Police precinct in flames in US protest over death of black man

" THE BURNING BUILDINGS ARE THE TEARS OF OUR RAGE" REP ILHAN OMAR

                                              

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP / SCOTT OLSONA police building went up in flames in Minnesota during protests

A police precinct in Minnesota went up in flames late Thursday in a third day of demonstrations as the so-called Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul seethed over the shocking police killing of a handcuffed black man.

The precinct, which police had abandoned, burned after a group of protesters pushed through barriers around the building, breaking windows and chanting slogans. A much larger crowd demonstrated as the building went up in flames.

The crowd was protesting the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after Minneapolis police arrested him on Monday on suspicion of using a counterfeit banknote. Police handcuffed him and held him to the ground, with a bystander video showing an officer pressing his knee on Floyd's neck.

The videos showed Floyd saying that he couldn't breathe until he went silent and limp. He was later declared dead.

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP / Stephen MaturenA large crowd gathered outside a police precinct to protest the death of George Floyd after his arrest by police

Hundreds of people had begun marching in Minneapolis in the late afternoon -- many wear masks as protection against the novel coronavirus -- while in St. Paul, just to the east, police said there was ongoing looting as multiple fires were reported.

But later in the evening a large crowd demonstrated outside the city's Third Precinct.

"Shortly after 10:00 pm tonight, in the interest of the safety of our personnel, the Minneapolis Police Department evacuated the 3rd Precinct of its staff," city police said in a statement.

- Probe under way -

Officials assured angry residents that investigations into Floyd's death were underway, and warned that violence would not be tolerated.

"We know there's a lot of anger. We know there's a lot of hurt," said St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtel.

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP / Stephen MaturenOfficials have warned violence will not be tolerated

"But we can't tolerate people using this as an opportunity to commit crimes," he said.

At the request of both cities, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called up hundreds of National Guard troops and state police to help with security.

"George Floyd's death should lead to justice and systemic change, not more death and destruction," Walz said.

- Outrage spreads -

Floyd's family demanded the officer and three others who were present, all since fired from their jobs, face murder charges.

"You know, I want an arrest for all four of those officers tonight. A murder conviction for all four of those officers. I want the death penalty," Floyd's brother, Philonise Floyd, told CNN.

"I have not slept in four days, and those officers, they're at home sleeping," he said. "I can't stand for that."

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP / SCOTT OLSONMinnesota Governor Tim Walz called up hundreds of National Guard troops and state police to help with security

"But people are torn and hurting because they are tired of seeing black men die, constantly, over and over again."

Two African American leaders of national stature, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, arrived in Minneapolis and urged more protests.

"We told the governor you must call murder a murder," Jackson told an audience at the Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist Church.

"When you put... your foot down somebody's neck until they can't breathe no longer, you murdered them," he said.

Sharpton said videos were all the evidence needed to arrest the police officers involved.

"We are going to make sure that this prosecution goes down," said Sharpton.

- Case is 'top priority' -

Local and federal investigators said they were working the explosive case as fast as they could.

"The Department of Justice has made the investigation in this case a top priority," said Erica MacDonald, the US federal attorney for Minnesota.

AFP / kerem yucelLocal and federal investigators said they were working the explosive case as fast as they could

"To be clear, President (Donald) Trump, as well as Attorney General William Barr, are directly and actively monitoring the investigation in this case."

The White House said Trump was "very upset" upon seeing the "egregious, appalling" video footage and demanded his staff see that the investigation was given top priority.

"He wants justice to be served," Trump's press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters.

- Tear gas and rubber bullets -

Demonstrators clashed with law enforcement, looted stores and set fires to shops and a construction site overnight Wednesday in the busy Lake Street corridor of Minneapolis, and were met with police tear gas and rubber bullets.

One person died of a gunshot wound, and police were reportedly investigating whether he was shot by a store owner.

Some stores, including Minneapolis-based Target, afterward announced they would close multiple locations, as the US Postal Service suspended service to some areas and bus services were discontinued through the weekend in parts of the city.

Facebook/Darnella Frazier/AFP / Darnella FrazierA bystander video of a Minneapolis police officer holding his knee to George Floyd's neck has gone viral

Floyd's killing evoked memories of riots in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 after a policeman shot dead an African American man suspected of robbery, and the case earlier the same year of New Yorker Eric Garner, who died after New York police put him in an illegal chokehold as they tried to detain him for selling cigarettes.

Sympathy protests erupted in other cities.

Several hundred people demonstrated in New York's Union Square on Thursday, leading to at least five arrests.

In Los Angeles, where there are longstanding tensions between law enforcement and black residents, protesters marched Wednesday on downtown and briefly blocked a major freeway.

Activists were planning a rally Friday in downtown Washington near the White House.

And protesters gathered in Denver, Colorado and Phoenix, Arizona Thursday evening, according to CNN.

Ilhan Omar, a black Somalia native who represents Minneapolis in Congress, called for calm but said there was "extreme frustration" in the community over the incident.

"Anger really is boiling over because justice still seems out of reach," she said.

POLICING THE USA
Benjamin Crump: When will African Americans have the right to self defense?
Breonna Taylor's boyfriend tried to stand his ground, but got charged with a crime instead.
Ben Crump
In America, we like to believe that the rights afforded under the Constitution and by law apply equally to everyone. But several recent, high-profile cases starkly document how justice in America is apportioned in black and white.

We know that black people are more likely to be stopped and more likely to be perceived as dangerous just by being. It has come to be known as doing something “while black” — walking while black, shopping while black, driving while black and now even bird-watching while black.

If it’s this difficult for black people to just be, imagine the barriers that prevent us from actually defending ourselves.

This raises some difficult but important questions:

Can black Americans exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms? Can they stand their ground? Can they claim self-defense in shooting someone who threatens them with physical harm? Does the castle doctrine, which grants a person the right to use deadly force to protect their home from an intruder, apply to them?


