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“And you should be able to learn and make mistakes and live a life of joy without having to worry about what’s going to happen when you walk to the store, or go for a jog, or are driving down the street, or looking at some bird in a park.”

Trump’s strongman response, which contrasts with his support for armed white demonstrations against pandemic lockdowns in Michigan and elsewhere, has drawn fierce condemnation from Obama’s former vice-president, Joe Biden, and other Democrats.

He also noted that many comparisons have been made with the turmoil of riots, assassinations and anti-war protests in the 1960s.

He added: “There is a change in mindset that’s taking place, a greater recognition that we can do better.

Trump is gambling that the language some protesters have adopted, combined with the commitment of big-city mayors like Bill de Blasio and Eric Garcetti, to cut or divert police spending, along with the pledge of a majority of the Minneapolis City Council to dismantle the city’s police department, will keep moderate voters who supported Trump in 2016 in the Republican fold.

A May 29-30 YouGov poll found that when voters were asked whether they support calls to “cut funding for police departments,” both Democrats (62-16) and Republicans (75-15) were solidly opposed.

Morning Consult posed the question: “Who would you say is most responsible for inciting violence during the nationwide protests,” the protesters or the police? The result: 45 percent placed responsibility for the violence on the protesters, 35 percent on the police and 20 percent could not decide.

In the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, we certainly saw both white Republican and Democrats’ sympathy for racial equality wane, especially after persistent protests. Hopefully the attitude change we are observing now is less fragile, but the march toward racial equality in the U.S. has historically been long, winding, and marked by setbacks.

Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia and author of “The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage,” wrote that the George Floyd protests stand, to some degree, in contrast to the movements of the 1960s:Young/student/white passion 1960-68 was driven initially by solidarity with blacks; that passion then morphed into the antiwar movement and the larger New Left. It had a utopian edge, driven by hope for a whole new world, thus bleeding over into what came to be called the counterculture. The lasting impact was cultural more than directly political; in fact, the New Left was downright anti-political.

Now, Scott continued,I look at the public’s response to this situation and it feels like the first time in my lifetime that I’ve heard law enforcement agencies coming out with strong rebukes and condemnation of the officers in Minneapolis.

he white working class has a deep-rooted — and well-founded — sense that the system is failing them. A facile lurch to the “left” that doesn’t take into account their concerns — which once were the dominant concerns of the left — would be costly.

In order to make progress in race relations, Inglehart argues,We need to move there with a balanced approach, not a one-sided lurch — especially since today’s context of economic and physical insecurity makes people increasingly vulnerable to xenophobic appeals.

Particularly worrisome for Democrats, according to Cain, “is the growing popularity of defunding the police.” He noted thatterms like defunding the police or abolition are ready made for Republican 30 second ads. The Republicans are just much better at coming up with slogans that are harder to attack.

Most change, Vaisey argued, “occurs through the death of older cohorts and their replacement by younger cohorts,” and such slow, long-term movement is now happening.

Young people really are changing (probably up to somewhere around age 25-30 or so). This means that we may be witnessing the formation of a cohort with genuinely different views on race relations. People 25 and below are probably having their opinions changed in a major way on this. So that will have effects on politics now and down the road, especially as current teenagers age into legal and more regular voting age.

Today, Gitlin wrote,I see strong signs of the new activists getting serious about registering voters, doing local politics, then turning to turnout in the fall. They want laws to change. They want policies changed. They know they’re not going to accomplish such goals by cursing the police.

When Scott looked out his window in Washington at an overwhelmingly young crowd, he said he saw “10 protesters. Seven of them are white, and three of them are black.” Without question, Scott declared, “This is different. It feels different. It sounds different. The protesters are different.”

"What we see manifesting right now is not just a reaction to a live or caught-on-tape murder but a deep wound within our society, within our body politic that are festering in our country and must be addressed," said Booker, who represents New Jersey.

"Imagine if every time your husband or son, wife or daughter left the house, you feared for their safety from bad actors and bad police," Biden said.

