.But Ellison sees a mixed picture. “What I can tell you is that on the local level a lot of good things have happened. You’ve seen legislation passed in the state of Minnesota. The city of Minneapolis has taken a number of measures to try to improve things. We’ve hired some police leaders who are reform-minded. But quite honestly, it has been an uneven progress. The federal government hasn’t really done anything, which is really disappointing.”The ambivalence was highlighted earlier this year when Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, died after a traffic stop escalated into a beating by a group of Memphis police officers. The horrific killing reopened old wounds but Memphis police and county officials earned praise for a swift, unequivocal response. Five officers were fired and charged with second-degree murder. They pleaded not guilty.Ellison was impressed. “Quite honestly, I think that if George Floyd had not occurred, maybe we would still be stuck in this very ham-handed, fumbling-along approach, but the way that they did it signaled to the population that this was going to be handled in a proper way and it was going to be meaningful accountability.”Indeed, despite all he has seen of the worst in human nature, Ellison remains optimistic about the future. He reflects: “Look, it’s sad but it’s true: the people who killed George Floyd were a multiracial group. There was one Black officer, one Hmong officer and two white officers. But the people who stood up for George Floyd were a multiracial group too. There was a young white woman who was a firefighter, two young white teenagers, a 61-year-old African American man, a 17-year-old Black girl.“It was a mixed group and, if you look at the protests, they were multiracial. I’m not pessimistic. We can move forward but we’ve got to try to take stock of the lessons that are available to be learned and that’s why I wrote the book, because I want folks to really think about solving this problem.”
      Break the Wheel is published in the US by Twelve More

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      ‘I will never be against the second amendment’: Run the Jewels’ Killer Mike on rap, racism and gun control

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      Interview‘I will never be against the second amendment’: Run the Jewels’ Killer Mike on rap, racism and gun controlAmmar Kalia After almost a decade of working alongside El-P, the rapper is releasing a solo single. He talks about the chaos and loss that inspired it, his friendship with Bernie Sanders and the ‘racist’ twisting of lyrics‘I definitely lead a non-politician life; I smoke weed and I go to strip clubs with my wife,” the rapper Killer Mike says with a laugh. “But I care about people and I have a duty to my community. I am not an angry old man – I am a participator.” As if to demonstrate at least some of that, he lights a blunt.As a musician and an activist, Killer Mike has long balanced pleasure and responsibility. Now 47, he first came to the world’s attention in the early 2000s, when he featured on several tracks with the Atlanta hip-hop duo Outkast before launching a solo career.Since 2013, he has been half of Run the Jewels alongside the New York rapper El-P. Their music meanders between hedonism and social exposition, while their live shows are as notorious for their ecstatic mosh pits as they are for their lyrical reflections on police brutality, racism and social injustice.Michael Render, as he is legally known, is now releasing his first solo material in a decade, with the track Run testing the waters for a possible larger solo project. Over a fanfare of horns and a clattering mid-tempo beat, he entreats his Black listeners to persist amid the chaos. “All I know is keep going / you gotta run,” he raps, playing with the meanings of running from danger, running for office or simply moving forwards.“I say that ‘the race for freedom ain’t won / you gotta run’,” he tells me, “because as Black people in America we have to be resilient. We have overcome and we shall continue to do so.”On a video call from his home in Atlanta, Georgia, Render is by turns eloquent and mischievous as he talks about his history of political activism. He has been close to the leftwing senator Bernie Sanders ever since they shared a meal at the Atlanta soul food restaurant Busy Bee Cafe in 2015, and he backed Sanders’ presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020. Their unlikely friendship has spawned hundreds of memes, with Sanders, for example, shaping his hands into the Run the Jewels symbol of a gun pointed at a closed fist, or asking Render if he should call him “Mike or Killer Mike?”. “It was just a conversation between two angry radical guys, one 74 and white, one 40 and Black, finding common ground,” Render has said of that first encounter.His emotive speeches at Sanders rallies are almost as famous as his music. Addressing the roaring crowd in North Carolina in 2019, he said: “When you go to that [voting] booth next year, I need you to carry the memory of this room. Black, white, straight, gay, male, female, we are together. We are united. We will not wait four more years.”His impassioned words in the wake of police killings in the US have also gone viral. In 2015, during a show in Ferguson, Missouri, a fan-filmed video showed Render raging at the grand jury who had acquitted the officer who had killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, then pleading for the safety of his four children, who range in age from 15 to 27. In the riots that followed George Floyd’s murder in 2020, he told the public to fortify their homes and to “plot, plan, strategise, mobilise and organise” to dismantle the systemic structures of racism. “It is time to beat up prosecutors you don’t like at the voting booth,” he said. “It is time to hold mayoral offices accountable, and chiefs and deputy chiefs.”It must be exhausting having to publicly advocate for basic rights year after year, I tell him. “It’s a continuation of the work,” he says calmly. “My grandmother did the work of taking care of our neighbours without publicity, and my grandfather did, too – he would go fishing and always give half of his catch to other people, for instance. I don’t see it as making me better. I don’t see it as being driven by celebrity guilt either. I was told by my elders to make sure that the people who are suffering in my community are relieved by me. These are the principles that I operate with.”He believes that Sanders shares his desire for social justice. “I will always speak to him because I believe he gives a fuck beyond his own personal chequebook. I honestly believe he is a continuation of great thinkers like [former slave and abolitionist] Frederick Douglass and [trade unionist] Eugene V Debs – a continuation of people who fought their ass off for the betterment of the salt-of-the-earth, everyday American.“Part of my responsibility is to make sure that people who are doing the work on a weekly and daily basis have a platform to push an agenda that’s helpful. No matter if you’re a Black person working a blue-collar job, or if you’re one of the educated elite bourgeoisie, you have a responsibility to push the line.”Sometimes, however, he pushes the line in a direction that many will find objectionable. In 2018, during nationwide protests after the deadliest high school shooting in US history, he gave an interview to the National Rifle Association supporting the second amendment right to bear arms. “You’re a lackey of the progressive movement,” he told leftwingers in favour of gun control, “because you’ve never disagreed with the people who tell you what to do.” He later apologised for the interview’s timing, but his stance on gun ownership remains unchanged. “I will never be against the second amendment,” he says. “There’s no way that someone who represents a community that are only 60-odd years out of an apartheid should be willing to give a weapon back to the government, as the police choke you to death in the street and people just watch and film.”The son of a policeman and a florist, Render is not without sympathy for the police. He has said his father told him and his five sisters not to follow in his footsteps because the job was “too dangerous”. Still, Render believes police reform is necessary and possible. “I have not seen a will to get rid of police as much as I’ve seen a want for police to be from the communities they’re policing and to be fair, rather than abusers of power,” he says. “We should be supporting the Police Athletic Leagues that deal with our young boys in particular before any trouble happens, more than we should be giving the police more rifles and bulletproof vests. The connection with the community is key.”These leagues are local organisations founded by precincts to mentor young people and hopefully keep them off the streets. Render wasn’t a member as he grew up in the majority-Black Adamsville neighbourhood of Atlanta, but he managed to find his own community connections. “All my heroes and villains were based on character, not colour, as everyone looked like me in my home town,” he says. “I grew up with a real sense of confidence that I could do well, that even if there’s a few more speed bumps for me, I cannot and will not be denied what’s due to me.”Render studied at the prestigious, historically Black Morehouse college before he was spotted rapping by the Outkast member Big Boi. He offered Render a collaboration on their 2000 track Snappin’ & Trappin’, launching his career and leading him to drop out of college after just one year. “Even though I won a Grammy, my grandma still complained that I didn’t bring her a degree,” Render says. “Dropping out is one of my biggest regrets, but I’ve been given everything I’ve ever wanted in terms of being able to have a rap career, so I need to make it better for the people around me and the people that come after me.”“Making things better” includes fighting the use of rap in criminal trials, as US prosecutors have used lyrics by artists such as 6ix9ine, Drakeo the Ruler and Tay-K to try to show that defendants had violent interests or gang affiliations. Alongside Jay-Z and Kelly Rowland, Render recently supported the New York Senate rap music on trial bill, which aims to ban the practice.Having written an op-ed for the Vox website in 2015 about the police’s “well-documented history of antagonism towards rappers”, Render is now watching one of the artists featured on Run, Young Thug, fight racketeering charges alongside 27 others. Prosecutors claim that Young Thug’s rap collective, YSL, is a criminal gang with ties to the national Bloods organisation, and are attempting to use Thug’s lyrics and social media posts against him. “I can’t comment on the charges,” Render says, “but Thug is a victim of a policy being used in a racist way and all of our first amendment rights could be endangered if they attempt to use his words against him. Let Black art live, otherwise we’re going to see a proliferation of rappers no matter what sex, age or ethnicity dragged into the court.”As well as Young Thug, the extended version of Run contains an opening monologue from the comic Dave Chappelle. In his introduction, he compares the Black experience to the Normandy landings. “Ain’t no rhyme or reason why it’s not you on the ground, but as long as it’s not, you have to keep moving,” Chappelle says. “You’re just as heroic as those people who stormed the beach.”“Chaos abounds around you; the people that you know and love are often taken from you or left forever scarred,” Render agrees. “It creates bonds and camaraderie that last your entire life.” He seems untroubled by the furore over Chappelle’s jokes about transgender people, which led to Netflix employees walking out in protest at the company hosting his standup specials. For Render, freedom of expression trumps everything. “If comedians are not allowed to talk shit about everybody, freedom of speech is in trouble,” he says. “When they cannot express themselves, there’s going to be a real problem with everyone else being able to do so as well.”The last time Render spoke to the Guardian, just after the killing of George Floyd, he declared that Black people might feel that “nobody gives a shit” about them. Two years on, after the global protests for Black Lives Matter, does he feel more optimistic? “Not much has changed for Black people since 1619,” he says – the year that the first enslaved Africans arrived in North America. What progress there is has come “only because we push to get the rights and freedoms we deserve, or that have already been promised to us in the Bill of Rights or the United States constitution. If I work hard in making sure fairness and equity are given to my community and the communities that are like mine, only then can things get better. But the work doesn’t stop.”Might he one day go into politics full-time, instead of just supporting others? He briefly ran as an independent candidate in the 2015 elections for Georgia’s 55th district and says Chappelle recently tried to convince him to run for state governor.“I politely declined,” he adds. Later, maybe? “I will run for office the day that I’m unbribable. When I get rich for real, when no amount of money can corrupt me, maybe.”Killer Mike’s new solo single and video, Run, is out on 4 JulyTopicsRun the JewelsThe G2 interviewOutkastHip-hopGeorge FloydBernie SandersUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Seen and Unseen review: George Floyd, Black Twitter and the fight for racial justice