COLUMN:Video of George Floyd pinned by Minneapolis cops is shocking but not surprising

Look no further than the cases of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor for your answers.

In February, Arbery was jogging when he was chased down by two white men in a truck and shot to death. The alleged killers claimed they feared for their lives despite Arbery being unarmed — and the police took them at their word. If a white person says they feel threatened by a black person, no further evidence is required. Any level of force seems to be justified.




Only after the case made national news when a video of the shocking killing surfaced months later were suspects Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael finally arrested and charged with murder.

Contrast the treatment of the McMichaels' with that of Kenneth Walker, a black man who fired one nonfatal round from a legally registered firearm against armed intruders in the middle of the night. Walker was defending his castle and his woman when police burst into his apartment unannounced on a misdirected drug raid.


COLUMN:In coronavirus crisis, lessons in humanity toward America's incarcerated

Just before 1 a.m. on March 13, Walker was asleep alongside his girlfriend, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT and hero in the COVID-19 pandemic, who daily put her life on the line to help others. Three plainclothes Louisville Metro Police officers stormed into Taylor’s apartment on a “no-knock warrant.” Walker called 911, grabbed his gun and fired a single shot.

After an officer was hit in the leg, police opened fire, spraying more than 20 bullets. Taylor, who was shot at least eight times, died. Walker was charged with attempted murder of a police officer. And unlike what happened to the McMichaels, it didn't take months for authorities to press charges. Walker was charged immediately. The charges were dropped only after months of advocacy and national media attention.

The police were looking for narcotics but didn’t find any. The suspect they were seeking was already in custody. Walker was a licensed gun owner who thought someone was breaking in. Clearly, he felt threatened. Where was his right to self-defense?

Recently, the Louisville Metro Police Department said it’s updating policies regarding no-knock warrants and body cameras in the wake of Taylor’s death. The changes will provide an “added level of scrutiny’’ for approval of no-knock warrants and require officers to wear cameras when serving warrants or in situations where they identify themselves as police officers.

That’s helpful, but it doesn’t get to the root problem — that we have two vastly different systems of justice in this country depending on whether you’re black or white. I’ve seen the pain firsthand because I represent the families of both Arbery and Taylor.

Would their stories have ended differently if Ahmaud were a white jogger and Walker were a white man defending a white woman asleep at his side?


It’s 2020 — well past time to surrender our implicit biases and ensure that black Americans are guaranteed the same right to self-defense as white Americans. Justice should be blind, not dependent on the color of the finger that pulled the trigger.

Ben Crump is a civil rights attorney and founder of the national law firm Ben Crump Law, based in Tallahassee, Florida.

Rage-filled protests erupt in Minneapolis after video circulates of racially charged killing by police

Protesters are shot with pepper spray as they confront police outside the Third Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. STEPHEN MATUREN/GETTY 

Protesters clashed with riot police firing tear gas for a second night in Minneapolis on Wednesday in an outpouring of rage over the death of a black man seen in a widely circulated video gasping for breath as a white officer knelt on his neck.

The video, taken by an onlooker to Monday night’s fatal encounter between police and George Floyd, 46, showed him lying face down and handcuffed, groaning for help and repeatedly saying, “please, I can’t breathe,” before growing motionless.

The second day of demonstrations, accompanied by looting and vandalism, began hours after Mayor Jacob Frey urged prosecutors to file criminal charges against the white policeman shown pinning Floyd to the street.

Protesters disperse as they clash with police during a demonstration over the killing of George Floyd by a policeman outside the Third Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. KEREM YUCEL / AFP

Floyd, who was unarmed and reportedly suspected of trying to pass counterfeit bills at a corner eatery, was taken by ambulance from the scene of his arrest and pronounced dead the same night at a hospital.

The policeman shown kneeling on Floyd’s neck and three fellow officers involved were dismissed from the police department on Tuesday as the FBI opened an investigation.

Hundreds of protesters, many with faces covered, thronged streets around the Third Precinct police station late on Wednesday, about half a mile from where Floyd had been arrested, chanting, “No justice, no peace” and “I can’t breathe.

The crowd grew to thousands as night fell and the protest turned into a standoff outside the station, where police in riot gear formed barricade lines while protesters taunted them from behind makeshift barricades of their own.

A car burns near the Third Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. STEPHEN MATUREN/GETTY IMAGES
Police, some taking positions on rooftops, used tear gas, plastic bullets and concussion grenades to keep the crowds at bay. Protesters pelted police with rocks and other projectiles. Some threw tear gas canisters back at the officers.

Television news images from a helicopter over the area showed dozens of people looting a Target store, running out with clothing and shopping carts full of merchandise.

Fires erupted after dark at several businesses, including an auto parts store. Eyewitnesses said the blazes appeared to be the work of arsonists. Media said a smaller, peaceful protest was held outside the home of one of the police officers.

Mayor Jacob Frey requested help from the state’s National Guard as local leaders pleaded for a peaceful resolution.

“Violence only begets violence. More force is only going to lead to more lives lost and more devastation,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., tweeted.

Outrage at Floyd’s death also triggered a rally in his name against police brutality by hundreds of people in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon.

The murderer of #GeorgeFloyd is Derek Chauvin, who lives at 7517 17th Street North in Oakdale, Minnesota. pic.twitter.com/nO0nLtxKVm— Robert P Helms (@Gpzero57Helms) May 28, 2020

That demonstration turned violent after a crowd marched onto a nearby freeway and blocked traffic, then attacked two California Highway Patrol cruisers, smashing their windows, local media reported. One protester who clung to the hood of a patrol car fell to the pavement as it sped away, and was treated at the scene by paramedics, news footage of the incident showed.

The video of Monday’s deadly confrontation between Minneapolis police and Floyd led Frey to call on Wednesday for Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman “to charge the arresting officer in this case.”