In a second-degree murder case like the Chauvin trial, the defendant ordinarily has five peremptory strikes and the prosecutor has three; here, however, the judge has exercised his discretion to grant the defense up to 15 peremptory strikes, and the prosecution up to nine.

believe that this has helped to contribute to a corroding of support for Black Lives Matter, even among Black people. Although Blacks and whites start from a different baseline in their support of the group, the more recent USA Today/Ipsos poll found:“Among Black respondents, trust in Black Lives Matter has fallen by 12 points and trust in local police has risen by 14 points. Among white respondents, trust in Black Lives Matter has fallen by 8 points and trust in local police has risen by 12 points.”

In this equation, to far too many Americans, Floyd is just collateral damage, an unfortunate accident, while a noble defender of peace and order attempts to do his duty. In this equation, Floyd is dehumanized. In it, he is betrayed. What is revealed is the bottomless American capacity to countenance cruelty.Some people called the summer protests a racial reckoning, but time has revealed much of it to have been a seasonal solidarity. The season has changed.

"Both the knee across Mr. Floyd's neck and the prone restraint were unreasonable, excessive, and contrary to generally accepted police practices," Stoughton said.

"No reasonable officer would have believed that that was an appropriate, acceptable or reasonable use of force," said Stoughton, who testified that he reviewed all of the available video footage of the incident and prepared for more than 130 hours for the case.

The U.S. Marshals Service said a task force was trying to arrest the man on a state warrant for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The man, who was in a parked car, didn't comply with law enforcement and "produced a handgun resulting in task force members firing upon the subject," the U.S. Marshals said in a statement.

It was not clear how many law enforcement officers fired their weapons. A spokeswoman with the U.S. Marshals said the U.S. Marshals leads the task force, which is comprised of several agencies.

an aerial view of the top level of the parking ramp where Thursday's shooting reportedly occurred showed a silver sport utility vehicle with a shattered back window. It was surrounded by many other vehicles near a white pop-up tent. Several officers were nearby and in a glass-enclosed stairwell.

The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms both tweeted that they were responding to help investigate. The Marshals said the state BCA is leading the investigation.The Minneapolis Police Department said it was not involved in the shooting.

Before Thursday night's unrest, tensions in Minneapolis already had risen after crews early Thursday removed concrete barriers that blocked traffic at a Minneapolis intersection where a memorial to Floyd was assembled after his death.

"as of right now Secretary Esper is still Secretary Esper."

"Should the President lose faith, we will all learn about that in the future," she added.

A senior Republican source told CNN that there has been ongoing tension involving Esper and that Trump has no respect for his defense chief. Esper has had little influence and essentially takes his lead from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the source said, adding that this latest press conference will undoubtedly make things worse.

One White House official said aides there did not get a heads up about the content of Esper's remarks, most notably Esper's decision to publicly break with the President on the use of the military to address unrest in US cities.

As tear gas wafted through the air in Lafayette Park across from the White House, Trump announced from the Rose Garden that if state or city leaders refuse "to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents," he will invoke the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that allows a president to deploy the US military to suppress civil disorder.

Esper also addressed the killing of Floyd, calling it a "horrible crime" and said "racism is real in America, and we must all do our very best to recognize it, to confront it, and to eradicate it.""The officers on the scene that day should be held accountable for his murder. It is a tragedy that we have seen repeat itself too many times. With great sympathy, I want to extend the deepest of condolences to the family and friends of George Floyd from me and the Department. Racism is real in America, and we must all do our very best to recognize it, to confront it, and to eradicate it," he said.

For months, the President and O'Brien have been losing faith in Esper's ability to lead the military and his tendency to avoid offering a full-throated defense of the President or his policies, according to multiple administration officials.

In December, Esper sat for an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier at the Ronald Reagan Defense Forum and when asked what it was like to work for Trump, he responded, "he is just another one of many bosses I've had and you've had your time that you learn to work with."

On Tuesday, White House officials scratched their head at an interview Esper gave to NBC News claiming he did not know he was walking to St. John's church on Monday with the President. Officials said the plans were clear inside the West Wing and that Esper's explanations made little sense. Esper clarified on Wednesday that while he knew they were going to the church, he did not know the movement would turn into a photo opportunity.