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      Seen and Unseen review: George Floyd, Black Twitter and the fight for racial justiceMarc Lamont Hill and Todd Brewster’s brilliant book considers the history of communications technology in a racist society Nearly all the books I have read about the internet have deepened my fears about the net effect of social media on the health of our body politic. For example, I thought three facts from the congressman Ro Khanna’s recent book, Dignity in a Digital Age, were enough to scare anyone concerned about the future of democracy.Dignity in a Digital Age review: a congressman takes big tech to taskRead moreKhanna reported that an internal discussion at Facebook revealed that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendations”; he revealed that before 2020, “QAnon groups developed millions of followers as Facebook’s algorithm encouraged people to join based on their profiles”; and he pointed to a United Nations report that Facebook played a “determining role” in events in Myanmar that led to the murder of at least 25,000 Rohingya Muslims and the displacement of 700,000 others.Seen and Unseen, a brilliant new book by Marc Lamont Hill, a Black professor, and Todd Brewster, a white journalist, certainly doesn’t ignore those dangers. But the authors’ focus is overwhelmingly on the positive effects of Twitter and Black Twitter, which they argue have democratized access to information, and the power of the smartphone to provide the incontrovertible video evidence needed to prosecute the murderers of men like George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery.The book is a brisk, smart, short history of the effects of new communication technologies, from the photographs of the 19th century to the movies and television of the 20th and the internet of our own time.It includes terrific mini-portraits of many of the heroes and several of the villains of the Black-and-white battle which has dominated so much of American history, including the great Black abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, who turns out to be the most photographed American of the 19th century, and the white supremacist Thomas Dixon Jr, whose novel The Clansman was the basis for the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation.There is a great section about the impact of The Birth of the Nation, which single-handedly revived the Ku Klux Klan and did more to rewrite the history of Reconstruction than any other book or movie. Its director, DW Griffith, was frank about wanting to give white southerners “a way of striking back”.“One could not find the sufferings of our family and our friends – the dreadful poverty and hardships during the war and for many years after – in the Yankee-written histories we read in school,” Griffith wrote. “From all this was born a burning determination to tell … our side of the story to the world.”As the authors note: “His movie did that spectacularly.”The book also reminds us that this was the first movie shown in the White House and the host, Woodrow Wilson, was a friend and Johns Hopkins classmate of Thomas Dixon Jr. Wilson, of course, was also the president who allowed the segregation of the federal government.But what makes this volume especially valuable is the authors’ capacity to see the good and the bad in almost everything.WEB Du Bois said The Birth of the Nation represented “the Negro” either “as an ignorant fool, a vicious rapist, a venal or unscrupulous politician, or a faithful but doddering idiot”. James Baldwin called it “an elaborate justification of mass murder”.And yet the film was so egregious it also had a tremendous positive effect – it “did more to advance the NAACP”, which had been founded six years earlier, “than anything else to that date. In essence it jump-started the movement for civil rights.” At that time, that term did not yet have any meaning.Du Bois and the NAACP hoped to hit back “in kind” with a movie called Lincoln’s Dream but were stymied by “the lack of enthusiasm” of white capital.In our own time, Hill and Brewster identify the unique power of the video of the murder of George Floyd, which “resonated with whites because the cruelty inflicted on him was so undeniable, so elemental … and so protracted (nine minutes 29 seconds) that it could be neither ignored nor dismissed”.For Black people of course it was much more personal: as they watched “the last breaths being squeezed from Floyd’s body, they could see themselves in his suffering; or an uncle, or a sister, or even a long-departed ancestor”.A beautiful mini-biography of James Baldwin includes many of his most pungent observations, including, “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” And, “To be a Negro in this country, and to be relatively conscious, is to be in a rage almost all the time”.A Lynching at Port Jervis review: timely history of New York race hateRead moreIt turns out that “one of the most frequently cited BLM counterpublic voices is Baldwin’s”. He is “the movement’s literary touchstone, conscience, and pinup” as well as its “most tweeted literary authority”.That is the most positive contribution of Twitter – and particularly Black Twitter – I have ever heard of.The authors write that Baldwin “was impatient with America because he saw it as trapped in its own history”, and wanted America to admit “that it owed its very existence to an ideology of white supremacy”.There was a time in my life when I considered that an exaggeration. But once you have acknowledged that ours is a nation that was literally founded on genocide and slavery, Baldwin’s judgment becomes an indisputable truth.
      Seen and Unseen: Technology, Social Media, and the Fight for Racial Justice is published in the US by Atria Books
      TopicsBooksRacePolitics booksHistory booksUS politicsGeorge FloydAhmaud ArberyreviewsReuse this content More

