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It’s been nearly three weeks since a video showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of a Black man catapulted the United States and the rest of the world to demand change.
Along with decrying police brutality, protesters have pushed for justice in the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, calling for sweeping changes to the country’s policing systems.
“Defund the police” has become a rallying cry in the protests and, in some cases, protesters in some cities are close to achieving just that.
Here are some of the changes that have happened since Floyd’s death:
It was in Minneapolis where Floyd took his last breath.
A former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with second-degree murder. That alone is a rarity among police-involved killings and something protesters had demanded from the beginning.
Since then, efforts have been made in the city to enact change.
Nine members of Minneapolis city council vowed to dismantle the city’s police department and replace it with a new, community-based system of public safety. The city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, showed reluctance to the change, but the nine council votes would be enough to override Frey’s veto.
Minneapolis has yet to provide details of what the new system might look like.
City council president Lisa Bender told CNN that the dismantling would, in part, mean “instead of investing in more policing, that we invest in those alternatives, those community-based strategies.” She said that city council would need to discuss how to replace the current police department.
“The idea of having no police department is certainly not in the short term,” she added.
Similar funding changes have begun to unfold in other U.S. cities.
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