George Floyd a Year Later: Nothing Changes On the Streets of America

After that day the policeman's actions had a big indignation in The US. The death of George Floyd has got a reason to call to arms for racial justice, police accountability and equality. 

But has it changed policing in the US? Is it possible to say that young black-skinned people of America any safer today than they were a year ago?

Plenty of Americans are killed every year by police. That statistic doesn't change. Minority communities feel that they face discrimination at every stage of their interactions with the criminal justice system.

And there is one thing which also doesn't still change - the inaction in Congress on major police reforms. President Biden promised that  he would sign into law an Act that would improve police training, ban chokeholds, and create a nationwide database to track rogue cops.

But the US Senate has not approve these reforms yet. A lot mothers of the young men killed by police officers were dissapointed and got upset because of that. They just want a juctice for themselves as they say.

Katie Wright, the mother of Daunte Wright, says the delay in passing federal legislation is taking lives. Her son Daunte was shot dead last month here in Minnesota by a police officer. 

Minneapolis is still hurting, a year on. It is a city which is trying to lead the way in the reforming of police departments. The lack of confidence between officers and locals here is huge enough, as it is in almost every city in America.

Jamal Osman is a young Somali-born American was begging for the police to accept a reform. In too many cases, as he said, officers  simply react too much to someone who has  mental health problems.

At 1pm today, the people of Minneapolis will pause for nine minutes and 29 seconds to remember George Floyd. That was the  time which police officer Derek Chauvin had his knee on Floyd's neck, after that Floyd died.