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      ‘No progress’ since George Floyd: US police killing three people a day

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      ‘No progress’ since George Floyd: US police killing three people a day As Joe Biden pushes to ‘fund the police’, data from Mapping Police Violence shows high rates of deaths at the hands of law enforcement persistPolice officers in America continue to kill people at an alarming rate, according to a data analysis that has raised concerns about the Biden administration’s push to expand police investments amid growing concerns about crime.Law enforcement in the US have killed 249 people this year as of 24 March, averaging about three deaths a day and mirroring the deadly force trends of recent years, according to Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group. The data, experts say, suggests in the nearly two years since George Floyd’s murder, the US has made little progress in preventing deaths at the hands of law enforcement, and that the 2020 promises of systemic reforms have fallen short.In a rare move, Los Angeles ex-deputy is charged in 2019 fatal shootingRead morePolice have killed roughly 1,100 people each year since 2013. In 2021, officers killed 1,136 people – one of the deadliest years on record, Mapping Police Violence reported. The organization tracks deaths recorded by police, governments and the media, including cases where people were fatally shot, beaten, restrained, and Tasered. The Washington Post has reported similar trends, and found that 2021 broke the record for fatal shootings by officers since the newspaper started its database tracking in 2015.“The shocking regularity of killings suggests that nothing substantive has really changed to disrupt the nationwide dynamic of police violence,” said Samuel Sinyangwe, a data scientist and policy analyst who founded Mapping Police Violence and Police Scorecard, which evaluates departments. “It demonstrates that we’re not doing enough, and if anything, it appears to be getting slightly worse year over year.”Advocates argue that the persistent rate of killings was a critical reason the US should not be expanding its police forces.Police killings are proceeding at almost exactly the same pace as previous years. No progress has been made in reducing deadly police violence nationwide. Another ~870 people will be killed by police by year’s end unless there are massive systemic changes. https://t.co/G3YiCYZoEi pic.twitter.com/bvhQvZJKWV— Samuel Sinyangwe (@samswey) March 26, 2022
      Joe Biden, who has repeatedly said to “fund the police”, released a budget proposal earlier this week for $30bn in law enforcement and crime prevention efforts, including funding to put “more police officers on the beat”. The proposal, which called for the expansion of “accountable, community policing”, sparked immediate criticisms from racial justice groups. The Movement for Black Lives noted that the White House was proposing only $367m to support police reform and said Biden’s budget “shows a blatant disregard for his promises to Black people, masked as an effort to decrease crime”.Michael Gwin, a White House spokesperson, said in an email that Biden had been “consistent in his opposition to defunding the police and in his support for additional funding for community policing”, and “remains committed to advancing long-overdue police reforms”.“The president, along with the overwhelming majority of Americans, knows that we can and must have a criminal justice system that both protects public safety and upholds our founding ideals of equal treatment under the law. In fact, those two goals go hand-in-hand. That approach is at the core of the president’s comprehensive plan to combat crime by getting guns off the streets, and by investing in community-oriented policing and proven community anti-violence programs,” he added.During the national uprisings after Floyd’s murder, “defund the police” became a central rallying cry, with advocates arguing reform efforts had failed to prevent killings and misconduct. Cities could save lives by reducing police budgets, limiting potentially deadly encounters with civilians, and reinvesting funds into community programs that address root causes of crime, activists have said.Some cities initially responded with modest cuts to police budgets, in some cases removing officers from schools, traffic enforcement and other divisions, and investing in alternatives. But over the last year, an uptick in gun violence and homicides has prompted a backlash to the idea of defunding (even as the current crime rate remains significantly lower than decades prior). With intense media coverage of crime, officials have been pressured to abandon reforms, prioritize harsh punishments and invest more in police. Cities that made small cuts have largely restored and expanded law enforcement budgets.“To invest more into a system that we all know is broken is really a slap in the face to everyone who marched in summer 2020,” said Chris Harris, director of policy at the Austin Justice Coalition in Texas. “It reflects just a real lack of solutions to the problems that we face. It’s just more of the same – even if it’s exactly the thing that we know continues to hurt and kill people.”Graphic on killings by police in the US each year, showing 249 people have been killed so far in 2022, and 1,136 people were killed in 2021.Harris said it was disappointing to see calls for police expansion at the federal level, given the George Floyd Act, the national reform measure proposed after the protests, did not succeed. He said he was not surprised that the killings by police continue apace: “We fail to deal with the underlying issues that often drive police interactions in our communities, partly because we’re funding this law enforcement response rather than the upfront supports and services that could help people.”Gwin noted that the White House was exploring possible executive action to pass reforms after Republicans blocked negotiations over legislation.Sinyangwe pointed to a data analysis in Los Angeles, which showed that in recent years, one-third of incidents in which Los Angeles police department (LAPD) officers used force involved an unhoused person: “Instead of using force against homeless people, we should be investing in services and creating unarmed civilian responses to these issues.”But in LA, where housing and outreach efforts have fallen short, there has been an escalating law enforcement crackdown on street encampments. And LAPD is on track to get a large budget boost, despite a sharp increase in killings by officers in 2021.Proponents of police budget increases argue that law enforcement is the solution to violence, but Sinyangwe noted that fewer than 5% of arrests nationally are for serious violent crimes. And research has shown that when police forces expand, there are more arrests for low-level offenses, he said. And many high-profile killings by police have involved stops for alleged low-level crimes.Kaitlyn Dey, an organizer in Portland, Oregon, said it was frustrating to see officials push a narrative that cities need to “re-fund the police” when municipalities have largely failed to defund law enforcement in the first place.“We have to start chipping away at how many officers there are, what kind of equipment they have – that is going to reduce [police] violence, because they’re not going to be able to enact it if you take away their resources,” she said.There are documented solutions that could reduce killings, said Alex S Vitale, sociology professor at Brooklyn College and an expert on policing. He noted estimates suggesting that 25% to 50% of people killed by police were having a mental health crisis.“If we would develop non-police mental health crisis teams, and improve community-based mental health services, we could save hundreds of lives a year,” he said.Vitale, author of The End of Policing, pointed to a program in Denver that sends mental health clinicians and paramedics to respond to certain 911 calls, which is now dramatically expanding after a successful pilot. Health experts have responded to thousands of emergency calls since 2020, and have never had to call police for backup, the Denver Post reported.“While the media has mobilized crime panics to try and shut down talk of reducing our reliance on policing, organizations across the country are doing grassroots work in communities to demand these alternatives,” he said.TopicsUS policingUS politicsJoe BidenGeorge FloydnewsReuse this content More

