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Month: June 2020
Roxie Washington, the mother of George Floyd’s 6-year-old daughter, tearfully spoke out at Minneapolis City Hall on Tuesday, saying Floyd was a loving and devoted father who continued to provide for their family before his death at the hands of police.
Washington, who was accompanied by her lawyers and retired NBA player Stephen Jackson — who was Floyd’s childhood friend — emotionally shared that Floyd’s life consisted of more than his final moments beneath a Minneapolis police officer’s knee. Next to her stood their daughter, Gianna. “I want justice for him because he was good,” Washington said. “He loved (Gianna) so much.” Washington said the officers still get to go home to their family but Floyd won’t be able to see Gianna graduate or walk her down the aisle. Jackson said he would be there to walk her down the aisle instead.
The family flew in earlier Tuesday from Houston joined by Stewart Trial Attorneys based in Atlanta. “We just want to show the world that George Floyd is not just a name, not just a meme and not just something to be chanted,” attorney Justin Miller said. “George Floyd was a real person. He was a good person. And these are the people that loved him.” Their appearance came on the day thousands of peaceful protesters filled the front lawn of the Capitol in St. Paul on Tuesday, mourning the death of Floyd at the hands of police and demanding change.
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President Donald Trump announced Tuesday night that the GOP is seeking a new state to host this summer’s Republican National Convention, after host North Carolina refused to guarantee the event could be held in Charlotte without restrictions because of ongoing concerns over the coronavirus.
Trump announced the news via tweet, criticizing the state’s governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, and other officials for “refusing to guarantee that we can have use of the Spectrum Arena” and were not “allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised.” Trump wrote: “Because of @NC_Governor, we are now forced to seek another State to host the 2020 Republican National Convention.” Several other states have volunteered to host the convention instead.
The announcement came after a Friday call in which Trump had spelled out his requirements for hosting the convention as planned in Charlotte. Trump told Cooper he wanted a traditional convention with a packed arena full of delegates — and with no face coverings to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
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Hollywood is making moves towards getting back to work, with the entertainment industry’s guilds and unions signing off on a 22-page guideline document designed to establish safety protocols for producing movies and TV.
The agreement (which can be viewed here) comes after negotiations among actors, directors and crews, and will include extensive testing, temperature checks, cleaning measures and physical distancing when possible. The parties also acknowledge that revisions might be necessary going forward. Actors and other performers, the report notes, are “most vulnerable because they cannot wear PPE [personal protective equipment] when cameras are rolling, and frequently will not be able to engage in physical distancing.” That will require greater testing frequency for them and those with whom they are in close contact.
Certain activities, such as writing and casting, are still encouraged to be conducted virtually whenever possible. Other parts of production, such as live studio audiences, are also being discouraged.
The plan was produced by the Industry-Wide Labor Management Safety Committee Task Force, which was formed specifically for that purpose, with input from epidemiologists and sanitation experts. The guidelines have been submitted to public-health officials in New York and California.
There has been a major update in the real-life drama related to the hit Netflix documentary Tiger King —Carole Baskin has won control of Joe Exotic’s former zoo.
A federal judge ruled that Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue Corp will take over the 16,439-acre Oklahoma property that was heavily featured in the Netflix series. The current owners have 120 days to vacate Greater Wynnewood Development Group, a.k.a. Tiger King Park. They also have to remove all zoo animals from the land, but ownership of several trucks based on the property will now go to Big Cat Rescue as part of the deal.
The court ruled that the property’s owner, Exotic’s mother Shirley M. Schreibvogel, fraudulently transferred the park in an attempt to shield it from a $1 million settlement owed to Big Cat Rescue Corp. In January, Exotic was sentenced to 22 years in prison for a murder-for-hire plot to kill Baskin, as detailed in the Netflix series which became a national sensation in March.
An independent autopsy conducted regarding the killing of George Floyd found his death was a homicide and that he died of “asphyxiation from sustained pressure.” The autopsy said compression to Floyd’s neck and back as former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck and other officers knelt on his back led to a lack of blood flow to his brain and that he was “dead on the scene.” A statement by the family’s lead attorney Ben Crump said, “The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired the ability of Mr. Floyd’s diaphragm to function.” Dr. Michael Baden, one of the pathologists who performed the independent autopsy said Floyd had no underlying medical problems that contributed to his death. “Police have this false impression that if you can talk, you can breathe. That’s not true,” said Baden.
