George Floyd/Black Lives Matter

George Floyd’s family lobbies Biden for U.S. police reform on anniversary of death

George Floyd USA

Relatives of George Floyd met with President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday, lobbying for passage of police reform legislation in their loved one’s name on the first anniversary of his killing by a police officer since convicted of murder.

Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died in handcuffs with his neck pinned to a Minneapolis street under a white policeman’s knee, has become the face of a turbulent national reckoning with racial injustice and police brutality.

His dying words, “I can’t breathe,” were echoed as a slogan in widespread street demonstrations that convulsed the United States and the world last summer in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress has been working to hammer out legislation bearing his name, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, designed to overhaul U.S. law enforcement practices and make them more accountable.

“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, said on the White House driveway he after five other members of the family met with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the Oval Office.

“We have to act. We face an inflection point,” Biden said in a statement issued by the White House afterward. “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.”

 

Earlier in the day, Floyd’s family, including his daughter, Gianna and two other brothers, met on Capitol Hill with House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, and other lawmakers who promised to secure passage of the legislation, currently stalled in Congress.

“We hope to bring comfort to your family by passing this final bill very soon,”

Pelosi said.

Senator Tim Scott, the lead Republican negotiator on the measure, told reporters on Tuesday that a main point of contention remained qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that shields individual police officers from lawsuits in certain circumstances.

Republicans oppose provisions in the bill rolling back such immunity, while many liberal Democrats say they would only support a bill that abolished it.

“We have a long way to go still, but it’s starting to take form,” Scott said.

FLOYD’S LIFE CELEBRATED

In Minneapolis, a foundation created in Floyd’s memory by some in his family organized an afternoon of music and food in a park near the downtown courtroom where Derek Chauvin, the former officer, was convicted last month of murdering Floyd.

Chauvin, 45, faces up to 40 years in prison when he is sentenced on June 25.

The three other officers at the scene have pleaded not guilty to aiding and abetting Chauvin, and will go on trial next year. The Minneapolis Police Department fired all four officers the day after Floyd was killed.

Later on Tuesday, mourners are set to gather for a candlelight vigil at the stretch of road where Chauvin knelt on the Floyd’s neck. Darnella Frazier, a teenage bystander, recorded the killing on her cellphone, uploading video to Facebook that horrified people around the world. Floyd had been suspected of using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes.

By the afternoon, small crowds were gathering at the intersection for a festive, sunny afternoon of music and children’s activities. A man set out paint ready to create a fresh mural in the square, which has been closed to most vehicle traffic for a year and is filled with flowers and art commemorating Floyd and other Black victims of police violence.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey were due to join activists in a city park for 9 minutes and 29 seconds of silence in memory of Floyd’s murder.

Demonstrations were planned in New York City. Earlier on Tuesday, Shaun Donovan, a Democratic candidate for mayor, was among a group of five protesters arrested for blocking traffic near a major tunnel into Manhattan.

Legislation has been pursued in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia to increase the accountability or oversight of police, and 24 states have enacted new laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The laws have included the mandating of body-worn cameras for officers, banning neck restraints or making it easier for the public to see police officers’ disciplinary records.

Still, some activists say such measures, which in some jurisdictions have been on the books for years, are insufficient to address systemic racism in the criminal justice system.

Derrick Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People civil rights group, said he also would meet with lawmakers to urge passage of the legislation.

“It’s hard to say if race relations, specifically, are better now than they were a year ago because change takes a lot of time,” Johnson said in an interview. “We can’t change everything in a few months or in a year. But there’s a there’s definitely a new tone in this country.”

Guilty: George Floyd’s killer might receive 40 years

Floyd court verdict USA

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted on Tuesday of murdering George Floyd, a milestone in the fraught racial history of the United States and a rebuke of law enforcement’s treatment of Black Americans.

A 12-member jury found Chauvin, 45, guilty of all three charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter after considering three weeks of testimony from 45 witnesses, including bystanders, police officials and medical experts. Deliberations began on Monday and lasted just over 10 hours.

In a confrontation captured on video, Chauvin, a white veteran of the police force, pushed his knee into the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man in handcuffs,

for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020.

Chauvin and three fellow officers were attempting to arrest Floyd, accused of using a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes at a grocery store.

The jurors remained still and quiet as the verdict was read. Chauvin, wearing a gray suit with a blue tie as well as a light-blue face mask, nodded and stood quickly when the judge ruled that his bail was revoked. He was taken out of the courtroom in handcuffs and placed in the custody of the Hennepin County sheriff.

The conviction triggered a wave of relief and reflection not only across the United States but in countries around the world.

“It was a murder in the full light of day and it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic racism,” President Joe Biden said in televised remarks. “This can be a giant step forward in the march toward justice in America.”

Outside the courthouse, a crowd of several hundred people erupted in cheers when the verdict was announced – a scene that unfolded in cities across the country. Car horns honked, demonstrators blocked traffic and chanted: “George Floyd” and “All three counts.” At George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, the intersection where Floyd was killed and which was later

named in his honor,

people screamed, applauded and some threw dollar bills in the air in celebration.

While celebrating the verdict, protesters called for justice in the case of Daunte Wright, a Black man who was fatally shot by a police officer after a routine traffic stop on April 11, just a few miles from where Chauvin stood trial. Kimberly Potter, who has turned in her badge, has been charged with manslaughter in that case.

George Floyd’s brother Philonise, speaking at a news conference with several family members, said: “We are able to breathe again” after the verdict, but he added the fight for justice was not over.

“We have to protest because it seems like this is a never-ending cycle,”

he said.

‘FIRST STEP TOWARDS JUSTICE’

Chauvin could now face up to 40 years in prison.

While the U.S. criminal justice system and juries have long given leeway and some legal protection to police officers who use violence to subdue civilians, the Minneapolis jurors found that Chauvin had crossed the line and used excessive force.

Chauvin’s defense team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the verdict but is considered likely to appeal the conviction. In a trial that opened on March 29, the defense argued that Chauvin

behaved as any “reasonable police officer” would have

under those circumstances, and sought to raise doubts about the cause of Floyd’s death.