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      Texas governor Greg Abbott stays silent on whether he will pardon George Floyd

      by

      Texas governor Greg Abbott stays silent on whether he will pardon George FloydParole board unanimously recommended pardon for 2004 drug arrest by ex-officer whose work is no longer trusted by prosecutors Doling out pardons is a Christmas tradition for Greg Abbott, who grants them typically for minor offenses committed years or decades ago. This year, one name stands out on the Republican Texas governor’s desk: George Floyd.Abbott has not said if he will posthumously pardon Floyd for a 2004 drug arrest in Houston by a former officer whose work is no longer trusted by prosecutors.Floyd, who was Black, spent much of his life in Houston before moving to Minnesota, where his murder by a white police officer, who knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes, led last year to a global reckoning on race and policing.Texas’ parole board – stacked with Abbott appointees – unanimously recommended a pardon for Floyd in October.Abbott, who is up for reelection in 2022, has given no indication of whether he will grant what would be only the second posthumous pardon in Texas history.“It doesn’t matter who you think George Floyd was, or what you think he stood for or didn’t stand for,” said Allison Mathis, a public defender in Houston who submitted Floyd’s pardon application. “What matters is he didn’t do this. It’s important for the governor to correct the record to show he didn’t do this.”A spokeswoman for Abbott did not respond to requests for comment.Pardons restore the rights of the convicted and forgive them in the eyes of the law. Floyd’s family and supporters said a posthumous pardon in Texas would show a commitment to accountability.In February 2004, Floyd was arrested in Houston for selling $10 worth of crack in a police sting. He pleaded guilty to a drug charge and served 10 months in prison.His case happened to be among dozens that prosecutors revisited in the fallout over a deadly drug raid in 2019 that resulted in murder charges against an officer, Gerald Goines, who is no longer with the Houston force.Prosecutors say Goines lied to obtain a search warrant in the raid that left a husband and wife dead, and the office of the Harris county district attorney, Kim Ogg, has dismissed more than 160 drug convictions tied to Goines.Goines has pleaded not guilty and his attorneys accuse Ogg of launching the review for political gain.Abbott has several primary challengers from the far right. His silence about a pardon for Floyd has raised questions over whether political calculations are at play. His office has not responded to those charges.Abbott attended Floyd’s memorial service last year in Houston, where he met family members and floated the idea of a George Floyd Act that deals with police brutality.But Abbott never publicly supported such a measure when lawmakers returned to the Capitol, where Republicans instead made police funding a priority.State senator Royce West, a Democrat who carried the George Floyd Act in the Senate, said he understands the politics if Abbott was waiting until after the primary in March. But he said the governor should act on the recommendation.“As he’s always said, he is a law and order governor,“ West said. “And this would be following the law.”TopicsGeorge FloydGreg AbbottTexasLaw (US)US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Minneapolis votes on whether to replace police department