The city identified the four officers as Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J Alexander Kueng. It did not say who knelt on Floyd’s neck, and gave no further information.

The local police union said the officers were cooperating with investigators and cautioned against a “rush to judgment.”

“We must review all video. We must wait for the medical examiner’s report,” the union statement said.

Protesters demonstrate against the death of George Floyd outside the 3rd Precinct Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. KEREM YUCEL/AFP

The county attorney’s office said it would decide how to proceed once investigators had concluded their inquiries.

The case was reminiscent of the 2014 killing of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man in New York City who died after being put in a banned police chokehold.

Garner’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement calling attention to a wave of killings of African-Americans by police using unjustified lethal force.

Colin Kaepernick expresses support for Minneapolis protesters after death of George Floyd

Nancy Armour
USA TODAY

Colin Kaepernick broke his silence on the death of George Floyd on Thursday, expressing support for the ongoing protests in Minneapolis.

Police have used tear gas and water cannons on protesters. On Wednesday night, the second night of protests, several stores were set ablaze and some were looted.

“When civility leads to death, revolting is the only logical reaction," Kaepernick said in posts on Instagram and Twitter. "The cries for peace will rain down, and when they do, they will land on deaf ears, because your violence has brought this resistance.

“We have the right to fight back!”

Kaepernick closed the post with, "Rest in Power George Floyd." It was liked on Instagram by LeBron James and was supported in the comments by Enes Kanter.




Floyd, who was black, died Monday after a white police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes, ignoring Floyd’s cries that he couldn’t breathe and witnesses’ pleas to stop. The incident was videotaped by a bystander.

The officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck, Derek Chauvin, was fired, as were three others who were there and did not intervene.

What we know:Minneapolis mayor calls for peace amid protests, fires, looting and anger erupt after George Floyd's death

More:Former NBA player Stephen Jackson gets emotional recalling friendship with George Floyd



Floyd’s death is another example of the police brutality against people of color that prompted Kaepernick, then a quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, to begin protesting in 2016.

While some suggested Kaepernick was encouraging violence with his statement, it echoed earlier comments by Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey. During a news conference Thursday, Frey said the violence during protests was the “result of so much built-up anger and sadness.”

“Anger and sadness that has been ingrained in our black community, not just because of five minutes of horror. But 400 years,” an emotional Frey said. “If you’re feeling that sadness and that anger, it’s not only understandable, it’s right. It’s a reflection of the truth our black community has lived.

“While not from lived experience, that sadness must also be understood by our non-black communities,” Frey added. “To ignore it, to toss it out, would be to ignore the values we all claim to have. That are all the more important during a time of crisis.”

George Floyd video adds to trauma: 'When is the last time you saw a white person killed online?'

Analysis: African Americans face harmful mental health effects every time high-profile incidents of racism and police brutality go viral, especially when little changes in the aftermath.

Alia E. Dastagir
USA TODAY

Headline after headline, the same story: a black American dead.

George Floyd, after a police officer knelt on his neck. Ahmaud Arbery, while on a jog in Georgia. Breonna Taylor, while police raided her Louisville, Kentucky, home.

And the ones before: Eric Garner, who couldn't breathe. Philando Castile, in the car with his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter. Trayvon Martin, only a boy.

Scores of killings answered with acquittals. Now, as a pandemic rages, African Americans in communities across the country disproportionally devastated by COVID-19 are forced to bear witness to more deaths of black Americans.

The costs of these deaths ripple. When people of color experience racism, when they repeatedly witness racism, there is a profound emotional toll.


"The persistent pandemic is racism. That's the pandemic. Recent deaths of individuals of color and the deleterious impact of COVID-19 on communities of color stems all the way from 1776," said Alisha Moreland-Capuia, executive director of Oregon Health & Science University's Avel Gordly Center for Healing, which focuses on culturally sensitive care for the African American community.

"The emotional and psychological impact of racism means acutely, every day, being reminded that you are not enough, being reminded that you are not seen, being reminded that you are not valued, being reminded that you are not a citizen, being reminded that humanity is not something that applies to you."

'Stop killing black people':George Floyd's death sparks protests

Column:Video of George Floyd is shocking but not surprising

Research shows racism has harmful mental and physical effects. They can result from a person experiencing racism directly – as a bird-watcher did when a white woman in New York's Central Park told police he was threatening her life when he asked her to leash her dog – or vicariously, such as someone watching the video of Floyd's suffering.

Racism is associated with a host of psychological consequences, including depression, anxiety, and other serious, sometimes debilitating mental conditions including post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders, mental health experts say.

High-profile incidents of racism and police brutality, especially when accompanied by viral videos, are triggering for people of color who see how little changes in their aftermath.

"Racism is traumatic for people of color," said Monnica Williams, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada, who studies African American mental health. "Everything that you have to carry around anyway as a black person in America, to add onto it having to watch people in your community who've done nothing killed at the hands of people in power who will probably suffer few, if any, consequences. I think there's no better word to describe it than traumatizing."


Four Minneapolis police officers were fired after Floyd's death, but no criminal charges have been filed.

Williams' niece, who is in Germany, tried to reach her this week after watching the footage of Floyd.

"She was so upset she couldn't sleep," Williams said.
Racial violence is 'repetitive trauma'

The video that spread on social media this week shows officer Derek Chauvin driving his knee into Floyd's neck as he repeatedly says, "I can't breathe."


This isn't the first time those words reverberated through this nation's conscience.

In 2014, Eric Garner was placed in a chokehold by white New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo after being arrested on suspicion of illegally selling loose cigarettes. His dying words were, "I can't breathe."

Pantaleo was fired in 2019, five years after Garner's death.

These incidents influence the experience of being black in America – how dangerous it is to drive, jog, stand on a corner, or even sit at home. They underscore no space is safe.