"I am concerned that in the current environment, it would be all too easy to put our men and women in uniform in the middle of a domestic political and cultural crisis. Discussions regarding the Insurrection Act could easily make them political pawns. The respect, trust, and support our troops have earned from their fellow citizens is the foundation of their strength and we must be careful not to erode that strength," he said in a statement.

“Not only is it a terrible tactic and unsafe ... it also is sending a tone as if this is the president that has ordered this,” said Ronald Davis, who headed the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama.

Davis oversaw a task force that in 2015 released new federal guidelines for improving police practices after demonstrations that turned violent over the 2014 police killing of a young black man named Michael Brown

That approach appears to have been seldom used in protests that have engulfed many U.S. cities since Floyd’s death after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes during his arrest.

For example, police in New York City have used pepper spray on protesters, hit people with batons and in one case drove two cruisers into a crowd. In New York and some other cities police themselves have been the target of violence.

“If we were dealing with traditional, peaceful protest, everything would have been different,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters on Monday.

Candace McCoy, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, noted police face a complicated task.

"I am a mother to four black children in America, one of whom is 18 years old. And when I saw the murder of George Floyd, I hurt like a mother would hurt," Bottoms said. "And yesterday when I heard there were rumors about violent protests in Atlanta, I did what a mother would do, I called my son and I said, 'Where are you?' I said, 'I cannot protect you and black boys shouldn't be out today.'"

In July of 2019, Bottoms spoke out forcefully against planned Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Atlanta, and other cities, telling CNN at the time that her city was "not complicit in what's happening."

"Our officers don't enforce immigration borders," Bottoms said. "We've closed our city detention centers to ICE because we don't want to be complicit in family separation."

“It feels like being seen,” Epps said. The protesters said the actions of police violated their free speech rights and rights to be protected from unreasonable force. Jurors found violations of both rights for 11 of the protesters and only free speech violations for the other. The protesters claimed Denver was liable for the police’s actions through its policies, including giving officers wide discretion in using what police call “less lethal” devices, failing to train officers on them, and not requiring them to use their body-worn cameras during the protests to deter indiscriminate uses of force.

She stressed that mistakes made by officers during the protests do not automatically equate to constitutional violations, noting thousands of people returned to exercise their free speech rights despite the force police used over the five days of demonstrations. “The violence and destruction that occurred around the community required intervention,” she said.

Aggressive responses from officers to people protesting police brutality nationally have led to financial settlements, the departures of police chiefs and criminal charges.

However, in 2021, a federal judge dismissed most of the claims filed by activists and civil liberties groups over the forcible removal of protesters by police before then-President Donald Trump walked to a church near the White House for a photo op.

“I remember shaking in that moment,” Manns, who is Black, told CNN. “That happened right down the hall from where I sleep, from where I’m supposed to be safe. … The thought that it could be someone I’ve lived with all these months really terrified me.”

The annual return of the boys of summer carries a sense of renewal and possibility. A similar feeling is being conjured by stunning and welcome news of the success of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

The results emerged as vaccine distribution quickly ramps up across the country, with more than 150 million doses of vaccine administered in the US and eligibility for inoculations fast expanding to almost all age groups in many states. The Pfizer news also offered President Joe Biden a powerful weapon in his drive to convince a sizable minority of skeptical Americans to get vaccinated to enable the country to reach the herd immunity that is necessary to eradicate the virus.

It's going to take widespread vaccination to drive the virus down sufficiently to allow a return to packed baseball stadiums later in the summer

"That's a decision they made. I think it's a mistake," Biden said. "They should listen to Dr. (Anthony) Fauci, the scientists and the experts. But I think it's not responsible," Biden said in an interview with ESPN in lieu of throwing out the opening pitch before the Washington Nationals season opener.

At least three players have tested positive for Covid-19 and another is considered a "likely" positive, Nationals manager Dave Martinez and general manager Mike Rizzo confirmed during a video conference Thursday.

The President also weighed into another controversy that encroached on the festivities of the first baseball games of the season — a new voting law passed by Republicans in Georgia that discriminates against Black voters and is based on ex-President Donald Trump's lies that the last election was marred by fraud.

