Original subtitles

This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find disturbing,

very strong language from the start

and discriminatory language which some may find offensive

Before they drive off, he's parked right here.

It's a fake bill from the gentleman.

Is the driver in there?

Which one? That blue one over there.

All right.

Oh!

Let me see your hands.

Hey, man. Stay in the car. Let me see your other hand.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry... Let me see your other hand!

Please, Mr Officer. Both hands! I didn't do nothing!

Put your fucking hands up right now. I didn't do nothing.

Let me see your other hand. All right. What did I do, though?

What did I do? Put your hand up there!

God, man! Put your fucking hand up there!

Jesus Christ, keep your fucking hands on the wheel.

I got shot. I got shot before.

Keep your fucking hands on the wheel. Yes, sir.

God dang, man!

Man, I got shot the same way, Mr Officer, before.

OK. Well, when I say, "Let me see your hands,"

you put your fucking hands up. I am so sorry, Mr Officer.

You got him? Man! Dang, man!

Put your hands on top of your head. Man, Mr Officer.

What's your first name?

His name is George Floyd.

What is it? He's a good guy.

George Floyd, she said.

Man, let me calm down now. I'm feeling better now.

Keep walking. OK, cop, can you do me one favour, man?

No. When we get to the car. Let's get to the car, man.

Please, man. Don't leave me by myself, man, please.

I'm just claustrophobic, that's it. Well, you're still going in the car.

When I watched the video of George Floyd...

Don't do me like that, man. Get in the car!

OK, can I talk to you, please? If you get in this car, we can talk!

I'm claustrophobic. ..what I saw was evil.

I can't breathe! I can't take that, man! I can't!

Let me lay on the ground. I want to lay on the ground.

It was reminiscent of a lynching.

Argh! Argh! Argh!

Aargh!

But, after that, we saw millions of people around the world

take a stand with the Black Lives Matter movement.

A global uprising against injustice.

Please, man! I can't fucking breathe!

Come on out. I appreciate that.

Because when police continually oppress and violate people's rights

and abuse them and murder them, at some point...

..there is going to be an uprising when people have had enough.

It was like a flash point.

EXPLOSIONS

The echo of that pain.

Like this groundswell of final truth.

They're actually understanding

what the world looks like through our eyes.

I need you to understand now how painful this shit is!

There was clearly a shared sentiment amongst all of us,

which was, change has to happen.

2020 felt like a window of opportunity,

one moment to challenge the status quo...

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin

has been charged with murder.

..but it led to a huge backlash across the world.

Attempting to challenge the status quo,

there was always going to be discontent, because at that point

there's, like, large swathes of defensiveness and denial.

REPORTER: His report concluded that there is no proof

of institutional racism.

And our country will be woke no longer!

Did the movement fail?

What the hell happened?

CHANTING: Whose streets? Our streets!

Whose streets? Our streets!

So, on May 25th of 2020, Memorial Day...

..I was home with my family in Minneapolis

and I just happened to open Facebook

and I noticed there was a Black Lives Matter post

which said that the police had choked someone

to the point that they died.

Normally in Minneapolis, people get shot and killed by the police,

not having their throats crushed,

so I was definitely curious about the situation.

I'm a civil rights attorney and one of the spokespersons

for the Black Lives Matter movement here in Minneapolis.

So, if people in the community had various issues,

I would contact Chief Arradondo.

When I saw her number, I answered it.

"Did Minneapolis Police kill someone today?"

And he said, "No, Miss Nekima."

We had a death,

but I believe it was a medical-related death.

Well, that's not what the community is saying happened.

"People are saying the police choked this person.

"Have you seen video of the incident?" And he said, "No."

I said, "You need to see some video immediately."

Please...

Mr Officer...

When I saw that video, I wanted my eyes...

..to not see what I was just seeing.

Please! I can't breathe!

To see the life...

..being essentially choked out of someone

who kept saying, "I can't breathe"...

..was one of the most devastating things that I've witnessed.

REPORTER: Breaking news this morning, there's a man who is dead

after an encounter with police.

A video posted to Facebook shows an officer with his knee on his neck.

We're not showing that video just yet.

We want to make sure that man's family is fully notified.

I remember...

..the television had a black guy laying on the ground.

MUFFLED: Once you got him down, man, let him breathe.

I can't breathe.

My heart was breaking for that dude.

And my sister calls me...

..and that's when...

..I realised that...

..I was sitting there looking at my nephew die.

REPORTER: A video showed an officer pressing his knee into the neck

of the man who was later identified as George Floyd.

His favourite pastime was shooting hoop in the 'hood.

You know, he's at the park right here now in the Fifth Ward, balling.

It just brings me back, man, to the days where...

..where we'd shoot ball and laugh.

I was bigger than he was,

but after 15 or 16, I still treated him like he was a little dude

but he was a little bit taller.

George was my big sister's baby boy.

I watched him grow from a little baby to a grown man.

I loved that dude a lot.

I'm never going to be able to look at his beautiful smile.

He don't get to see his baby grow up.

That day on May the 26th...

..that's when the world changed.

That video played every second of the day,

all over the world.

REPORTER: Minneapolis gehen fur George Floyd auf die Strasse.

REPORTER: George Floyd, un ciudadano negro,

a manos de un policia blanco...

