The charges against the 4 police officers who arrested, tortured and caused the death of George Floyd have had their cases reviewed. Their action has now been upgraded and classified a murder case.
Thousands of protesters thronged major American cities since last week demanding justice for Floyd’s tragic and avoidable death. The reviewed sentence was announced on Wednesday.
The protests have largely been accompanied by looting, riots and arson.
Police are visibly overwhelmed to the extent that the National Guard was deployed to bring some order to the escalating violence.
President Trump on his part threatened on Monday, to deploy the army to quell the uprising. The move was immediately condemned by the opposition while the United States Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper disagreed with the idea.
According to Esper, “I am not in favour of the insurgency state decree which would allow the republican billionaire to deploy active soldiers against American citizens, and not National Guard reservists as is currently the case.”
Esper cautioned during a briefing at the Pentagon that “We are not in one of those situations now…the option to use active duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations.
“We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.”
Esper’s position appear to cause worries as some mainstream media fear that he might be on shaky grounds with his principal.
The death of George Floyd is indeed causing a deep divide among the top echelons of the American society as Jim Martins, former Defence Minister in Trump’s administration accused him of dividing America.
Jim Martin regrets that “in my lifetime, Donald Trump is the first president who doesn’t try to bring Americans together, who doesn’t even pretend to try,” he said.
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