In his comments, Biden emphasized his support for legislation “to root out unconstitutional policing,” including the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which has been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and seeks to increase accountability for law enforcement misconduct.

The Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis said in a statement published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that “there are no winners in this case, and we respect the jury’s decision,” adding: “We need to stop the divisive comments, and we all need to do better to create a Minneapolis we all love.” The intersection of race and law enforcement has long been contentious in the United States, underscored by a series of deadly incidents involving white police officers and Black people in recent years.

Floyd’s death prompted protests against racism and police brutality in many U.S. cities and other countries last summer, even as the world grappled with the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris watched the verdict being read out along with staff in the White House’s private dining room,

the White House said. Biden, Harris and first lady Jill Biden all spoke with Philonise Floyd.

“Nothing is going to make it all better but at least … now there’s some justice,” Biden told the Floyd family, according to a video posted to Twitter.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told reporters that the verdict was a “first step towards justice” and should serve as a launching point for police reform. “We need to use this verdict as an inflection point.”

HOURS OF TESTIMONY

Under Minnesota sentencing guidelines, Chauvin faces 12-1/2 years in prison for his murder conviction as a first-time criminal offender.

Prosecutors could seek a longer sentence of up to 40 years if Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill determines that there were “aggravating factors.” Cahill said Chauvin’s sentencing was likely eight weeks away.

The Minneapolis Police Department fired Chauvin and the three other officers the day after Floyd’s murder. The three others are due to face trial later this year on aiding-and-abetting charges.

Witnesses called by prosecutors included a cardiologist, a pulmonologist and a forensic pathologist, who testified that videos and autopsy results confirmed that Chauvin killed Floyd by starving him of oxygen.

Also among the prosecution witnesses was Darnella Frazier, a teenager who used her cellphone to make a video depicting Floyd’s ordeal – images that catalyzed the subsequent protests. Floyd can be heard crying out for his mother and telling officers he could not breathe.

Other eyewitnesses described the horror and trauma of watching Floyd die in front of them. Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo testified that Chauvin’s actions during the arrest represented an egregious breach of his training.

The jurors, who consisted of four white women, two white men, three Black men, one Black woman and two multiracial women, were sequestered during deliberations.

Doctor who performed George Floyd autopsy stands by homicide conclusion

USA George Floyd

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy on George Floyd after last May’s deadly arrest explained how he concluded the death was a homicide at the hands of police in testimony on Friday at former Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin’s murder trial.

As jurors studied graphic autopsy photographs, Dr. Andrew Baker, Hennepin County’s chief medical examiner, said he stood by the cause of death he determined last year as protests in Floyd’s name against police brutality spread around the world.

Baker is one of the most important witnesses as prosecutors from the Minnesota attorney general’s office wrap up their case against Chauvin, a white man captured on video

kneeling on the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old handcuffed Black man, for nine minutes.

Chauvin’s main defense to the murder and manslaughter charges has been to cast doubt on Baker’s finding, with his lawyers suggesting Floyd may instead have been killed by a simultaneous drug overdose.

Baker ruled last year that Floyd’s death was a homicide caused by “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression.” In short, he found that Floyd’s heart stopped beating and his lungs stopped working because Chauvin, 45, and other officers compressed him against the road in a way that starved his body of oxygen.

Other medical experts called by prosecutors have spent the past two days pointing to the

unusually large amount of video of the death,

from multiple angles, saying it shores up Baker’s finding, and contradicts the defense theory of an overdose.

Baker said he noted in his report that Floyd suffered from heart disease, and fentanyl and methamphetamine were found in his blood because those factors may have played a role in the death. Even so, he emphasized, they

“were not direct causes.”

“Mr. Floyd’s use of fentanyl did not cause the subdual or the neck restraint, his heart disease did not cause the subdual or the neck restraint,” Baker told the jury, using medical jargon to refer to the way police pressed Floyd face down against the street.

Envelopes containing the autopsy pictures were handed to everyone in the room, including reporters and spectators. For the first time since the trial began in March, a person took the single seat reserved for Chauvin’s friends and family. She paused before opening the envelope and looking at the photographs, and declined to speak to reporters who approached her during a recess.

One of Floyd’s relatives has occupied the seat saved for his family

almost every day since the testimony began on March 26, and on Friday it was Rodney Floyd, who held up the photos of his brother’s body before his face to study them.

Under cross examination by Chauvin’s lead lawyer, Eric Nelson, Baker discussed in general how the type of heart disease found in Floyd or his use of fentanyl, an opioid painkiller, can sometimes be deadly. But he said neither directly caused Floyd’s death, which he said he still believed was the holds and compression by the police officers arresting Floyd on suspicion of his

using a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes.

“My opinion remains unchanged: it’s what I put on the death certificate last June,” he said. “That was my top line then. It would stay my top line now.”

‘LAYING BY THE POOL IN FLORIDA’

Dr. Lindsey Thomas, an assistant medical examiner in the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office until she took semi-retirement in 2017, said the sheer volume of videos of Floyd’s arrest helped support Baker’s findings, and had a value beyond what can be learned from a physical autopsy.

“There’s never been a case I was involved in that had videos over such a long time frame and from so many different perspectives,” Thomas testified, saying the videos made it clear

physical signs associated with opioid overdose were not present in Floyd’s death.

She said the videos did not show signs of a fentanyl overdose “where someone becomes very sleepy and then just sort of gradually, calmly, peacefully stops breathing.” Nor did they show a sudden death, as from a heart attack.

“There’s no evidence to suggest he would have died that night except for the interactions with law enforcement,” she said. Nelson, Chauvin’s lawyer, got Thomas to agree that being prone was not in itself sufficient to kill someone, noting that massage therapists often have clients lie face down.

“I could be laying by the pool in Florida on my stomach in the prone position

– not inherently dangerous?” Nelson asked.

“Right,” Thomas replied.

Nelson also asked her about hypothetical scenarios, with Floyd being found dead in different circumstances in which police were not involved.

Questioned later by Blackwell, the prosecutor, Thomas told the jury that hypothetical scenarios were not helpful to a pathologist trying to determine a cause of death.

