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US Protests of Police Shootings Remain Peaceful

VOA News

   Cities in two Midwestern U.S. states -- Minnesota and Illinois -- had
   braced Thursday for a night of unrest that did not materialize.
   Peaceful protesters did, however, take to the streets in an on-edge
   Minneapolis suburb and in Chicago to demonstrate against police
   shootings of young males of color.
   Demonstrators in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, gathered in front of the
   police station Thursday to protest the shooting Sunday of 20-year-old
   Daunte Wright, who was bi-racial and the father of a 1-year old son.
   Wright was pulled over on a traffic stop by Officer Kim Potter.
   Potter said she thought she had pulled her Taser to use on Wright, but
   instead pulled her gun. She has been charged with second-degree
   manslaughter, but protesters want Potter, who is white, to face more
   serious charges.
   Earlier Thursday, Chicago police released the body camera footage of
   the officer who shot Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old Hispanic boy, in March.
   Several protests sprang up in Chicago after the footage was released.
   In one of the protests, demonstrators marched to the headquarters of
   the Fraternal Order of Police, but none of the demonstrations erupted
   into violence.
   In a portion of the Chicago video, a police officer can be heard
   saying, "Hey show me your ******* hands, drop it, drop it." The boy
   appears to drop something and then as he turns and puts his hand up, he
   is shot and then falls to the ground. Police say the officer was in a
   life-threatening situation.
   Chicago's police accountability office had said it could not release
   the video because the victim was a minor but released it after numerous
   requests. Chicago has a history of suppressing police videos.
   In Brooklyn Center protesters have demonstrated in front of the police
   station every night since Wright's shooting, with police sometimes
   using rubber bullets and gas grenades in skirmishes with protesters.
   Brooklyn Center is a suburb of Minneapolis where George Floyd, a Black
   man, died last year after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer placed
   his knee on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes. Chauvin's trial is
   currently underway in Minneapolis.