History is repeated in protests at the death of George Floyd (original) (raw)

Jun 1st 2020|WASHINGTON, DC

THE PRESIDENT who promised in his inaugural address that “this American carnage stops right here and stops right now” found himself, three years later, being escorted to a bunker in the White House as protests raged outside. At one point, the lights of the presidential residence went dark; intermittent illumination came instead from the fires set on nearby streets. What began as an expression of outrage when George Floyd, an African-American man suspected of buying cigarettes with a fake $20 bill, died on May 25th, after Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis policeman, knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, has exploded into seething protests nationwide. Twenty-three states have called in the National Guard to quell unrest; 4,000 people were arrested over the weekend; shops from Santa Monica to Manhattan have been looted.