“George Floyd was not laying by the pool on his stomach in Florida, was he?” Blackwell asked her.

Thomas agreed.

What has happened to the newly inaugurated BLM statue in Budapest exactly?

BLM statue budapest

The story of the newly inaugurated Hungarian Black Lives Matter Movement statue might be the shortest story of any statue in history. The story of the sculpture started in August 2020 and met a surprisingly rapid end just one day after its inauguration.

Back in January, The Guardian was talking about the sculpture of Péter Szalay who have applied for the competition to create monuments to show compassion with the Black Lives Matter Movement. The competition was put forth in August last year and a professional jury have chosen six creations to put them across the 9th district of Budapest.

The statue that has sparked controversy is a reworked Statue of Liberty kneeling and holding her right hand with a closed fist up to the sky. The statue was made using 3D printers and consisted of several larger chunks which sparkled in the colour of the rainbow also to draw attention to LGBTQ issues.

As we have written earlier, the statue was previously exhibited in a private gallery, where no one had a problem with the work. “Even yesterday, I thought that the statue would not be harmed. I thought that the citizens of Budapest were mature enough to watch a public statue and not hurt it. Therefore, I am a little disappointed now,” said Krisztina Baranyi, the mayor of the district, to Telex.

Unfortunately, the statue has faced quite a humiliating series of events. Many different groups with different worldview have attacked the statue both verbally and both physically. One of these groups was the Our Homeland Movement, which said the statue was

“an anti-European, anti-white, anti-heterosexual, and anti-Christian symbol”.

They erected a cross beside the statue then, on the same day as the inauguration, have managed to box in the statue with a couple of wood panels adding a sticker that read: “Blacks would not like the rainbow either”.

BLM statue budapest
Photo: www.facebook.com/Orbán Balázs

After this, Telex reported that a man in black clothing has climbed up on the box and poured white paint over the statue. The events have escalated quickly and after the police have managed to find the perpetrator, more police officers arrived at the scene and guarded the new landmark. According to some information, there were even armed soldiers around the statue’s place.

Even this could not alter the fate of the statue as by Friday morning, the statue was smashed, broken and pushed off of its plinth. According to Telex, the perpetrators were from the Légió Hungária, a far-right racist movement.

The news portal also asked the artist’s opinion about the fate of his artwork, to which he replied unexpectedly. Péter Szalay said that he was expecting that the statue would be demolished but he expected it to happen even sooner. Even though it lived through one night, technically the statue was demolished within less than 24 hours.

The creator also said that he did not want the statue, Prism as it was called, to be a propaganda. According to the work’s creator, the statue itself does not proclaim anything and that the fate of his creation is also part of the story of the art piece.

The mayor of the district also reacted to the questions of Telex and she said that she did not regret her decision and would erect another similar statue again any time, although she added that she did not expect people to destroy the art piece. Previously it was exhibited in a private gallery and no one had any problem with it, but when it was relocated to the streets, it got destroyed. The mayor of the district added that she was disappointed in people.

So, this was the tragic and eventful story of Hungary’s Black Lives Matter statue that also drove the attention to LGBTQ issues and have lived only a little bit longer than a Tisza mayfly. The good news is, that a collector from Szombathely have contacted the artist and would like to add the broken statue to the collection.

On another note, the creator Péter Szalay have created five similar pieces of art and recently sold one for HUF 2.7 million (€ 7,400) which is not that bad, considering he told the police that the statue was made from approximately HUF 40,000 (€ 110) worth of materials.

csorna Easter
Read alsoThe coolest Easter celebration in Hungary – PHOTOS

Budapest BLM statue: fenced, covered in paint, demolished, smashed

BLM statue budapest

Yesterday, a rainbow-coloured statue in honour of the Black Lives Matter movement was inaugurated in Budapest. According to the plans, it would have stayed in the ninth district of the Hungarian capital for two weeks. However, the statue could not stand there for as long.

It was revealed earlier that a work related to the BLM movement would be exhibited in Budapest. This was opposed by many, including the Our Homeland Movement, who said the statue was “an anti-European, anti-white, anti-heterosexual, and anti-Christian symbol”. However, the statue had been made, and it was inaugurated yesterday.

It was planned that the rainbow-coloured statue would have been displayed until April 14th. However, in the time since the statue was erected,

the statue was fenced up, then doused with paint, and demolished and smashed on Friday morning.

Péter Szalay, the creator of the statue, said that he did not want to create political propaganda, but the fact that many people reacted this way is very telling. In August 2020, the 9th district of Budapest announced a competition for independent public works. The professional jury selected six works that were to be exhibited at different points in the district. However, only the work of Péter Szalay had such an adventurous journey.

In addition to the Our Homeland Movement, Zsolt Bayer, a Fidesz insider, said earlier that the statue would be demolished immediately after it was erected. Although Bayer had nothing to do with it, members of the Legion Hungaria far-right organisation tore down the statue. A video of the sculpture was also made, which was later deleted. It was added to the video: “Yesterday, it was set up by the left district government, and we demolished it this morning, true to our previous promises. Of course, the police acted immediately, caught Béla Incze, a member of the leadership of our Movement, who demolished the statue.”

The barely one-metre statue was hit by 3 attacks in one day.

According to Péter Szalay, the fate of the statue is also symbolic. The creator reckoned that the statue would not last for a day. He added that there was nothing ideological to say about the work itself. “It’s not a thing that speaks against either side. There’s no claim in it that Black Lives Matter or this is pro-homosexual. And there’s no message that the BLM is bad,” said Szalay.

The statue was previously exhibited in a private gallery, where no one had a problem with the work. “Even yesterday, I thought that the statue would not be harmed. I thought that the citizens of Budapest were mature enough to watch a public statue and not hurt it. Therefore, I am a little disappointed now,” said Krisztina Baranyi, the mayor of the district, to telex.hu.

There are no plans to replace the statue.

However, the owner of a collection from Szombathely has already applied for the broken work, and the statue can probably take a break. At least what is left of it.