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"I can only describe the continued viewing of racial violence, torture, murder and disregard for the humanity of black bodies as repetitive trauma," said Danielle Jackson, a psychiatry resident and board member of the American Psychiatric Association's Caucus of Black Psychiatrists. "Perpetrators of racial violence may have changed uniforms, speech, and coded message, but the message remains the same, 'you – black person – are other, you are less than.'"


Police kill more than 300 black Americans – at least a quarter unarmed – each year in the U.S., according to a 2018 study in The Lancet, which found these killings have spillover effects on the mental health of black Americans not directly affected.

Research shows black Americans are 20% more likely to report serious psychological distress than non-Hispanic white Americans. In a study on black youth suicide, researchers found suicide attempts rose by 73% between 1991-2017 for black adolescents and listed exposure to racism as a factor.

Roberto Montenegro, an assistant professor in child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Washington School of Medicine who studies the biological effects of discrimination, says living in a world where your body is a threat is painful and taxing.

People of color, he said, must engage in extra processing demands to try and assure safety. This leads to states of hypervigilance, arousal and avoidance, which can manifest physically as hypertension and insomnia.

It's called "racial battle fatigue," a term used to explain the psychological stress responses – frustration, shock, anger, disappointment, resentment, anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, and fear – experienced by people of color in historically white spaces.


Montenegro says he has been frustrated and hurt by repeated racial blows, especially at work.

"I have had nurses, doctors, and other staff tell me that I was intimidating, too assertive, and didn't smile enough, and that this made them – white women – feel unsafe to approach me," he said. "They would not say this to a white doctor."
Video footage shocks. At what cost?

Videos of police brutality fuel outrage and galvanize movements. They also linger, long after the protests quiet.

Some mental health experts argue the explosive footage that accompanies many of these violent deaths are vital to raising public consciousness, even if they are disturbing.

"It powerfully shapes our discourse, much like the images of African American youth in the South who were being sprayed with powerful water hoses and bitten by police dogs when they protested during the Civil Rights Movement," said Brian Smedley, chief of psychology in the public interest at the American Psychological Association. "As disturbing as these images are, as tragic as it is for individuals who've lost their lives, or who have been abused in these circumstances, the reality is that their victimization is not in vain."

Others worry social media's amplification is a step too far, treading into gratuity.

Williams says she would rather not see videos l‪ike Floyd's propagated to such a degree. It can be re-traumatizing for people of color, she argues, and in some ways, its viral spread is yet another act of dehumanization.

"These are human beings and they deserve dignity, and the fact that you can just go online and ... watch a black person be killed – when is the last time you saw a white person killed online?"
Deaths upon deaths

People of color are witnessing these brutal deaths amid a global pandemic that is hitting African American and Latino communities especially hard. Many front-line jobs are disproportionately held by people of color. Also, people of color are more likely than white adults to report significant stressors in their life as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, including getting coronavirus (71% vs. 59%, respectively), basic needs (61% vs. 47%), and access to health care services (59% vs. 46%), according to the American Psychological Association's "Stress in America" report published in May.


'People are really suffering':Black and Latino communities help their own amid coronavirus crisis

"People of color already carry the burden of structural racism in our history and in our bodies," Montenegro said. "COVID has highlighted how power, privilege, and access to means and resources are distributed disproportionately."

Arline Geronimus, a professor of health behavior and health education at the University of Michigan, uses the term "weathering" to describe the way chronic stressors – which can include interpersonal microaggressions and institutionalized racism – erode bodies. These erosions can lead to chronic conditions among people of color which, Smedley said, make them more vulnerable to COVID-19.
No one should have to 'cope' with racism. So how do you?

Approximately 30% of African American adults with mental illness get treatment each year, below the U.S. average of 43%, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Many African Americans mistrust the health system, and socioeconomic factors can limit access to treatment.

But even mental health professionals recognize there are limits to what the system can do in the face of institutionalized racism. Williams said she's tired of talking about how to cope.

"So many people of color have to sit on their anger and stuff it down, and we know that that's taking a horrible physical and emotional toll on our communities," she said. "The most constructive thing that we can do is take that anger and rage and demand social change. Because going to get your nails done, or taking seven deep breaths, or what have you, that's not going to be enough."


Moreland-Capuia is exhausted by the outrage cycle: the performative responses, the social media flurries, the mainstream media, especially. A lot of well-meaning people post about these deaths, she said, but when it's time to do the work to save black lives, she often feels alone.

"Who is going to be with us to do the real work that's going to be required to help us adhere to that promise ... which is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" she asked. "If we do not treat, manage, and effectively contain the disease of racism, the emotional and psychological toll will not only continue to kill black people, it will consume us all."

You may also be interested in:
Column: After George Floyd's death in Minnesota, still think Colin Kaepernick's knee was the problem? 

Opinion: Why is coronavirus killing so many black Americans? Because they are poor

1619: 400 years ago, a ship arrived in Virginia, bearing human cargo

Will Justin Trudeau unveil a four-day work week in Canada?

Author of the article:Bianca Bharti

1930 IWW.ORG

The idea of the long-desired four-day work week has gained more attention as Canadians near the end of Month 3 in coronavirus lockdown, but don’t expect three-day weekends just yet, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday.

“Right now we’re very much focused on getting through this particular crisis, and we’ll have plenty of time to talk about particularly creative ideas on moving forward, but I’m not going to speculate on what any of them might be,” he said in a response to a question from a CityNews reporter.

Will Justin Trudeau unveil a four-day work week in Canada?

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern floated the idea of a four-day work week in a Facebook live video a week ago.

Ardern flagged New Zealand’s tourism sector, which employs 15 per cent of the population and contributes about $13.8 billion to the country’s gross domestic product, as being one part of the economy that could benefit from people having long weekends.