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      MinnesotaMinneapolis votes on whether to replace police department Future of policing is on the ballot in the city where Floyd’s death in May 2020 launched a nationwide reckoning on racial justice Associated Press in MinneapolisTue 2 Nov 2021 08.51 EDTVoters in Minneapolis will decide on Tuesday whether to replace their police department with a new Department of Public Safety, more than a year after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer launched a national movement to defund or abolish police. ‘I had a big gasp’: George Floyd jurors speak on the trial, the video and the verdictRead moreThe Democratic mayor, Jacob Frey, is also in a tough fight for a second term, facing opponents who attacked him in the wake of Floyd’s death.Frey opposed the policing amendment. Two of his leading challengers in a field of 17, Sheila Nezhad and Kate Knuth, strongly supported the proposal. Voters will also decide whether to replace an unusual “weak mayor, strong council” system with a more conventional distribution of executive and legislative powers.While results on the ballot questions were expected on Tuesday night, the mayoral race uses ranked-choice voting. If no candidate reaches 50% in the first round, the winner will be determined after a tally of second- and potentially third-choice votes. The future of policing in the city where Floyd’s death in May 2020 launched a nationwide reckoning on racial justice overshadowed everything else on the ballot. The debate brought national attention as well as out-of-state money seeking to influence a contest that could shape changes in policing elsewhere. The proposed amendment to the city charter would remove language that mandates Minneapolis have a police department with a minimum number of officers based on population. It would be replaced by a new Department of Public Safety that would take a “comprehensive public health approach to the delivery of functions” that “could include” police officers “if necessary, to fulfill its responsibilities for public safety”. Supporters of the change argued that an overhaul is necessary to stop police violence, to re-imagine what public safety can be and to devote more funding to approaches that don’t rely on sending armed officers to deal with people in crisis. But opponents said the ballot proposal contained no plan for how the department would operate and expressed fear it might make communities affected by gun violence more vulnerable. The details, and who would lead the new agency, would be determined by the mayor and the council. Two prominent progressives – Ilhan Omar, who represents the Minneapolis area, and state attorney general Keith Ellison – supported the policing amendment. But some leading mainstream liberals, including Governor Tim Walz and Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, opposed it, fearing backlash could lead to Democratic losses across the US in 2022. Opponents included several Black leaders, some top voices in the police accountability movement. Minister JaNae Bates, a spokeswoman for the pro-amendment campaign, told reporters that even if the proposal fails, it has changed the conversation. “No matter what happens,” Bates said, “the city is going to have to move forward and really wrestle with what we cannot un-know: that the Minneapolis police department has been able to operate with impunity and has done quite a bit of harm and the city has to take some serious steps to rectify that.”TopicsMinnesotaGeorge FloydUS politicsUS policingRacenewsReuse this content More

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      Derek Chauvin sentenced to 22 and a half years for murder of George Floyd – latest news

      by

      Key events

      Show

      3.55pm EDT
      15:55

      Chauvin given 22 and a half years for George Floyd murder

      1.42pm EDT
      13:42

      Health secretary ordered to investigate Fort Bliss migrant children complaints

      1.28pm EDT
      13:28

      Charges possible in Trump Organization investigation – report

      12.50pm EDT
      12:50

      Republican congressman compares Democrats to Nazis

      12.17pm EDT
      12:17

      DoJ sues over Georgia voting rights measure – full report

      12.05pm EDT
      12:05

      Georgia governor slams DoJ voting rights lawsuit

      11.10am EDT
      11:10

      Justice Department sues Georgia over voting law

      Live feed

      Show

      5.43pm EDT
      17:43

      Gabrielle Canon here, taking over from the west coast for the evening.
      Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has tweeted his reaction to the Chavin sentence it “historic” but agreeing with others that more needs to be done.
      “This is a positive step toward justice, but our work is not done. We’ve known all along that accountability in the courtroom is not enough,” he says.

      Governor Tim Walz
      (@GovTimWalz)
      Today, Judge Cahill gave Derek Chauvin a historic sentence. This is a positive step toward justice, but our work is not done. We’ve known all along that accountability in the courtroom is not enough. https://t.co/mlLijFciIf

      June 25, 2021

      “The statements today from George Floyd’s family and members of the community were painful but powerful,” he continues. “Now, as Derek Chauvin faces years behind bars, we must come together around our common humanity and continue on towards justice for all”.
      The stataement echoed the statement the governor issued on April 20, when Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd, when he said that systemic change was needed to prevent this from happening again.
      Here is more from his statement in April:

      “Too many Black people have lost—and continue to lose—their lives at the hands of law enforcement in our state.”
      “Our communities of color cannot go on like this. Our police officers cannot go on like this. Our state simply cannot go on like this. And the only way it will change is through systemic reform.”
      “We must rebuild, restore, and reimagine the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve. We must tackle racial inequities in every corner of society—from health to home ownership to education. We must come together around our common humanity.”
      “Let us continue on this march towards justice.”

      Updated
      at 5.47pm EDT

      5.27pm EDT
      17:27

      Evening summary

      That’s it for me. Here’s a recap of what happened today:

      Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the death of George Floyd.
      Here’s Joe Biden responding to the ruling.
      The UFO report is out.
      Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida addressed the building collapse and efforts by rescue workers there.
      The Manhattan district attorney informed attorneys for Donald Trump that criminal charges could be filed against the family business.

      5.13pm EDT
      17:13

      Here’s Al Sharpton reacting to the ruling. Like Ellison, he said the ruling was not enough. Sharpton noted that the ruling is “longest sentence they’ve ever given but it is not justice. Justice is George Floyd would be alive.”

      ABC News
      (@ABC)
      Rev. Al Sharpton on Derek Chauvin 22.5-year sentence: “Had they done sentences like this before, maybe Chauvin would not have thought he would have gotten away with it.” https://t.co/IuuRKnTv3s pic.twitter.com/vw7mGKzXvh

      June 25, 2021

      5.06pm EDT
      17:06

      Some reaction from various corners of Twitter to the Chauvin ruling:

      Jemele Hill
      (@jemelehill)
      If you’re wondering if Derek Chauvin’s sentence is fair, Chauvin will be 60 years old when he’s released from prison after serving 15 years of his 22 1/2-year sentence. George Floyd was murdered by Chauvin when he was 46. Floyd can never resume his life. Chauvin can.

      June 25, 2021

      Meena Harris
      (@meena)
      Just a reminder that Chauvin being sentenced to 22 years in prison is not justice. George Floyd being alive today — along with countless other black people murdered by the police — is justice. There’s no achieving justice from a system that is fundamentally unjust.

      June 25, 2021

      W. Kamau Bell
      (@wkamaubell)
      White people, do not celebrate Derek Chauvin’s sentence. Figure out how you can put the same attention & activism on all police murders of Black people that you put on George Floyd. Your work is not done.

      June 25, 2021

      Harry Litman
      (@harrylitman)
      Presumptive sentence for the crime for a person of Chauvin’s criminal history is 12.5 years. So in effect Judge Cahill imposed an additional 10 years for the aggravating factors. Remember, Chauvin waived his right for a jury to determine & probably jury would have found even more

      June 25, 2021

      5.02pm EDT
      17:02

      My colleague Adam Gabbatt had a long dispatch about the UFO report:

      The mystery of UFOs seen in American skies is likely to continue following the release of the US government’s highly anticipated UFO report.
      The report released Friday afternoon made clear that while American intelligence officials do not believe aliens are behind the UFOs – or what scientists prefer to call unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) – that were observed by Navy pilots, they cannot explain what the flying objects are.
      The report confirms that the observed phenomena are not part of any US military operations.
      The Pentagon studied over 140 incidents reported by Navy pilots of UFOs seen over the last two decades for the report, many of which were seen during the summer of 2014 into the spring of 2015.
      The release of the report caps a six-month wait, since a group of elected officials succeeded in including the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021 in a $2.3tn coronavirus relief bill signed by Donald Trump last December.
      The act ordered government agencies to provide a declassified “detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence” and “a detailed description of an interagency process” for reporting UFOs.
      The discussion of UFOs – at government level or outside it – has been stigmatized for decades. While some have used the UAP materials as fodder for theories on alien life, officials have pointed to the possible threat of the UAPs being from an adversary using technology unknown to the US.