Rainbow-coloured Black Lives Matter statue inaugurated in Budapest

BLM statue budapest

A one-metre-tall rainbow-coloured Black Lives Matter statue has been erected in Ferenc Square in Budapest’s 9th District. A tender was announced last August to have independent public works on the city streets again. A professional jury selected six works from the submitted entries, out of which four were exhibited today.

Needless to say, the project sparked serious anger in recent months. Some threatened to overthrow it, while others (such as the Our Homeland Movement) claim that it is an “anti-European, anti-white, anti-heterosexual, and anti-Christian symbol”.

According to the plans, the rainbow-coloured statue will be exhibited in Ferenc Square until April 14. It is one metre high and was created by Péter Szalay using 3D printing technology. The sculpture paraphrases the New York Statue of Liberty in a kneeling pose with a raised fist, referring to American footballer Colin Kaepernick’s gesture, which became a symbol of the anti-racist movement.

BLM statue budapest
Photo: www.facebook.com/Robert Carrithers

The professional jury evaluated the work of Péter Szalay as follows: “It is a paraphrase of a public memorial sculpture that surfaces current social and political issues: Black Lives Matter and prejudices about LGBTQ. The kneeling gesture of the sculpture also refers to the sculptural decision-making movements in the public space, so it also reflects the current situation of the work of art.

According to Telex, the idea came from the deputy mayor of the district because she wanted to put an end to the practice of making sculptures and other public works in Hungary only on political orders.

Krisztina Baranyi, the mayor of Ferencváros, previously told Euronews that she thinks it is important to set up the installation in Budapest because the BLM goals against racism and police brutality are as relevant in Hungary as anywhere else. As an example, she mentioned the Orbán government’s “relentless campaign” against migrants and refugees, as well as the systematic discrimination against the Roma in Hungary.

BLM statue budapest
Photo: www.facebook.com/Orbán Balázs

The Head of the Prime Minister’s Office, Gergely Gulyás, said in December that the Black Lives Matter in the United States is essentially a racist movement that does not recognise equality, which should be a normal human right by 20th century standards. Therefore, the racist is not the person who opposes the erection of such a statue but the one who erects the statue, Gulyás said.

UPDATE

The statue was only able to stand undisturbed for a few hours due to far-right protesters. According to Azonnali, protesters from Legion Hungary and Our Homeland simply boarded up the rainbow-coloured statue, so it could not even be seen.

UPDATE 2

Telex writes the statue was knocked down around half past eight in the morning, while the police were there in the square anyway because they were out on the scene all night. According to reports, the perpetrators did not want to run away from the police. The statue has been surrounded by police tapes.

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Read alsoA Black Lives Matter Statue to be erected in Budapest

George Floyd’s family receives a 27 million USD settlement from Minneapolis over his death

USA George Floyd

The city of Minneapolis on Friday agreed to pay 27 million USD to settle a lawsuit by the family of George Floyd over his death in police custody, a case that stirred national protests over racial injustice and police brutality.

Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died in May as Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Floyd’s dying pleas for help were captured on widely viewed bystander video, sparking one of the largest protest movements ever seen in the United States.

Benjamin Crump, an attorney for the Floyd family, said the agreement was the largest pre-trial settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit in U.S. history.

The size signifies that a Black person’s death at the hands of police “will no longer be written off as trivial, unimportant or unworthy of consequences,”

Crump said at a news conference where he was joined by Floyd’s relatives, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other officials.

Floyd’s family was “pleased that this part of our tragic journey to justice for my brother George is resolved,” his sister Bridgett Floyd said in a statement.

“While our hearts are broken, we are comforted in knowing that even in death, George Floyd showed the world how to live,” her statement said.

The trial of Chauvin, who was fired by the police force, began earlier this week in Hennepin County’s district court on charges of murder and manslaughter. Chauvin has pleaded not guilty and said he properly followed his police training. Judge Peter Cahill has set aside about three weeks for jury selection in the high-profile case. Five men and two women had been seated as jurors as of Friday afternoon.

Last year, Floyd’s relatives sued the city, Chauvin and three other police officers involved in federal court, saying police used excessive force against Floyd in violation of his constitutional rights.

Although Frey promised on Friday that the city would be “unrelenting” in reforming its police department, it was not clear if the city was admitting wrongdoing as part of the settlement, and city officials did not immediately respond to queries.

“Every American remembers where they were when they first saw it,” Frey said of the video showing Floyd’s death. “Today’s settlement reflects our shared commitment to advancing racial justice.”

The settlement includes a 500,000 USD contribution from Floyd’s family to the community at the Minneapolis intersection where Floyd died,

which has been barricaded against police access by residents and is filled with flowers and other tributes to Floyd.

Chauvin was helping arrest Floyd on the evening of May 25 on suspicion of his using a counterfeit 20 USD bill to buy cigarettes at the Cup Foods grocery store at the intersection.

The other three officers are due to go on trial later this year on charges of aiding and abetting Chauvin in Floyd’s death, which was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner. The Minneapolis Police Department fired all four officers the day after the deadly arrest.

Black Lives Matter artwork in Budapest causes rage among rightist politicians – The Guardian

BLM hungary

A Black Lives Matter artwork planned to be installed for two weeks in the ninth district caused quite the outrage among rightwing politicians so much that the sculptor itself is afraid that his work will be destroyed.

The installation that recently won a tender for public art will be one of seven pieces chosen to be on display next spring in the capital, but only this particular one hit the headlines. It will be a one-metre tall sculpture in the colours of the rainbow promoting the BLM movement. It was created by Péter Szalay, who fears it will be destroyed once it is erected, since

rightist parties are already attacking the installation, and it has received threats of demolition.

Commentators on the actual pro-government television threatened to pull it down if it gets installed, while others laughed saying it was an absurdity, wanting to put it out, considering the low number of black people living in Budapest – writes the Guardian.com. Péter Szalay says that “pulling down statues as part of the BLM movement is actually going on in the United States, while here in Hungary the issue inspires the installation of one. It is important to note that the work contains both narratives, making it not directly a BLM propaganda statue. We have to understand it as something that represents all actions that have caused turbulences in the United States.”