Similarly, in Canada tourism plays an important role in the economy, where it’s valued at $102 billion a year. Pre-COVID-19, it was the country’s fifth-largest sector, outpacing telecommunications and mining, and employing 1.8 million Canadians.

“I hear lots of people suggesting we should have a four-day week. Ultimately that really sits between employers and employees, but as I’ve said, there’s lots of things we’ve learned about COVID and just that flexibility of people working from home, the productivity that can be driven out of it,” Ardern said.

“Really encourage people to think about, if they’re an employer and in a position to do so, to think about whether or not that is something that would work for their workplace because it certainly would help tourism all around the country.”

The status quo work week of Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., roughly dates back to the Industrial Revolution and the Ford Motor assembly line of the early 1900s.

In June 2018, nearly 70 per cent of Canadians said they would prefer working 10-hour days for four days a week, rather than eight-hour days, five days a week, according to an Angus Reid poll.

BETTER YET 

1930 IWW.ORG

The House of Commons, in 2016, contemplated a four-day work week for MPs to better manage their workloads, CBC reported, though it never came to fruition.

With files from Sharon Lindores.

HEY ALBERTA 

KENNEY SAYS 

GET YER ASS BACK TO WORK 

Data on the government of Alberta’s website shows the average age of death due to COVID-19 is 83.
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/covid-19-preschools-allowed-to-re-open-june-1/wcm/f04c51e6-6d27-40f6-b752-a0cee93fef8f/

Braid: Kenney begins to normalize COVID-19 as a risk mainly to the elderly, almost zero danger to the young

Author of the article:Don Braid • Calgary Herald

The UCP isn’t exactly trying to underplay the COVID-19 threat. No government in Canada has worked harder to contain the disease, and no province has been as successful.

But still, there is a powerful urge to get back to regular life, with COVID-19 relegated to a seniors-only corner.

In a legislature debate on the pandemic Wednesday, Premier Jason Kenney stressed that the disease has a low mortality rate among young people, and a high rate for those over 80.

“The average age of death from COVID in Alberta is 83, and I’ll remind the house that the average life expectancy in the province is 82,” he said.

I’m not sure what to make of that, but it suggests that if you make it to 83 before dying of COVID-19 you’ve already beaten the odds, so, congratulations.

Kenney went on about the age split:

“In Canada, 95 per cent of fatalities from COVID are from those over the age of 60, 80 per cent are in care facilities, and the risk of death from COVID for people under 65 is 0.006 per cent.

“What we are learning is that younger people, although not completely immune, have a rate of mortality related to COVID that is no higher than their general mortality rate from other illnesses.

“For most Albertans, the risk of death from other pathogens, accidents and traffic fatalities is actually higher than it is for COVID.”

All this is true, if cold-blooded. The general outline of COVID-19’s impact on age groups is well known.

The question is why Kenney described the age split so vividly in the only legislature debate on the pandemic since April 1.

And here’s why.

Kenney said: “We cannot continue indefinitely to impair the social and economic as well as the mental health and physiological health of the broader population for potentially a year for an influenza that does not generally threaten life apart from the most elderly, the immunocompromised and those with co-morbidities.”

He added that while there will be more outbreaks, hospitalizations and deaths, “I challenge our public health experts and our officials to ensure that our policy response is predicated on protecting the most vulnerable in the strongest and most discrete ways possible.”

Rather surprisingly, that doesn’t appear to include homeless people, despite early fears that they would be devastated.

“One thing I think we’re learning epidemiologically is that that population has a very high level of immune resistance, of immunity, and resilience against an influenza of this nature,” Kenney said.

Here’s the crux — the whole point the premier had been leading up to.

“Perhaps the most important strategy as we move forward is building a wall of defence around the most vulnerable, seniors in particular.”

Watching all this, and then reading the transcripts, you get a sense of a society soon back to something very close to pre-COVID normal, apart from measures in care centres and for older people in general.

Kenney does not propose to drop testing, screening and other protections for the larger population. In fact, he wants them increased.

But NDP Leader Rachel Notley, responding to Kenney, thought the premier glossed over the threat of a second wave of infection that puts the whole population at risk.

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley in Edmonton Thursday Oct. 24, 2019. DAVID BLOOM/Postmedia

Now is “not the time to rest easy or let our guard down,” she said.

“We must, if we are cautious and prudent, actually see the time we are in as the eye of the hurricane, and we must use this time wisely to prepare for what most scientists tell us will be a second wave in the fall.”

Notley made strong arguments for improving protocols in care centres, meat-packing plants and other places prone to infection.

In seniors residences, she said, “the issue is that when confronted with these challenges, the government didn’t move faster when it mattered most.”
She has a point there, but many other things also matter to Kenney — including the prospect of a monstrous seven per cent drop in Alberta GDP this year.

Increasingly, he refers to the disease as “influenza,” although most health experts put it in a unique category of severity and contagion.

The march is on to normalize COVID-19 as an oldster thing. It was inevitable.

Luckily, Alberta does not have a government that, like some others, would abandon the elderly to miserable death. The promise of help is genuine.

But no government has ever talked like this before, either. Give gramma a hug today.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

SOUNDTRACK FOR TV COVERAGE OF PROTESTS OUTSIDE PRECINCT 3 IN MINNEAPOLIS MINNESOTA



The 7:34’: Coverage Of Riots And Protests In Minneapolis
Fires, riots, looting.. we’re reporting on the chaos and destruction in Minneapolis. Jason DeRusha reports (5:58). WCCO 4 News - May 28, 2020

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/video/4568300-the-734-coverage-of-riots-and-protests-in-minneapolis/

Rage-filled protests erupt in Minneapolis after video circulates of racially charged killing by police

Protesters are shot with pepper spray as they confront police outside the Third Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. STEPHEN MATUREN/GETTY 

Protesters clashed with riot police firing tear gas for a second night in Minneapolis on Wednesday in an outpouring of rage over the death of a black man seen in a widely circulated video gasping for breath as a white officer knelt on his neck.