An official autopsy released last week suggested that Floyd had underlying health conditions and “potential intoxicants in his system” that likely contributed to his death along with the police restraint. Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder, with a criminal complaint stating that Chauvin had is knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in total and 2 minutes and 53 seconds after Floyd was unresponsive. Floyd’s family called for Chauvin to be charged with first-degree murder and for the other officers present to be charged in his death.
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NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a curfew for New York City on Monday night, following four days of protests in response to the killing of George Floyd. The curfew began at 11 pm Monday, and will continue until 5 am Tuesday morning, Cuomo announced. Cuomo did not indicate if the curfew will extend beyond Monday. The governor also announced that the NYPD will increase its police presence on Monday night, with the number of officers jumping from 4,000 to 8,000.
“I stand behind the protestors and their message, but unfortunately there are people who are looking to distract and discredit this moment,” Cuomo said. “The violence and the looting has been bad for the city, the state, and this entire national movement, undermining and distracting from this righteous cause. While we encourage people to protest peacefully and make their voices heard, the safety of the general public is paramount and cannot be compromised.”
Mayor deBlasio said that while demonstrations have been “generally peaceful,” the incidents of violence that have accompanied them are undermining “the message of the moment.”
“It is too important and the message must be heard. Tonight, to protect against violence and property damage, the governor and I have decided to implement a citywide curfew,” said de Blasio. “The police commissioner and I have spoken at length about the incidents we’ve all seen in recent days where officers didn’t uphold the values of this city or the NYPD. We agree on the need for swift action.”
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A “Rocky” documentary titled 40 Years Of Rocky: The Birth Of A Classic, will debut this month. Narrated by Sylvester Stallone, the behind-the scenes film will delve into Stallone’s experiences working on the original “Rocky.” The documentary is written and produced by Derek Wayne Johnson, and in a statement he said the film will “give audiences an intimate, and at times, emotional experience.”
“Rocky” was released in 1976 and became a box office sensation. It won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and spawned seven sequels.
40 Years of Rocky: The Birth of a Classic will be released digitally on iTunes/AppleTV and Amazon on June 9. You can watch the trailer at the link: here.
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Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds took to Instagram to share that they have donated $200,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In a post they shared to both of their social media accounts, the couple wrote:
“We’ve never had to worry about preparing our kids for different rules of law or what might happen if we’re pulled over in the car. We don’t know what it’s like to experience that life day in and day out. We can’t imagine feeling that kind of fear and anger. We’re ashamed that in the past we’ve allowed ourselves to be uninformed about how deeply rooted systemic racism is.”
Lively added that the two “want to educate ourselves about other people’s experiences and talk to our kids about everything, all of it, especially our own complicity. She wrote that the couple’s donation, which comes during days of protests across America after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, is “just a start” and that they “want to use our privilege and platform to be an ally. And play a part in easing pain for so many who feel as though this grand experiment is failing them.”
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U.S. retailers are closing some of their stores across the country because of disruptions caused by the widespread street protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. On Sunday, Target, CVS, Apple and Walmart all said that they had temporarily closed or limited hours at some locations for safety reasons. In some places, their stores have been burned, broken into or looted as protests turned violent.
Amazon said Sunday that it has adjusted its routes and suspended deliveries to keep its drivers safe in some cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and Minneapolis. A spokeswoman also said Amazon is also abiding by local curfews that have required people to remain off streets after a specified hour at night.
Target, which is based in Minneapolis, said it has closed six stores for an extended period. Some of the worst damage was seen at its Lake Street store near where Floyd was killed. Footage showed people walking away with merchandise as smoke filled the store. The company said Sunday it was boarding up the store. Another of its stores in Minneapolis remains closed, along with stores in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago and Oakland, California.
Walmart said it closed hundreds of stores late Sunday afternoon to protect employees and customers. CVS didn’t say how many stores it closed but said it shuttered locations are in more than 20 states and the District of Columbia. A spokeswoman said pharmacies at closed stores will reroute customers to a nearby CVS so they can get prescriptions filled. And Apple said it decided to keep some of its stores closed Sunday. It didn’t say how many were affected.
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