The tender was organised by the deputy of the district’s mayor, Dada Suzi, from the Two-Tailed Dog Party. She said she wanted to recreate the traditions of public street arts, for which she thinks the government has little time.

“For Fidesz culture politics is all about historical memories and memorials, it relativises Hungary’s role in the Second World War and paints a picture of us as victims.”- she said.

Gergely Gulyás, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff said back in December that the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States is a racist movement that does not recognise white and black people as equals, which goes against all human rights thinking of the 20th century. Based on this, not those against the sculpture are racist but those who make it happen.

Probably none of these people or politicians considered the fact that the statue is planned to be showcased for only two weeks, not as a permanent part of the district’s decoration.

black lives matter demonstration
Read alsoOver 1,000 people join “Black Lives Matter” protest in Hungarian capital

A Black Lives Matter Statue to be erected in Budapest

blm-demonstration protest black lives matter

Krisztina Baranyi, the mayor of District 9 in Budapest, has published a municipal decision on the evaluation of the open competition ‘Public Art’ for public spaces in Ferencváros (the name of District 9 in Budapest), which includes, among other things, a project called Black Lives Matter.

The news was reported by Telex. The statue will be placed in Ferenc Square between 1 April 2021 and 14 April 2021. As for the work of Péter Szalay, the professional jury wrote:

“A public memorial sculpture paraphrase that still connects to and brings to play current social and political issues: Black Lives Matter, prejudices about society regarding the LGBTQ community. The kneeling gesture of the sculpture also refers to the sculptural decision-making movements in the public space; it also makes us think about the current situation of the work of art. The language, which can be easily decoded from the street even for a simple recipient, meets the requirements of public art with the caption.”

No further information has been revealed about the dimensions and characters of the statue.

The Black Live Matter movement began in the United States against discrimination against black people and police violence against black people. On May 25, a police officer knelt on the neck of a black man, George Floyd, who later died, for 8 minutes 46 seconds. According to surveys, between the end of May and mid-June alone, 15 to 26 million Americans protested for black people’s rights, according to researchers interviewed by The New York Times.

The district of Ferencváros is famous for the football team Ferencváros T.C., which competes in the Champions League in the same group as Juventus and Barcelona.

Krisztina Baranyi, the mayor of Ferencváros, is also trying to find a solution to the parking chaos. Free parking during the pandemic has often brought chaos, mostly in the capital. The majority of mayors are looking for a solution to how the problem could be solved, or at least mitigated, writes Népszava. 

Krisztina Baranyi and her assistants indicated with paint in several parking lots in the district that these parking lots were reserved for local residents.

The district leader justified all this by claiming that the situation in Ferencváros has become unbearable since people do not have to pay for parking. She also indicated that the number of these places is limited, so she asks everyone to use the underground garages and parking garages made free of charge for the night.

Is there an actual feminist community in Hungary?

vénusz project podcast lili rutai hanna solti

Vénusz Projekt is a bi-weekly podcast which deals with social and gender issues, and studies literature, culture, music, social environment and human rights from a feminist perspective. It is hosted by two Hungarian girls, Lili Rutai and Hanna Solti.

A Budapest-based feminist website, Lazy Women, interviewed Lili and Hanna about their podcast and on being a leading platform in the Hungarian feminist sphere.

When asked about what feminism means to them and whether their understanding of it has changed since launching Vénusz Projekt, both Hanna and Lili agreed that to them, feminism means equal rights, opportunities, rewards and efforts. Their understanding of feminism has also largely broadened since starting the podcast, as the podcast is a way not only for their listeners, but for them to learn more about how each individual thinks of and experiences feminism and femininity. How the perception of feminism alters from not only person to person, but from environment to environment.

“Our main goal is to introduce as many people as we can to this diversity in feminism and femininity.”

The girls think it is vital to approach and represent feminism from different viewpoints. Despite being journalists, they still have opinions, which may reflect in the way they pose questions. However, they try to keep an open mind as their goal is to show many angles of feminism without any judgement.

The idea of the podcast came to Lili because she really wished there would be a Hungarian podcast about “social issues through a feminist lens.”

Read alsoFeminism in the history of Hungary

Around the time she and Hanna started the podcast, another one, Mi a femme, started; however, the two podcasts have very different concepts. Mi a femme is more of a “girl talk” approach with two girls discussing their own opinions, while Vénusz Projekt invites guests to highlight varying experiences and opinions.

Lili and Hanna feel they have a social responsibility in who they invite to the podcast, and thousands of people listen to it. They try to ask people who otherwise would not have a way to reach so many people about these topics. They think their podcast is not much different from regular journalism, as they have to keep themselves informed in order to make the responsible choices in topics and guests.

“I feel that our responsibility lies more in the choice and portrayal of the guests we invite, not necessarily in our personal opinions.”

There is a couple of “radical” feminist group in Hungary that the Vénusz Projekt is not really involved with, as they would not label themselves as radical feminists. They believe that there must be many, smaller and hidden feminist groups; they are just hard to find. There are Hungarian feminist platforms, though, with thousands and even tens of thousands of followers, like Pinazine and Ciklusmesék. The problem is that there is no unity or any organised movement, where girls, who are interested in feminism in any way, could go and socialise and meet people with similar views, opinions and interests.

A “Hungaro-feminist” group has also emerged recently; there they rework Hungarian folklore from a feminist angle; they choose which parts to keep and which to cut out.

“I think in Hungary we skipped the stage of popular feminism. We simply jumped into non-popular, class-based feminism and well, to some extent, intersectional feminism, which we are still trying to reach.”

Despite some feminist books, which reached great success abroad, having been translated to Hungarian, they did not quite have the same effect, impact or popularity here as they did elsewhere. The lack of popular feminism is really noticeable in Hungary, as even young women seem to despise the term and condemn the movement. Many people still believe feminism is about hating men and excluding them from society, when, in reality, it promotes equality to all.

Lili also started a personal blog upon realising this, where her goal is to make feminism more accessible to all women.

