Flames shooting from a Los Angeles Police Department kiosk. Kneeling protesters having their stinging eyes flushed. Police in riot gear standing outside the White House.
These are just some of the moments captured as demonstrators took to the streets from Boston to San Francisco over the weekend to protest killings of black people by police.
As night fell, many demonstrations that had started out peacefully sank into violence: Cars and stores were torched. The words “I can’t breathe” were spray-painted on buildings. Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.
The massive protests started after last week’s death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes during an arrest, including for some time after Floyd had stopped moving and saying he couldn’t breathe.
Floyd’s death in Minneapolis came after tensions had already flared after two white men were arrested in May for the February shooting death of black jogger Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, and the Louisville police shooting death of Breonna Taylor in her home in March.