      4.50pm EDT
      16:50

      The much-awaited (at least to me) Director of National Intelligence report on UFOs is here. Read it.

      4.41pm EDT
      16:41

      Joe Biden was asked about his reaction to the Chauvin ruling. Here’s the pool report:

      Question: Do you have a reaction to Derek Chauvin being sentenced to 22.5 years in prison?
      Biden: “I don’t know all the circumstances that were considered but it seems to me, under the guidelines, that seems to be appropriate.”
      Thanks to the AP’s Darlene Superville for lending a good recording of the quote.
      More quotes coming.

      The Recount
      (@therecount)
      President Biden reacts to Derek Chauvin sentence of 22.5 years, saying “that seems to be appropriate.” pic.twitter.com/hNGv84W1LY

      June 25, 2021

      Updated
      at 4.51pm EDT

      4.32pm EDT
      16:32

      Oliver Laughland

      Just before sentencing Derek Chauvin to 22 and a half years, judge Cahill, known as a forthright and relatively brusque jurist, stated he had written a lengthy, 26 page sentencing memo to explain his thinking on the sentence, which is 10 years above the state guidance for second degree murder. “What the sentence is not based on is emotion or sympathy, but at the same time I want to acknowledge the deep and tremendous pain families are feeling, especially the Floyd family,” Cahill told the court.
      The document itself is filled with a lot legal reasoning, but the conclusion is worth reporting here as it’s a neat summary of Cahill’s thinking.
      He writes: “Part of the mission of the Minneapolis police department is to give citizens ‘voice and respect’. Here, Mr Chauvin, rather than pursuing the MPD mission, treated Mr Floyd without respect and denied him the dignity owed to all human beings and which he certainly would have extended to a friend or neighbor. In the court’s view, 270 months, which amounts to an additional 10 years over the presumptive 150 month sentence, is the appropriate sentence.”

      Updated
      at 4.36pm EDT

      4.17pm EDT
      16:17

      Here is the sentencing order on the Chauvin ruling in the Floyd case.

      4.16pm EDT
      16:16

      Attorney Ben Crump has also responded to the ruling.

      Ben Crump
      (@AttorneyCrump)
      22.5 YEARS! This historic sentence brings the Floyd family and our nation one step closer to healing by delivering closure and accountability.

      June 25, 2021

      4.15pm EDT
      16:15

      Ellison continues: “My hope for Derek Chauvin is that he uses his long sentence to reflect on the choices he made … my hope is that he takes the time to learn something about the man whose life he took.”
      Ellison is going on to say the sentencing “is not enough”.

      Updated
      at 4.19pm EDT

      4.14pm EDT
      16:14

      Ellison is now speaking.
      “The sentence that the court just imposed on Derek Chauvin … is one of the longest a former police officer has ever received for an unlawful use of deadly force,” Ellison said. “Today’s sentencing is not justice but it’s another moment of real accountability on the road to justice.”

      Updated
      at 4.19pm EDT

      4.12pm EDT
      16:12

      Attorney General Keith Ellison of Minnesota is about to speak about the ruling and Derek Chauvin’s sentencing. More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

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      George Floyd’s family urges Biden to pass a policing reform bill – live

      by

      Key events

      Show

      5.00pm EDT
      17:00

      Today so far

      4.42pm EDT
      16:42

      Senate confirms Kristen Clarke to lead DOJ civil rights division in historic first

      4.06pm EDT
      16:06

      ‘We have to act’ on policing reform, Biden says after meeting with Floyd family

      3.46pm EDT
      15:46

      Floyd family encourages passage of policing reform bill after Biden meeting

      3.19pm EDT
      15:19

      Biden to travel to Tulsa to mark 100th anniversary of race massacre

      2.38pm EDT
      14:38

      Biden and Harris meet with Floyd family to commemorate anniversary

      2.12pm EDT
      14:12

      Crew disappointed after DoJ bars Trump-Russia memo

      Live feed

      Show

      5.29pm EDT
      17:29

      Capitol riot defendants argue that jail conditions are ‘psychologically damaging’
      Defense lawyers representing alleged Capitol rioters who have been jailed before trial are now arguing that conditions at a DC jail are “damaging”, and that the defendants should be transferred or released, NBC News’ Scott MacFarlane reports.

      Scott MacFarlane
      (@MacFarlaneNews)
      Defense lawyer in Jan 6 case tells judge the conditions at DC jail for Insurrection defendants are “psychologically damaging”22 hours of lockdown, only two hours of rec time.. no movement on weekends for inmates, according to defense attorneyMore motions for release coming pic.twitter.com/S40a2VCNnI

      May 25, 2021

      The defendants making these arguments include Dominic Pezzola, a member of the Proud Boys, whose lawyer said conditions at the jail are “unheard of”, MacFarlane reports.

      Scott MacFarlane
      (@MacFarlaneNews)
      Lots of Jan 6 defendants are trying to get released out of DC jail (or transferred elsewhere) this weekRyan Samsel is accused of knocking unconscious an officer at barricade Jan 6Samsel says *he* was beaten in DC jail in March & remains injured. He wants to be sent to PA pic.twitter.com/MI7YMqnflS

      May 25, 2021

      Scott MacFarlane
      (@MacFarlaneNews)
      NEW: Attorney says accused Proud Boy Domenic Pezzola will seek release from jail (again) before trial in Jan 6 case. Lawyer says Pezzola is “psychologically damaged” because conditions at jail are “unheard of”And adds…. trial won’t happen “anytime soon” pic.twitter.com/X9JkxWODde

      May 25, 2021

      Updated
      at 5.46pm EDT

      5.14pm EDT
      17:14

      A somber image of George Floyd’s daughter at the White House
      This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live US politics coverage from Los Angeles.
      Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci shared this image of Gianna Floyd, George Floyd’s seven-year-old daughter, visiting the White House earlier today.