Many people may dismiss the feminist movement because they think it is a trivial matter and would not affect their life whatsoever. Hanna finds feminism similar to the Black Lives Matter movement in this way. Many think equality has already been achieved, but if you dig a little deeper, you can discover how there are still many aspects in which complete balance has not yet been reached.

bédyschwimmer rózsa dienes valéria glücklich vilma torma zsófia
Read alsoFirst female doctor, lawyer or pilot in Hungary? These ladies wrote history

House Speaker: People who set the cities of the US on fire are the same ones who can’t tolerate President Trump

House Speaker

Criticism of Hungary’s law which enhanced government powers to tackle the novel coronavirus epidemic were “unwarranted”, Speaker of Parliament László Kövér said on Tuesday, arguing that the Hungarian government was among the first ones to relinquish its special powers.

The handling of the epidemic required a change of plans and that the government be granted special powers, Kövér told commercial broadcaster Inforadio. The law handing the government those powers was a part of this, but parliament eventually terminated the government’s emergency powers, the speaker noted.

In many European Union member states, parliament does not even have the authority to grant the government emergency powers the way the Hungarian constitution does, he said.

So in many cases, a political agreement was needed to allow the legislative branch to grant the government special powers to manage the epidemic or the laws had to be changed, he explained.

Kövér said the reason why the Hungarian government was among the first ones to give up its emergency powers was because it had been “among the first ones to recognise the danger and tried to get ahead of it by enacting these measures”.

The speaker said public support for the government’s epidemic response measures had transcended partisan boundaries. The Hungarian people’s trust in political institutions and the government is far greater than that of the European average, he added.

Though a vaccine against the virus is at least several months away, “we can perhaps say that the epidemic is over”, Kövér said.

“But we must also consider — based on the experiences of the past six months — that globalisation has certain unexpected, albeit logical consequences that may threaten us again in the future,” he added.

Kövér called the current global economic model “unsustainable” and said personal relationships were becoming more valuable while “other things” were becoming less important. “It isn’t that important that we spend our holiday abroad.”

As regards the virus, Kövér said

ruling Fidesz and the opposition parliamentary parties had agreed that in the absence of a second wave of the epidemic, parliament will return to holding its sessions in the lower chamber.

He said parliament over the past several months had looked out for the well-being of lawmakers who are in the age group considered more vulnerable to coronavirus. Since the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance has a supermajority, these MPs were only required to be present for votes that required a two-thirds majority to pass, the speaker said.

Asked about the possibility of setting up a “digital parliament”, Kövér said he did not believe it was necessary, adding that there were also legal, technical and theoretical obstacles to such an arrangement.

He also said that despite the upheavals parliament had a relatively calm spring session compared to previous ones, “probably because the MPs have understood that there are certain things . that don’t belong in parliament”.

On the topic of the Black Lives Matter movement, Kövér said: “Every normal person was outraged by the incident that sparked it; this kind of police brutality is indefensible.” He added, however, that

“the people who set the cities of the United States on fire are the same ones who can’t tolerate that Donald Trump is the US president and are using every means they can to prevent his re-election in November”.

Meanwhile, Kövér said there were some who believed that the decision-making power of traditional nation-states had come and gone and that the world required a new sort of decision-making mechanism. The concentration of power in the world economy demands decision-making rights, he said, adding that there was also pressure from financial capital “to make the world international”.

Asked about the EU presidency recently taken over by Germany, Kövér said he did not expect “much good” to come out of Germany’s EU leadership. Germany is the bloc’s leading power and it has certain national interests that it will concentrate on during the next six months, the speaker said. He added, at the same time, that he was confident that Germany was “wise enough” to strive for compromise among member states.

On another topic, he expressed disagreement with calls to tie receipt of EU funds to compliance with the standards regarding the rule of law, calling

it “unacceptable” to reduce EU monies member states are entitled to based on political aspects.

Meanwhile, Kövér called the Visegrad Group comprising Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia the EU’s fastest-growing region, which he said would make it one of the bloc’s most important players.

U.S. Senate Democrats block Republican police reform bill

Capitol Washington

U.S. Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked a Republican police reform bill from advancing as they push for bipartisan talks on a plan to overhaul law enforcement following a national outcry against police brutality and racism.

The key procedural vote, 55-45, was seen as a setback in Congress’ effort to pass legislation in the near future.

Senate Democrats said the Republican bill was insufficient, calling it an irredeemably flawed answer to the problem of systemic racism in law enforcement.

Republican senators criticized Democrats for declining to even begin floor debate on the measure.

In a floor speech on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell accused Democrats of giving a “last-minute ultimatum” by turning “this routine step into a partisan impasse.”

“The bill is a ruse and nothing will get done,”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday prior to the vote.

The Republican bill requires additional disclosures about the use of force, codifies reporting requirements on the use of “no knock warrants,” provides incentives for chokehold bans and makes lynching a federal crime.

The Senate Democratic proposal would ban chokeholds and no knock warrants in federal drug cases, and limit qualified immunity for police officers to make it easier to sue police, local media reported.

Both sides want to pass anti-lynching legislation and provide de-escalation training for police.

Republicans unveiled the measure last week, led by the only African American Republican senator — Tim Scott from South Carolina.

In response, Democrats called on Republicans to come back to the negotiating table to come up with a bipartisan solution that the Senate can then vote on.

The Democratic-led House is expected to pass its sweeping police reform legislation on Thursday, though Senate Republican leaders have said they would not take up that measure, setting the stage for a bitter stalemate on the issue.

Hungarian George Floyd
Read alsoThe man who died during police operation did not attack the officers!

Trump returns to rally stage amid coronavirus concerns, national reckoning over racism

trump white house

U.S. President Donald Trump held his first rally in more than three months in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday evening, amid coronavirus concerns and a national reckoning over racism.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters inside the BOK Center, Trump touted his policies and judicial nominees, tore into Democrats and media, and touched upon a series of national issues, including the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 2.2 million people and taken nearly 120,000 lives in the United States.

The president blamed the numbers on testing, a claim that has been widely disputed.

“When you do testing to that extent, you are gonna find more people, you’re gonna find more cases. So I said to my people slow the testing down please,” he said.