The video, taken by an onlooker to Monday night’s fatal encounter between police and George Floyd, 46, showed him lying face down and handcuffed, groaning for help and repeatedly saying, “please, I can’t breathe,” before growing motionless.

The second day of demonstrations, accompanied by looting and vandalism, began hours after Mayor Jacob Frey urged prosecutors to file criminal charges against the white policeman shown pinning Floyd to the street.

Protesters disperse as they clash with police during a demonstration over the killing of George Floyd by a policeman outside the Third Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. KEREM YUCEL / AFP

Floyd, who was unarmed and reportedly suspected of trying to pass counterfeit bills at a corner eatery, was taken by ambulance from the scene of his arrest and pronounced dead the same night at a hospital.

The policeman shown kneeling on Floyd’s neck and three fellow officers involved were dismissed from the police department on Tuesday as the FBI opened an investigation.

Hundreds of protesters, many with faces covered, thronged streets around the Third Precinct police station late on Wednesday, about half a mile from where Floyd had been arrested, chanting, “No justice, no peace” and “I can’t breathe.”

The crowd grew to thousands as night fell and the protest turned into a standoff outside the station, where police in riot gear formed barricade lines while protesters taunted them from behind makeshift barricades of their own.

A car burns near the Third Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. STEPHEN MATUREN/GETTY IMAGES

Police, some taking positions on rooftops, used tear gas, plastic bullets and concussion grenades to keep the crowds at bay. Protesters pelted police with rocks and other projectiles. Some threw tear gas canisters back at the officers.

Television news images from a helicopter over the area showed dozens of people looting a Target store, running out with clothing and shopping carts full of merchandise.

Fires erupted after dark at several businesses, including an auto parts store. Eyewitnesses said the blazes appeared to be the work of arsonists. Media said a smaller, peaceful protest was held outside the home of one of the police officers.

Mayor Jacob Frey requested help from the state’s National Guard as local leaders pleaded for a peaceful resolution.

“Violence only begets violence. More force is only going to lead to more lives lost and more devastation,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., tweeted.

Outrage at Floyd’s death also triggered a rally in his name against police brutality by hundreds of people in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon.

The murderer of #GeorgeFloyd is Derek Chauvin, who lives at 7517 17th Street North in Oakdale, Minnesota. pic.twitter.com/nO0nLtxKVm— Robert P Helms (@Gpzero57Helms) May 28, 2020

That demonstration turned violent after a crowd marched onto a nearby freeway and blocked traffic, then attacked two California Highway Patrol cruisers, smashing their windows, local media reported. One protester who clung to the hood of a patrol car fell to the pavement as it sped away, and was treated at the scene by paramedics, news footage of the incident showed.

The video of Monday’s deadly confrontation between Minneapolis police and Floyd led Frey to call on Wednesday for Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman “to charge the arresting officer in this case.”

The city identified the four officers as Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J Alexander Kueng. It did not say who knelt on Floyd’s neck, and gave no further information.

The local police union said the officers were cooperating with investigators and cautioned against a “rush to judgment.”

“We must review all video. We must wait for the medical examiner’s report,” the union statement said.

Protesters demonstrate against the death of George Floyd outside the 3rd Precinct Police Precinct on May 27, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. KEREM YUCEL/AFP

The county attorney’s office said it would decide how to proceed once investigators had concluded their inquiries.

The case was reminiscent of the 2014 killing of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man in New York City who died after being put in a banned police chokehold.

Garner’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement calling attention to a wave of killings of African-Americans by police using unjustified lethal force.

Minnesota calls in National Guard to quell unrest over black man's death in police custody

Carlos Barria, Eric Miller

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - Minnesota’s governor activated the National Guard on Thursday to help police restore order following two days of violent protests in Minneapolis city over the death of a black man seen in graphic video footage gasping for breath as a white officer knelt on his neck.

Governor Tim Walz ordered Guard troops to assist police as local, state and federal law enforcement officials sought to ease racial tensions sparked by Monday night’s fatal arrest of George Floyd, 46, by vowing to achieve justice in the case.

Four city police officers involved in the incident, including the one shown pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck as he lay on the ground, moaning, “please, I can’t breathe,” were fired from their jobs the next day.

The Floyd case was reminiscent of the 2014 killing of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man in New York City who died after being put in a banned police chokehold as he, too, was heard to mutter, “I can’t breathe.”

His dying words became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement that formed amid a wave of killings of African-Americans by police.

Protesters thronged Minneapolis streets for a third day on Thursday chanting “I can’t breathe,” as they rallied peacefully at the Hennepin County Government Center and marched through downtown, demanding the four officers be swiftly arrested.

“There is probable cause right now” to make those arrests, civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton said as he addressed the crowd. “We’re not asking for a favor. We’re asking for what is right.”

Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, said Floyd’s case had renewed the trauma she suffered six years ago. “This is just opening up an old wound, and pouring salt into it,” she said.

Separately, hundreds of demonstrators milled around a police station and Target discount store that were the center of running clashes Wednesday night between rock-throwing protesters and riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

A car in the Target parking lot was set ablaze, and looters periodically ducked inside the vacant Target store to make off with whatever was left inside.

People gather outside the Hennepin County Government Center to protest the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, arrested by police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. May 28, 2020. REUTERS/Eric Miller

Both gatherings began with little police presence and no immediate sign of National Guard troops.

At a morning news briefing, Police Chief Medaria Arradondo apologized to Floyd’s family, conceding his department had contributed to a “deficit of hope” in Minnesota’s largest city.

‘GIVE US TIME TO DO THIS RIGHT’

Hours later, officials overseeing investigations from the U.S. Justice Department, FBI, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and local prosecutors appealed for calm at a joint news conference, as they gathered evidence.