      Evan Vucci
      (@evanvucci)
      A Marine holds the door as Gianna Floyd, the daughter of George Floyd, walks into the White House. pic.twitter.com/tbsavLTzcx

      May 25, 2021

      After a meeting with Joe Biden, members of the Floyd family spoke publicly, and Gianna led a chant of “Say his name, George Floyd!”

      Updated
      at 5.44pm EDT

      5.00pm EDT
      17:00

      Today so far

      That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Lois Beckett, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:

      George Floyd’s family encouraged Congress to pass a policing reform bill after meeting with Joe Biden at the White House. The family’s meeting with the president came on the one-year anniversary of the death of Floyd, who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis. “If you can make federal laws to protect the [national] bird, which is the bald eagle, you can make federal laws to protect people of color,” Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, told reporters after the meeting.
      Biden expressed hope that lawmakers will soon reach a bipartisan compromise on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. “To deliver real change, we must have accountability when law enforcement officers violate their oaths,” the president said in a statement after his meeting with Floyd’s family. “We have to act.”
      Biden will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin next month in Geneva, Switzerland, the White House confirmed. The 16 June summit will mark Biden’s first in-person meeting with the Russian president since taking office.
      As of today, 50% of American adults are fully vaccinated against coronavirus, the White House said. Biden has previously said he wants to get 70% of American adults at least partially vaccinated by 4 July, and the White House said it is on track to meet that goal.
      House minority leader Kevin McCarthy condemned extremist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for comparing coronavirus restrictions to the Holocaust. “Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling,” McCarthy said. Greene’s comments had sparked widespread outrage among members of both parties, who noted it was incredibly offensive to compare health precautions recommended by experts to the slaughter of 6 million Jewish people.

      Lois will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      Updated
      at 5.08pm EDT

      4.42pm EDT
      16:42

      Senate confirms Kristen Clarke to lead DOJ civil rights division in historic first

      The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:
      The senate voted Tuesday afternoon to confirm Kristen Clarke to lead the civil rights division at the Justice Department, making her the Black woman to be confirmed to the role.
      The vote was 51-48, with Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine, voting with Democrats to support Clarke’s nomination.
      Clarke, a career civil rights lawyer who is widely respected for her work on voting rights, politicing, and anti-discrimination, will lead the division of the department responsible for enforcing some of America’s most powerful anti-discrimination laws.

      Senate Cloakroom
      (@SenateCloakroom)
      Confirmed, 51-48: Executive Calendar #124 Kristen M. Clarke to be an Assistant Attorney General. @TheJusticeDept

      May 25, 2021

      At the department, she’ll join Vanita Gupta, another longtime civil rights lawyer, who was confirmed to be the associate attorney general, the number three position at the department, earlier this year. The appointment of both women, widely praised by civil rights groups, signals the importance of civil rights enforcement to the Biden administration.
      As the head of the civil rights division, Clarke will be responsible for enforcing the nation’s voting laws. She will take over at a moment when Republicans across the country have launched a brazen effort to restrict access to the ballot. The Trump administration was largely silent on voting rights enforcement and many are closely watching to see whether the Justice Department will aggressively challenge the new laws.
      Clarke’s confirmation is also a major political win for the Biden White House. Republicans and Fox News host Tucker Carlson spent months attacking Clarke for an op-ed she wrote in college and tried to paint her as someone who would come to the role with an anti-police bias.
      Clarke and Democrats strongly pushed back on those accusations, saying the op-ed, written decades ago when she was an undergraduate, was distorted and that she did not support defunding the police.

      4.23pm EDT
      16:23

      Kamala Harris released her own statement after she and Joe Biden met with the family of George Floyd this afternoon, and she said Congress must act “swiftly” to address policing reform.
      “One year ago, a cellphone video revealed to the country what Black Americans have known to be true for generations. The verdict finding Derek Chauvin guilty of murder provided some measure of justice. But one verdict does not address the persistent issue of police misconduct and use of excessive force,” the vice-president said.
      “We need to do more. After Mr Floyd was murdered, Senator Cory Booker, representative Karen Bass, and I introduced the Justice in Policing Act to hold law enforcement accountable and build trust between law enforcement and the communities it serves. Congress must move swiftly and act with a sense of urgency. Passing legislation will not bring back those lives lost, but it will represent much needed progress.”
      Bass and Booker continue to engage in negotiations with Republican Senator Tim Scott over the bill, and the trio said yesterday that they “remain optimistic” about the chances of reaching a final deal.
      “We must address racial injustice wherever it exists,” Harris concluded. “That is the work ahead.”

      Updated
      at 4.41pm EDT

      4.06pm EDT
      16:06

      ‘We have to act’ on policing reform, Biden says after meeting with Floyd family

      Joe Biden has released a statement to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, urging Congress to pass the policing reform bill named in his honor.
      The president noted he met with some of Floyd’s family members in the Oval Office this afternoon, and he applauded their strength over the past year.
      “Although it has been one year since their beloved brother and father was murdered, for the family – for any family experiencing a profound loss – the first year can still feel like they got the news a few seconds ago,” Biden said. “And they’ve had to relive that pain and grief each and every time those horrific 9 minutes and 29 seconds have been replayed.”
      Biden emphasized that the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin cannot be the end of the discussion when it comes to policing reform.
      “Last month’s conviction of the police officer who murdered George was another important step forward toward justice. But our progress can’t stop there,” Biden said.
      “To deliver real change, we must have accountability when law enforcement officers violate their oaths, and we need to build lasting trust between the vast majority of the men and women who wear the badge honorably and the communities they are sworn to serve and protect. We can and must have both accountability and trust and in our justice system.”
      The president expressed hope that lawmakers will soon reach a bipartisan compromise on the policing bill and send it to his desk.
      “We have to act. We face an inflection point,” Biden said. “The battle for the soul of America has been a constant push and pull between the American ideal that we’re all created equal and the harsh reality that racism has long torn us apart. At our best, the American ideal wins out. It must again.”

      3.50pm EDT
      15:50

      George Floyd’s young daughter, Gianna, led a chant of “Say his name, George Floyd!” after she and her family met with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to commemorate the anniversary of her father’s death.

      CBS News
      (@CBSNews)
      George Floyd’s daughter Gianna leads a chant with his family members outside the White House: “Say his name — George Floyd.” https://t.co/Nj065CIsxp pic.twitter.com/1h5QmJ7oZN

      May 25, 2021

      3.46pm EDT
      15:46

      Floyd family encourages passage of policing reform bill after Biden meeting

      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ meeting with the family of George Floyd to commemorate the anniversary of his murder concluded after about an hour.
      Once the meeting wrapped up, Floyd’s family members and their attorney, civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump, walked out to speak to White House reporters.