Trump also openly feuded with sportsmen and women who spoke out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in the racial reckoning that followed the death of George Floyd last year. At the same time as baseball was opening its season Thursday, the trial of the police officer charged with murdering Floyd entered its fourth day of testimony in Minneapolis.

Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, meanwhile, lashed out at the campaign to shift the venue, accusing Biden of trying to distract attention from a flood of child migrants at the southern border, which Republicans say is the result of his more humane immigration policies."You know, he's focused on trying to get Major League Baseball to pull the game out of Georgia, which is ridiculous," Kemp told Fox News.

The Georgia voting law may also be in the background at the Masters next week, the first men's golf major of the year at the Augusta National Golf Club. Racial issues were already to the fore of this year's tournament since Lee Elder, the first Black player to tee off at the Masters, in 1975, will be making his debut as honorary starter alongside Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.

Most stadiums were much less than half full, with 20% to 30% capacity.

"I think today's professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly. I would strongly support them doing that," Biden told ESPN. "People look to them. They're leaders."

At Yankee Stadium in New York, which has been doubling as a Covid-19 vaccine site, fans had to show they were fully vaccinated or post a negative Covid test before passing through the turnstiles.

Not all of the Opening Day challenges were caused by a pandemic and politics, however. In one sign of early season normality, the Boston Red Sox were rained out and will have to wait another day to welcome fans back to Fenway Park for the first time in 18 months.

The first juror selected was a White man in his 20s or 30s who works as a chemist and said he has an analytical mind.The second juror was a woman of color who appears to be in her 20s or 30s, according to a pool reporter's observations in court. She said she was "super excited" about getting the jury questionnaire form.The third juror selected was a White man in his 30s who works as an auditor.The fourth juror was a White man in his late 30s or 40s who said he had a "very favorable" view of Black Lives Matter. He also said he believed police are more truthful than other witnesses. The juror is planning to get married on May 1 and told the court that if he was selected for the trial it could delay the wedding.

Biden’s decision to stand down was a puzzling development given that there is no indication whatsoever that the Democratic legislation – which would create a national registry of police misconduct, ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants, and overhaul qualified immunity protections for police officers – has any chance in the 50-50 Senate after it passed the House in March without GOP support.

The deep fissures in the Democratic party over what to do on the issue of policing have put Democrats in a difficult spot. During the 2020 elections, Republican hammered their Democratic opponents over radical calls to “defund the police” – attempting to portray all Democrats as sympathetic to a view that is held by a small minority.

It’s a major reason why congressional leaders like House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the chamber, were quick to refute Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s argument that there should be “no more policing,” because, in her view, it cannot be reformed. “We’ve got to have police,” Clyburn said in an interview this week with CNN’s Don Lemon.

Protests erupted this week after the death of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was shot by veteran Minnesota police officer Kimberly Potter in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center after he was initially pulled over for an expired tag and police learned that he had an outstanding warrant for a gross misdemeanor weapons charge.

Biden’s reticence reflects not only the deadlock in the deeply divided Congress, but also the fact that Democrats are still struggling to refine their message on police reform – knowing the issue will be a vulnerability at the ballot box in 2022 and 2024.

t this pivotal moment when the nation is once again focused on the need to end these all-too-common occurrences, Biden seems uniquely positioned to take a leading role in brokering a compromise with Congress after his lifetime of work on crime and justice legislation.

in another difficult case, the Chicago Civilian Office of Police Accountability released body-worn camera footage Thursday that shows a police officer shooting 13-year-old Adam Toledo last month.

“The officer screamed at him, ‘Show me your hands,’ Adam complied, turned around, his hands were empty when he was shot in the chest at the hands of the officer,” Weiss-Ortiz told reporters Thursday. “If you’re shooting an unarmed child with his hands in the air, it is an assassination.”

Biden’s cautious posture on policing issues since he has become President reflects the arms-length distance that he has maintained from the progressive left on a number of politically-fraught issues, including calls from some Democrats to expand the size of the Supreme Court, the suggestion that he should be doing more on gun control following a recent spate of mass shootings, and fulfilling his own promise to raise the cap set on refugee admissions.