“Give us the time to do this right, and we will bring you justice,” County Attorney Mike Freeman told reporters. He acknowledged the policeman’s conduct depicted in the video was “horrible,” but said, “My job is to prove that he has violated a criminal statute.”

Minnesota’s U.S. attorney, Erica McDonald, pledged a “robust and meticulous investigation into the circumstances surrounding” Floyd’s arrest and death.

The federal investigation, which Attorney General William Barr had designated a “top priority,” will focus on whether the arresting officers used the “color of law” to deprive Floyd of his civil rights, a crime under U.S. law, she said.

Floyd, a Houston native known affectionately to friends as “Big Floyd” and who had worked as a nightclub security staffer, was reportedly suspected of trying to pass counterfeit money when police took him into custody.

Slideshow (20 Images)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-investigation/minnesota-calls-in-national-guard-to-quell-unrest-over-black-mans-death-in-police-custody-idUSKBN23423Q

Wednesday’s disturbances, punctuated by looting, vandalism and arson, began hours after Mayor Jacob Frey urged local prosecutors to file criminal charges in the case.

Most protesters had been peaceful, while a smaller, core contingent engaged in unruly behavior, the police chief said.

Sympathy protests erupted on Wednesday in Los Angeles and Thursday in Denver, with hundreds of demonstrators blocking freeway traffic in both cities.

In a sign the Floyd case had garnered international attention, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet urged U.S. authorities on Thursday to deal with “entrenched and pervasive racial discrimination” in America’s criminal justice system.

The city named the four officers involved in the encounter as Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J Alexander Kueng. Local news media have identified Chauvin as the officer seen kneeling on Floyd’s neck.

Chauvin’s attorney, Tom Kelly, declined comment in an email to Reuters.

Police department records posted online show 18 internal affairs complaints filed against Chauvin, 16 of which were closed without discipline.

Reporting by Carlos Barria and Eric Miller in Minneapolis; Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Nathan Lane in Wilton, Connecticut and Maria Caspani in New York; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles. Editing by Rosalba O'Brien, Bill Tarrant and Raju Gopalakrishnan

ANTI ASIAN RACISM AND JINGOISM

U.S. planning to cancel visas of Chinese graduate students: sources

Matt Spetalnick, Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is planning to cancel the visas of thousands of Chinese graduate students believed by President Donald Trump’s administration to have links with China’s military, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.

The move, first reported by the New York Times, could impact 3,000 to 5,000 Chinese students and could be announced as early as this week, according to the sources, including a current U.S. official and another individual who was briefed on the administration’s internal discussions.

The United States and China are at loggerheads over China’s decision to go forward with national security legislation for Hong Kong that democracy activists in the city and Western countries fear could erode its freedoms and jeopardize its role as a global financial hub.


Chinese students who are in the United States will have their visas canceled and will be expelled, the source briefed on the plans said, while those already outside the United States will not be allowed to return.

The main purpose of the action is to clamp down on spying and intellectual property theft that some Chinese nationals are suspected of engaging in on U.S. university and college campuses, the source said, adding that the administration expected significant push back from those institutions because of their financial interests in Chinese student enrollment.

Some 360,000 Chinese nationals who attend U.S. schools annually generate economic activity of about $14 billion, largely from tuitions and other fees.


The decision on the visas is likely to further sour ties between the world’s top two economies - also at odds over the coronavirus pandemic and trade.

Deliberations on the visa move have been in the works for months, the sources said. While not directly related to the tensions over Hong Kong, the timing appears to be part of “an overall pressure campaign” against China that has intensified in recent months, the source familiar with discussions said.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Congress China had undermined Hong Kong’s autonomy so fundamentally he could not support recertifying the city’s special pre-1997 trading status established when it was a British colony.

Mexican farmworkers crammed into border tunnel despite contagion risk

Laura Gottesdiener

MEXICALI, Mexico (Reuters) - Every night, hundreds of farm workers in Mexico crowd for hours in a cramped tunnel to a border station to reach day jobs in Imperial Valley, California, with no social distancing enforced despite coronavirus cases saturating hospitals in the region.

Mexican agricultural workers queue early morning at the U.S.-Mexico border to enter Calexico, California from Mexicali, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Mexicali, Mexico May 26, 2020. Picture taken May 26, 2020. REUTERS/Ariana Drehsler

By 2 a.m. on Tuesday, tense men and women with cloth face masks and bandanas jostled for position in a line hundreds deep through the underpass leading from the city of Mexicali to the U.S. port of entry. Vendors sold tamales. A mariachi player lightened the mood. But the only hand-washing station was broken.

The daily back and forth flow to work in the United States and sleep back in Mexico, essential to both the $2 billion Imperial Valley fruit and vegetable harvests and to thousands of families in Mexico, is a testament to the deeply entwined economies on either side of the border.

But the lack of safety measures and the late night crowds stand in contrast to a curfew imposed in Mexicali this week to try to stem the city’s fast rising contagion, as well as to six-feet (1.83 meter) distancing measures in the border station itself.

While no infections have been definitively linked to the Calexico West crossing, both the documented day laborers and U.S. border agents worry the lack of social distancing on the Mexican side and the slow processing at the port of entry put them at risk.Jose Salazar, who earns $500 to $600 harvesting melon in California six days a week, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) should add agents to cut the time spent in the line.

“‘La migra’ has not taken care to put on more officers, and that makes the pandemic grow,” he said, using slang for border agents.

The stifling underground tunnel, smelling of sweat and the occasional cigarette and lined with pharmacies advertising Viagra, passes underneath the border fence to a flight of crowded stairs ending at the Calexico West port of entry gate.

Eight farmworkers told Reuters they wait two to three hours each night to cross and worry they are more exposed to the virus before the port of entry than in the fields.Fearful of spending so much time in line, some nights Salazar stays with his son in El Centro, California, rather than head home, he said.