      CBS News
      (@CBSNews)
      After private meeting with Pres. Biden, George Floyd’s brother Philonise calls on Congress to pass George Floyd Justice In Policing Act: “If you can make federal laws to protect the [national] bird, which is the bald eagle, you can make federal laws to protect people of color.” pic.twitter.com/yTYRaHyAug

      May 25, 2021

      Crump said the meeting was “very personal” because Biden has gotten to know the Floyd family well over the past year, and the president offered his assurances that he was ready to sign the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act “any day”.
      “He said that he doesn’t want to sign a bill that doesn’t have substance and meaning, so he is going to be patient to make sure it’s the right bill, not a rushed bill,” Crump said.
      Philonise Floyd, one of Floyd’s brothers who participated in the meeting with the president, said it was absolutely imperative that Congress pass the bill.
      “If you can make federal laws to protect the [national] bird, which is the bald eagle, you can make federal laws to protect people of color,” Floyd said.

      Updated
      at 3.46pm EDT

      3.33pm EDT
      15:33

      David Smith

      Amid frustration over lack of police reform, Joe Biden hosted George Floyd’s brother Philonise, seven-year-old daughter Gianna and other family members at a private meeting on Tuesday.
      The sombre anniversary was an opportunity for the president, whose own family has been haunted by grief, to demonstrate an empathy many found lacking in his predecessor, Donald Trump.
      Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters: “I think a lot of the meeting will be him listening to them and hearing from them on what they want the path forward to look like.
      “He really wanted it to be a private meeting because he has a personal relationship and he wanted to hear how they’re doing, give them an update on his efforts to sign a bill into law and ensure there is long-overdue accountability.”

      3.19pm EDT
      15:19

      Biden to travel to Tulsa to mark 100th anniversary of race massacre

      Joe Biden will travel to Tulsa, Oklahoma, next week to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the city’s race massacre, the White House has just announced.
      The announcement comes a week after three survivors of the massacre testified before the House of Representatives about the need for reparations for those who survived the attack and their descendants.

      The Guardian’s David Smith reported last week:

      For nearly a century she was denied a voice by a culture of silence. Finally, at the age of 107, Viola Fletcher got a national stage on Wednesday to bear witness to America’s deep history of racial violence.
      Fletcher is the oldest living survivor of a massacre that took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 31 May and 1 June 1921 when a white mob attacked the city’s ‘Black Wall Street’, killing an estimated 300 African Americans while robbing and burning more than 1,200 businesses, homes and churches.
      She was just seven years old at the time.
      For decades the atrocity was actively covered up and wished away. But Fletcher and her 100-year-old brother are seeking reparations and, ahead of the massacre’s centenary, appeared before a House of Representatives judiciary subcommittee considering legal remedies. …
      ‘I am here seeking justice,’ Fletcher said. ‘I am here asking my country to acknowledge what happened in Tulsa in 1921.’

      2.57pm EDT
      14:57

      The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:
      One of the companies involved in the unprecedented review of 2.1 million ballots in Arizona has ended its involvement in the effort, the Arizona Republic reported Tuesday.
      The company, Pennsylvania-based Wake TSI, was only contracted to work on the review through 14 May, and chose not to extend its contract, a spokesman for the review told the Republic. Their decision to stop comes as the effort, executed at the behest of Republicans in the state senate, has come under national scrutiny for shoddy practices and bias.

      Sam Levine
      (@srl)
      This is hugely significant. Cyber Ninjas has gotten a lot of attention around the audit, but Wake TSI was the company on the floor running the counting. https://t.co/8at3mzTESX

      May 25, 2021

      Wake TSI was involved in overseeing the portion of the audit that dealt with a hand recount of the presidential vote and US senate race in Maricopa county (Republicans are also examining voting technology and the paper ballots were cast on). The firm overseeing the entire audit, called Cyber Ninjas, had previously pointed to Wake TSI’s involvement in a prior audit in Pennsylvania to assuage concern about Cyber Ninjas’ own lack of experience in election audits.
      New details have come to light in recent days about Wake TSI’s involvement in Pennsylvania. On Monday, the Arizona Mirror reported that the firm had been hired by a non-profit linked to Sidney Powell, a Trump ally and one of the most prominent figures to spread lies about the results of the 2020 election last year.
      StratTech solutions, an Arizona-based IT firm, will take over for Wake TSI and continue to count ballots in accordance with the procedures the company had already set up, according to the Republic. It’s unclear what experience StratTech has in elections, if any.

      2.38pm EDT
      14:38

      Biden and Harris meet with Floyd family to commemorate anniversary

      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are now meeting with the family of George Floyd to commemorate the one-year anniversary of his murder in Minneapolis.
      The White House told the press pool about 20 minutes ago that the meeting, scheduled to begin at 1:30 pm ET, had now started.
      Biden’s staff has said he intends for the meeting to be a private gathering, but members of the Floyd family may speak to reporters after it concludes.
      After their meeting with the president, Floyd’s family members are scheduled to meet with Democratic Senator Cory Booker and Republican Senator Tim Scott, who are working on the policing reform bill named in Floyd’s honor.
      The blog will have more details on the meeting as they become available, so stay tuned.

      2.31pm EDT
      14:31

      Martin Pengelly

      The White House expects to get Republicans’ counteroffer on a $2tn infrastructure proposal later this week, press secretary Jen Psaki said earlier.
      Senate Republicans are due to meet to determine their next steps on infrastructure talks and could deliver their proposal on Thursday, Senator Shelley Capito of West Virginia said.
      Republicans have said that they won’t back Joe Biden’s plan to pay for much-needed infrastructure repair and investment by altering the 2017 tax bill, passed under Donald Trump and when Republicans controlled Congress, to increase taxes on the wealthy and companies. They are expected to offer a pared-down proposal.
      “We are waiting to hear back from Republicans on how they would propose to pay for it” if they won’t raise taxes, Psaki said.

      Updated
      at 2.34pm EDT

      2.12pm EDT
      14:12

      Crew disappointed after DoJ bars Trump-Russia memo

      Martin Pengelly

      Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the group attempting to gain access to a Department of Justice memo about Donald Trump, possible obstruction of justice and the Russia investigation, has said it is “deeply disappointed” by a DoJ decision not to release the memo in full despite being ordered to do so by a federal judge. More