“I want to make it clear again: There is absolutely no justification – none – for looting, no justification for violence. Peaceful protest, understandable,” Biden said Monday. “We do know that the anger, pain, and trauma that exists in the Black community in that environment is real – it’s serious, and it’s consequential. But it will not justify violence and/or looting.”

“There’s never gonna be justice for us,” Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, told reporters on Thursday. “Justice would bring our son home, knocking on the door with a big smile, coming in the house, sitting down eating dinner with us, going out to lunch, playing with his one-year-old – almost two-year-old-son, giving him a kiss before he walks out the door.”

Democrats’ sensitivity to those attacks was magnified this week by the swift response to Tlaib, a liberal Democrat, when she tweeted Monday that Wright’s death was not accident and “policing in our country is inherently & intentionally racist.

“This is not about policing. This is not about training. This is about recruiting. Who are we recruiting to be police officers? That to me is where the focus has got to go. We’ve got to have police officers,” Clyburn told Lemon on “CNN Tonight.”

But as incomprehensible police shootings multiply with devastating consequences for the families, there is a fierce urgency in this moment, particularly as the nation waits for the verdict in the Chauvin trial. Justice in policing might be “a cause” that is more convenient for Biden to tackle later in his presidency. But by standing down and waiting for others to act, he may well miss this moment.

It’s no small thing that several Minneapolis police officers, including Chief Medaria Arradondo, took the stand against Mr. Chauvin in his trial over the death of George Floyd. Fourteen officers in the same department signed an open letter last year saying Mr. Chauvin “failed as a human and stripped George Floyd of his dignity and life.”

Three generations of police officers protected the accused in uniform.

Among the victims were several people of color. “Two African-American men are dead,” said the city’s police chief, Carmen Best, at the time, “at a place where they claim to be working for Black Lives Matter.”

We need every cop to wear a body camera. We need to curb the power of police unions, the biggest protectors of the blue wall. And we need officers of all stripes to back the words of those 14 in Minneapolis. They said, “This is not who we are.” Now prove it.

For a century, the Tulsa race massacre of May 31, 1921, went largely ignored by sitting U.S. presidents, never prompting a trip specifically to honor those killed in the once-thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood until now.

The Black educator Booker T. Washington coined the name "Black Wall Street" for Greenwood in recognition of thriving Black middle, upper and professional classes with Black-owned businesses dotting the streets.

At roughly 100 days into Biden's presidency, 89% of Black Americans say they approved of the job he is doing – more than any other racial group, according to a Pew Research Center poll. The administration's responses, particularly regarding economic inequality and criminal justice will be closely watched. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which many had touted would pass by the anniversary of Floyd's death May 25, remains with the Senate.

The White House has been criticized by some racial justice advocates for not going far enough in advancing some police reform and other progressive measures, though activists have conceded Biden officials are more responsive than past administrations on the issue.

n 2019, a Human Rights Watch report found strong evidence of racial bias in policing. Yet it also revealed that a significant share of the disparities are explained by “concentrated policing in high poverty neighborhoods, which are more frequently communities of color.” Its authors gently ask if policing is “a proper response” as opposed to “addressing the problems” in those places with greater resources.

Many powerful companies that view themselves as progressive continue to actively lobby against the sort of federal tax increases that are needed, under current budgetary norms, if greater physical and social infrastructure investments are going to be made in underserved communities of color.

When asked why social justice discourse in America has drifted into a scattered set of culture wars and inclusion debates, Ms. Hatch told me that in addition to such outgrowths (positive or negative) being natural, “diversity is often an easy place to start for people,” as it’s less likely to induce political backlash. For many executive managers, it feels more directly within their power.

After George Floyd’s death, Robin DiAngelo’s antiracism training book, “White Fragility,” published in 2018, became Amazon’s No. 1 selling book. She was called upon to give lectures and lead workshops at powerful universities, public agencies and corporations such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Nike, Under Armour, Goldman Sachs, Facebook, CVS, American Express and Netflix.