“They test and they test. We have tests that people don’t know what’s going on.”

police-car usa
Read alsoTrump signs executive order on policing

Trump made the remarks only hours after his campaign spokesman revealed that six staffers helping organizing the Tulsa rally have tested positive for the coronavirus.

A White House official told reporters later that Trump was joking about slowing down testing.

Attendees of the rally, who have been asked to sign a waiver releasing the Trump campaign from responsibility for possible exposure to the coronavirus, received a mask from organizers before entering the event, but most of them didn’t wear it inside the arena, which can hold 19,000 people.

Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, has said that he wouldn’t personally attend rallies.

“I’m in a high risk category. Personally, I would not. Of course not,” Fauci told an interview with Daily Beast earlier this week, adding that when it came to Trump’s rallies “outside is better than inside, no crowd is better than crowd” and “crowd is better than big crowd.”

The Saturday rally also came as U.S. states and cities have begun removing statues of Confederate figures amid a national reckoning over police brutality and racism sparked by the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, who died on May 25 after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

us army run
Read alsoTrump announces cutting U.S. troops in Germany to 25,000

Floyd’s death has triggered weeks-long demonstrations across the country, as well as calls from lawmakers and activists for the removal of monuments in memory of figures believed to be symbols of racism, while some Confederate statues have already been toppled by protesters.

During his nearly two-hour remarks on Saturday, Trump slammed the movement.

“The unhinged left-wing mob is trying to vandalize our history, desecrate our monuments, our beautiful monuments, tear down our statues, and punish, cancel and persecute anyone who does not conform to their demands for absolute and total control. We’re not conforming,” he said.

Trump also spoke at length complaining about media coverage of his slow walk down a ramp after giving the commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy, also known as West Point, last week, which has fueled questions about his health.

He explained that he was wearing “leather-bottom shoes” and that the ramp “was like an ice-skating rink,” stressing that “I can’t fall with the fake news watching.”

There were multiple groups of demonstrators with varying viewpoints in the area adjacent to the rally, but the Tulsa Police Department tweeted Saturday night, “Overwhelmingly these encounters have been peaceful.”

The rally was previously scheduled on Friday, the Juneteenth, a day that memorializes the end of slavery in the United States, but Trump rescheduled it for Saturday after strong pushback, as Tulsa was home to one of the worst incidents of racial violence in the nation’s history, where dozens of African Americans were massacred 99 years ago.

Trump’s last rally was held in Charlotte, North Carolina on March 2.

Ex-officer charged over fatal shooting of African American as Washington pushes for legislation on policing

shooting demonstration usa

U.S. Georgia State’s Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard on Wednesday announced 11 charges, including felony murder, against Garrett Rolfe, the former Atlanta police officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks last week.

Rolfe, if found guilty of felony murder, could face life in prison without parole or the death penalty, Howard said at a press conference.

Rolfe was fired after footage showed him shooting at Brooks multiple times from the back as the 27-year-old African American man fled during an encounter outside a fast-food restaurant in Atlanta Friday night.

Rayshard Brooks
Read alsoU.S. medical examiner rules Atlanta police shooting of Rayshard Brooks homicide

Arrest warrants have been issued for Rolfe and Devin Brosnan, the other officer on the scene.

Brosnan has been placed on administrative duty and charged with three criminal counts, including aggravated assault.

Howard also said that Rolfe kicked Brooks “while he laid on ground, while he was there fighting for his life” after he was shot.

Brosnan stood on Brooks’ shoulders “while he struggled for his life,” the district attorney revealed.

“Once Mr. Brooks was shot, there is an Atlanta policy that requires that the officers have to provide timely medical attention to Mr. Brooks or to anyone who is injured,” he added. “But after Mr. Brooks was shot, for some period of two minutes and 12 seconds, there was no medical attention applied to Mr. Brooks.”

That night, the pair of officers were dispatched to respond to complaints that Brooks was asleep in the drive-thru of the restaurant.

police-car usa
Read alsoTrump signs executive order on policing

Police said they tried to take Brooks into custody after he failed a sobriety test, which led to a struggle between Brooks and the officers. Police claimed that Brooks, while allegedly resisting, grabbed an officer’s taser and ran off with it.

Footage capturing the scene from the restaurant’s parking lot showed that Brooks turned around and appeared to point the stun gun at Rolfe before being shot.

An ambulance transferred Brooks to a local hospital, where he died after undergoing surgery.

Brooks was shot twice in the back and died from organ damage and blood loss from the wounds, the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled earlier this week.

“The city of Atlanta SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), in fact, prohibit officers from firing tasers at someone who is running away. So the city of Atlanta says you could not even fire a taser at someone who is running away. So you certainly can’t fire a gun, a handgun at someone who is running away,” Howard said on Wednesday.

L. Chris Stewart, an attorney for the family of Rayshard Brooks, said that the incident is “heartbreaking.”

“It’s not a day of joy watching the charges and what’s gonna happened to this officer because it shouldn’t happen,” Stewart said.

Trump signs executive order on policing

police-car usa

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order on policing amid calls for action against police brutality and racism.

It comes three weeks after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which has triggered nationwide demonstrations.

The executive order focuses on three areas: credentialing and certifying police officers; boosting information sharing to track officers accused of excessive use of force; and creating co-responder programs on mental health, drug addiction, and homelessness.

Trump, speaking at the White House, also said that

chokeholds will be banned except if an officer’s life is at risk.

Meanwhile, the president stressed that he “strongly” opposes efforts to defund or dismantle police departments, calling the ideas “radical.”

“Without police, there is chaos. Without law, there is anarchy and without safety, there is catastrophe,” he said.

The move from the White House comes alongside separate efforts on Capitol Hill focused on police reforms.

The Democrat-led House introduced a bill last week that aims to ensure officers can be held accountable for misconduct and increase transparency.

The GOP-led Senate is also creating its own legislative package that will focus on police reporting, accountability, training and relations.

