The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis has sparked a nationwide demonstration against police brutality and overbearing law enforcement. While the authorities in Minneapolis have charged Derek Chauvin, the white police officer at the center of Floyd’s killing with third-degree murder and manslaughter, the issues of police misconduct remain a grave concern for many of our cities especially urban centers like Detroit.
The PuLSE Institute on Saturday, May 30, issued a national statement on Floyd’s death and called for an immediate end to the menace of police brutality that leads to the murder of unarmed African Americans across this nation.
“Police brutality and the unlawful killings of black men, women, and children are pains the black community has never been able to heal from due to a consistent pattern of violence against black people this country has never refrained from committing. We have lived with such gross injustices from the ugly days of the Antebellum era of our history, yet have continually failed to properly or consistently institute preventative measures or punitive actions to guarantee the safety and right to life for black people in this country,” according to a joint statement from the Institute’s president Attorney Tina M. Patterson and its editor-in-chief journalist Bankole Thompson.
