The experiences of three black men have been captured on video and released over the past few weeks, and as each incident ends differently, everyone has taken a look at the dangers black men face in America.
The videos of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Christian Cooper have led to a renewed cycle of anger, frustration, sadness and protests. These are their stories:
The four officers involved in Floyd’s death were fired from the department on Tuesday, Minneapolis police said.
On Friday, Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman accused Derek Chauvin, the agent whose knee was on Floyd’s neck, with a third-degree murder and a second-degree murder.
“He was loved by all my employees and customers,” restaurant owner Jovanni Thunstrom told CNN.
Floyd would help clean up after the bar closed and he was a “very nice guy and very good with customers,” according to Thunstrom.
His brother Philonise Floyd said to CNN: “To know my brother is to love my brother.”
“He’s a gentle giant, it doesn’t hurt anyone,” he said.
Ahmaud Arbery
For more than two months, men have avoided arrest. Two district attorneys have signed up for possible conflicts of interest, one of whom wrote that the shooter acted in self-defense and their actions fall under the laws on arresting citizens of Georgia.
However, a 36-second video showing Arbery’s latest moments was released earlier this month, spurring calls for the men’s arrests in the video.
Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis McMichael, 34, were arrested on May 7 and charged with murder and aggravated assault in the murder. William “Roddie” Bryan Jr., 50, the man who recorded the fatal shooting, was arrested on criminal murder charges, said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
“It was a bright light in a world of darkness,” said Akeem Baker, Arbery’s best friend.
His family called the filming a modern lynching.
“I just want people to know that he was a very good young man and that he loved people and I just want people to remember him as a good-hearted young man,” said his father, Marcus Arbery Sr .. “To see him get lynched in that so a racial crowd is devastating for our family. “
Christian Cooper
The video ends after he called the police and released his dog, and the New York police department said neither of them was present when they responded to the scene. However, the incident was another example of whites who called the police over African Americans for what would otherwise have been a trivial dispute.
The woman, who was later fired from her job, told CNN she wanted to “publicly apologize to everyone” and said she was not a racist.
“I think his apologies are sincere,” Cooper told CNN Don Lemon on Tuesday. “I’m not sure in those excuses he acknowledges that while he may not be or consider himself a racist, that particular act was decidedly racist.”
“And the fact that that was his resource at that moment – granted, it was a stressful situation, a sudden situation – you know, maybe an incredibly poor moment of judgment. But she went there and had this racist act she did.”
CNN’s Amir Vera, Eliott McLaughlin and Alisha Ebrahimji contributed to this report.
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