Is it allowed for Hungarian police officers to kneel on someone’s neck?

police-budapest-hungary

The death of George Floyd shook the United States and protests against racism and for the rights of the black community have been going on since then. On May 25, 2020, a white American police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes. Floyd kept begging for his life (“I can’t breath”) but died. 

Floyd-funeral
Read alsoFuneral honors George Floyd, Americans demand racial justice

Index reported that, while all this has happened in the United States of America, one could ask, what if an incident like that occurred in Hungary with a police officer kneeling on someone’s neck. Is the action allowed, or is it not? What consequences would it have? 

After doing some research, it seems that a Hungarian police officer is allowed to kneel on somebody’s neck, but the circumstances, the location and the duration of the procedure matters.

In Hungary, it is written in the law that under certain circumstances, Hungarian police officers are allowed to take violent actions. Still, they are obliged not to overreact. If the officers can solve a case or situation without physical intervention, then they have no choice but to stick to it. For this reason, if a case could have been solved without violence, but a police officer would still act violently, facing punishment would be inevitable. 

In other cases, there are certain moments when someone who is caught or must be arrested denies acting according to the police’s orders. In these cases, the officers are allowed to use violent acts to proceed and to avoid themselves and others from getting hurt.

During such cases, police officers need to be prepared to act violently as the criminals might have weapons. This is the reason why officers arrive with massive forces to protect themselves when arresting particular criminals. It is important to emphasise that police officers do not use violence to harm the criminals but aim to calm them down and to make them understand that they are stronger, so the criminal should obey orders. 

Read also

The reason for police-violence is to avoid attacks, escape and self-harm. This means that in some cases, a police officer might be allowed to kneel on a criminals’ neck for a certain amount of time. The aim of this action is only to make the criminal harmless and not to hurt them physically.

To sum up, Hungarian police officers are allowed to use physical violence but are not allowed to be cruel and aggressive. The aim of force is only to calm the criminals down and to avoid them from escaping. If a case can be solved without violent acts, then police officers are obliged to act without those. 

If Hungarian officers cross the line and harm criminals, although not necessary, they have to face the court and might be discharged from the Hungarian police forces. 

Featured image: MTI/Budapest/Hungary

Funeral honors George Floyd, Americans demand racial justice

Floyd-funeral

As a final farewell, family members and friends gathered on Tuesday at a private funeral in Houston, Texas and shared their sweet memories of 46-year-old African American George Floyd, who was suffocated to death in police custody two weeks ago.

Floyd’s niece Brooke Williams touched the audience’s hearts with her emotional speech, appealing for “no more hate crimes.”

She said she saw no remorse in the white police officer when he pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes, “watching my uncle’s soul leave his body.”

“This is not just a murder, but a hate crime,” she added.

A short film was played at the funeral, showing a montage of Floyd’s photos depicting his life and also the protests around the world following his death.

Though the funeral was meant to be a private event mainly for Floyd’s family members, friends and school mates in Houston where he grew up and spent most of his lifetime, half of the 500 guests were public figures who came to pay their respects.

“We honor him because when he took his last breath, the rest of us are now able to breathe,” said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, declaring June 9 as “George Floyd Day” in the city.

In a pre-recorded video broadcast at the funeral, former Vice President Joe Biden sent condolences to Floyd’s family whom he met before the funeral.

Talking about racial equality in the country, Biden said, “Why in this nation do too many black Americans wake up knowing they could lose their life in the course of just living their life?… When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America.”

The funeral was held at the Fountain of Praise Church, where Floyd and his family used to worship when he lived in the city.

Due to social distancing requirements, only about 500 guests attended the funeral. But people from the city and other places gathered around the church in the heat prior to the funeral to pay respect to Floyd.

After the funeral, Floyd’s golden casket was transported in a car and…

U.S. Congressional Democrats unveil police reform bill in wake of Floyd’s death

PELOSI, Nancy

Democratic leaders of the U.S. House and Senate on Monday introduced legislation aiming at reforming policing policies in the country, addressing some of the key concerns of the nationwide protests following the death of Minneapolis black man George Floyd under police custody.

The legislation, led by the Congressional Black Caucus, was announced at a news conference attended by Chair of Congressional Black Caucus Karen Bass, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, as well as other senior Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill.

“We cannot settle for anything less than transformative structural change,”

Pelosi said when introducing the bill. “Police brutality is heartbreaking reflection of an entrenched system of racial injustice in America. True justice can only be achieved with full comprehensive action. That’s what we are doing today. This is a first step.”

According to the text of the 136-page Justice in Policing Act of 2020 cited by U.S. media, the bill will make it easier to prosecute police misconduct and recover damages caused by law enforcement.

It will create a National Police Misconduct Registry, mandating state and local law enforcement to turn over data on the use of force related to such factors as race, gender, disability, religion and age, while preventing “problem officers from changing jurisdictions to avoid accountability.”

The proposed law will ban certain policing tactics, including chokeholds – as was applied in Floyd’s case where he was pinned down by a police officer who knelt on his neck – and no-knock warrants in drug cases, meaning cops can’t barge into people’s homes without knocking on the door.

While requiring that federal police officers wear body and dashboard cameras, the bill also sets restrictions on the transfer of military-grade weaponry to state and local law enforcement. At the same time, it will make lynching a hate crime, but it remains to be seen if this section will receive support from the Republican-controlled Senate, which failed to pass an anti-lynching bill last week.

Additionally, the legislation seeks structural reform within the Justice Department by giving its Civil Rights Division subpoena power. Meanwhile, it will incentivize attorneys general at the state level to launch pattern and practice investigations into police departments in their constituencies, and provide grants for states to set up structures for probing police-involved deaths.

One area that the bill stops short of addressing directly, though, is defunding police departments, a demand of the recent protests that has gained traction nationwide. The Minneapolis City Council on Sunday voted to dissolve the city’s police department, the epicenter of demonstrations.

Pelosi said

she hopes that when the House passes the bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “must swiftly take it up,” and that President Donald Trump “must not stand in the way of justice.”

As part of the legislation effort, House Judiciary Committee will hold an oversight hearing Wednesday on policing practices and law enforcement accountability. Philonise Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, is among the witnesses to testify at the hearing.