London protests. ABCnews screen capture. In Central London, protesters congregated at one of the City’s key landmarks in Trafalgar Square, to demonstrate in a show of solidarity with marches across the United States, over the brutal killing of George Floyd, an unarmed African-American man in Minneapolis a week today. The thuggish cops who murdered him were captured on video. Derek Chauvin grinded his left knee into Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds while two colleagues on the Minneapolis Police Department held down Folyd who was already handcuffed. A fourth officer kept off horrified onlookers recording the killings on cell phone cameras at bay. The London demonstration was in breach of UK lockdown rules to curb the spread of Covid-19, which forbid large gatherings. Law enforcement officers were powerless to disperse such a large congregation of people, many of whom were fired-up and incensed at police brutality against people of color all over the world, instead of concentrating on maintaining public order. Meanwhile, U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab declined to comment on the ongoing unrest in the United States, calling the footage of police officer Chauvin with his knee on Floyds neck ” very distressing.” After spending the first part of the demonstrations at Trafalgar Square, hundreds of protesters then made their way to the American Embassy in Nine Elms Lane, South West London, making a brief stop at 10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister’s official residence. There, the crowds were involved in minor scuffles against the police with a total of 11 people being arrested for assault and breach of lockdown rules. There were no lootings or destruction of properties. For the most part protesters engaged the police with verbal abuse and gesticulations. Demonstrations also took place in several cities in the U.K., including Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff. There were no reports of any major incidents in any of those cities. The marches in London were largely peaceful with hundreds chanting the now familiar cry “I can’t breathe,” others were holding signs that read: ” Black lives matter,” and “justice for George Floyd.” Before he was murdered Floyd was pleading for his life, saying, “Please I can’t breathe, please, I can’t breathe.” “This is our respect to people in America who are suffering right now,” Paige Adjarhore, 18, told CBS News and other media outlets, at the London protest. When asked about social distancing due to Coronavirus, Adjarhore added, “Racism is the real pandemic in the world… It’s not Covid-19, it’s racism.” “We’re too far away to go there and help them, but this is us showing that we support them. We’re with you and we feel your pain,” she said. “What people don’t understand is that when you’re Black, you’re under attack,” said Kieran Blackman, 28. “We have fought for equality, and it’s not happening.” Protests have taken place in most U.S. cities with many turning violent, over the death of Floyd, who was filmed by several witnesses and could be heard pleading for air as a police officer kneeled on his neck while he was handcuffed. Four of those policemen have now been relieved from their post and Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. The family of Floyd wants murder charges to be brought against all the officers involved including those that stood and watched. You get an ominous, eerie feeling in the UK that we haven’t seen anything yet. There are more protest in the UK planned for the days ahead for this latest U.S. police killing of another unarmed Black man whose consequences now reverberates around the world.
George Floyd Murder Reverberates Overseas As Thousands of Londoners Defy Covid-19 Lockdown to Protest