On the U.S. side of the port of entry, CBP agents impose social distancing rules. But some officers said the measures were undermined by the conditions in the tunnel.

“It’s kind of pointless for us to be six feet apart if they (the border crossers) are all crowded up first,” said one CBP agent, waiting for a test at a Calexico clinic after relatives contracted coronavirus and his son developed a fever.

The officer, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, told Reuters he was worried about on-the-job exposure.Mexico’s National Immigration Institute did not immediately respond to questions about lack of distancing enforcement and other sanitary measures in the tunnel.

A spokeswoman said CBP was “taking every available precaution to minimize the risk of exposure to our workforce and to members of the public.” In California, 84 CBP employees have tested positive for COVID-19, the agency said. It did not give data specifically for Calexico. Employers have asked for Calexico’s second port of entry to open at night to avoid bottlenecks.”We have continued to request that CBP increase the hours of its Calexico East Port of Entry as well so that our agricultural employees can utilize that border crossing,” said Brea Mohamed, executive director of the Imperial County Farm Bureau.

Australian court rules queen’s letters can be made public
By ROD McGUIRK

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Historian Jenny Hocking speaks to media in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, May 29, 2020, about Australia's highest court ruling to make public letters between Queen Elizabeth II and her representative that would reveal what knowledge she had, if any, of the dismissal of an Australian government in 1975. The High Court's majority decision in Hocking's appeal overturned lower court rulings that more than 200 letters between the monarch of Britain and Australia and Governor-General Sir John Kerr before he dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's government were personal and might never be made public. (James Ross/AAP Image via AP)


CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s highest court ruled on Friday to make public letters between Queen Elizabeth II and her representative that would reveal what knowledge she had, if any, of the dismissal of an Australian government in 1975.

The High Court’s majority decision in historian Jenny Hocking’s appeal overturned lower court rulings that more than 200 letters between the monarch of Britain and Australia and Governor-General Sir John Kerr before he dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s government were personal and might never be made public.

The only-ever dismissal of an elected Australian government on the authority of a British monarch created a crisis that spurred many to call for Australia to sever its constitutional ties with Britain and create a republic with an Australian president.


Kerr dismissed Whitlam’s government and replaced him with opposition leader Malcolm Fraser as prime minister to resolve a month-old deadlock in Parliament. Fraser’s coalition won an election weeks later.

The National Archives of Australia had held the correspondence, known as the Palace Letters, since 1978. As state records they should have been made public 31 years after they were created.

Under an agreement struck between Buckingham Palace and Government House, the governor-general’s official residence, months before Kerr resigned in 1978, the letters covering three tumultuous years of Australian politics were to remain secret until 2027. The private secretaries of both the sovereign and the governor-general in 2027 still could veto their release indefinitely under that agreement.

A Federal Court judge accepted the archives’ argument that the letters were personal and confidential.

An appeals court upheld that ruling in a 2-1 decision.

The archives’ lawyers argued the records were created with the “strong conception” that their character was private, and they were received by the archives under those conditions.

The convention across British Commonwealth nations is that communications between the queen and her representatives are personal, private and not accessible by the executive government, they argued.

The archives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Hocking, a Monash University academic and Whitlam biographer, was to hold a news conference later on Friday in Melbourne.

Buckingham Palace and Government House have previously declined The Associated Press’ requests for comment on the case.

Hocking has been fighting to access the letters since 2016.

Shots fired during Denver protest of Minneapolis man’s death

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Protesters walk down the 16th Street mall during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis, Thursday, May 28, 2020, in Denver. Protesters walked from the Capitol down the 16th Street pedestrian mall. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)https://apnews.com/4bc4f726dade589fe2b017f5249abc30/gallery/f8f1c68e221b40168285b0bda2cfc209



DENVER (AP) — Shots were fired and protesters blocked traffic and smashed car windows during a demonstration in downtown Denver to protest the death of a handcuffed black man during a confrontation with a white police officer in Minnesota, authorities said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Gary Cutler, a spokesman for the Colorado State Patrol, said the shooting happened in a park across the street from the Capitol. Most of the protesters already had left the area and were marching downtown.

Cutler said the Capitol building was locked down, and everyone inside was safe.

State Rep. Leslie Herod, who was at the Capitol, tweeted, “We just got shot at.”



Police said they don’t know if the protesters were being targeted.

“We do believe that the shots were towards the Capitol, but we do not at this point have any correlation to the protest or the protesters,” police spokesman Kurt Barnes told The Denver Post.

He said about six or seven shots were fired, and no one has been arrested.

“I want to plead to everyone, let’s demonstrate but let’s demonstrate peacefully,” Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said in a video posted on Twitter. “Leave the weapons at home.”

Several hundred protesters had gathered to call for justice following the death of George Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis on Monday after an officer knelt on his neck for almost eight minutes. In footage recorded by a bystander, Floyd pleaded that he couldn’t breathe.

Some among the Denver protesters carried signs reading “Black Lives Matter” and chanted, “Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Racist police got to go.”

They marched through downtown Denver, snarling traffic. Aerial footage showed protesters briefly blocking traffic from moving on Interstate 25 in both directions before swarming back through the downtown streets outside the Capitol. Police fired tear gas to get them to move off of the interstate, The Denver Post reported.

Aerial footage showed several protesters smashing the windows out of at least two vehicles parked outside the Capitol, and others spray-painted graffiti on the Capitol steps.

As the protest started, The Denver Police Department tweeted a message from Chief Paul Pazen sending condolences to Floyd’s family and saying the city’s officers do not use the tactics employed by the Minneapolis officers.

He called that type of force “inexcusable.”

Four Minneapolis police officers have been fired, and the mayor has called for the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck to be criminally charged.

The death has led to violent protests in Minneapolis and demonstrations in other cities, including Los Angeles.