REPORTER: An investigation is under way in Minneapolis

into the death of another black man in police custody.

This was a moment that we could not turn away from.

Yeah, just, like, devastating. Just devastating.

With the additional uncertainty of the pandemic,

it was just a sense of absolute helplessness.

We're all in our homes,

our window into the world is our phones or our screens.

Of course, we all want to live in a world where everybody's life

feels sacred and feels valued, but a huge part of that

and an undeniable step towards that is for black lives to matter.

I think I watched the beginning of the clip many times.

I've never finished it, because for me...

..there was a barrier which I couldn't get over,

which was I don't want to witness someone's life leave them.

I've seen quite a lot of films like that.

Like, videos of something like that occurring.

I just thought, "Oh, God, another one of those videos."

It was a familiar, horrified feeling.

You know, unfortunately, for me,

this is not the first video I've seen like this.

It's been going on for too long and it isn't just in our lifetime,

it's been going on long before us. This is a systemic problem.

Racism isn't only going on in America.

You know, the UK is not innocent.

The UK has a track record of state-sanctioned violence

in police custody, which is even more insidious

because it's all behind closed doors.

There's no cameras in there.

These cases aren't exclusive to the American experience.

It threw me back to, like, rah, are we still...

..at the bottom of this thing?

OK, OK, OK, so when are we going to change...

..everything that makes this possible?

REPORTER: George Floyd is dead.

The scene of the confrontation with police

outside this grocery store is now home for a memorial.

People throughout the city, throughout the state,

expressing outrage over the actions of one officer

and the inactions of others.

They treated my brother like a scumbag.

They left him there to die. They act like he was a piece of trash.

Later that afternoon, I headed to City Hall.

Chief Arradondo was going to make a decision

of whether he was going to fire one or more of the officers.

As Chief of Police,

I do not have a say in criminal charges against employees.

We do not investigate our own in matters like that,

but what I am responsible for is their employment.

He made the announcement, which was unprecedented, that he was planning

to fire all four of the police officers involved.

It was something that the department had never experienced before.

Some officers, I'm sure, were devastated.

These officers have family members, they have loved ones,

but I also have to look at the victims.

We all have to be held accountable.

Making sure that those officers weren't just fired

but that they were criminally charged, that became our focus

later that afternoon when we held the first demonstration.

CHEERING

REPORTER: People who are here for the protest

have actually joined a march towards the Minneapolis Police Department.

The officers involved in that incident worked at Third Precinct.

CROWD: George Floyd!

The Black Lives Matter movement began

long before George Floyd was killed.

In 2012, we had started to organise

after the killing of Trayvon Martin

at the hands of George Zimmerman.

The verdict, we the jury find George Zimmerman not guilty.

Our streets! Our streets!

We wound up holding some protests, but there wasn't a movement

until the police killing of Mike Brown.

..police officer shot and killed an unarmed 18-year-old, Michael Brown.

Police say the officer had been on the force for about six years.

Folks from around the country actually descended upon Ferguson.

Don't shoot! Hands up! Don't shoot! Hands up!

That is what I would say really started

what we know as the movement for Black Lives.

Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!

And now the murder of George Floyd would not be swept under the rug.

Prosecute the police.

No justice, no peace!

We decided to march to the Third Precinct.

Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!

By Wednesday morning,

the site of the Third Precinct had become a focal point.

No justice, no peace!

Prosecute the police.

If you're ever experiencing civil unrest,

in your ear, there's this crescendo.

It's building.

By Wednesday, it had reached a fever pitch.

They're really out here hurting people.

I knew that any small mistake

could be deadly.

The protest was largely peaceful at that time,

but suddenly...

..the police emerged wearing riot gear,

using tear gas on protesters.

I thought I was going to vomit. I literally couldn't breathe.

They're worried about rocks being thrown at a building,

when we're worried about human lives being taken away

without any accountability.

No.

You don't have the luxury of time.

Mistakes are going to be made.

I did direct our officers to deploy gas

once a secure fence was breached.

You're doing the best you can...

..but it was a crisis that I had never, ever experienced before.

Burn it!

The crowds amassed and they made their way in there.

And within minutes,

the first flames started to come from inside the building.

Wow, that's the precinct.

And I told Dispatch that we've lost the Third Precinct.

This is the community's response

to George Floyd being murdered by Minneapolis Police.

What's his name? George Floyd! What's his name? George Floyd!

Police have largely withdrawn and it's pretty much lawlessness

right now across large parts of the city.

Donald Trump initially called the video of Mr Floyd's death

shocking but went on Twitter to describe the protesters as thugs,

adding that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts".

Are you concerned that you might be stoking more racial violence

or more racial...? No, no, not at all.

MAGA loves the black people.

Minnesota, they've got to get tougher.

The situation is incredibly dangerous.

Minnesota National Guard is deployed.

This is the largest civilian deployment in Minnesota history.

The force that we have out there now is about three times larger

than the one in the '60s, which was the largest during the race riots.

I'm here to announce that former Minneapolis Police Officer

Derek Chauvin is in custody.

But the question is whether that will be enough to quell

the rage that was ignited here and is now spreading across the country.

The trauma being expressed right now, it's the result of years

and years of racial injustice and discrimination.

Martin Luther King, he says, "A riot is the language of the unheard."

I think that black people were feeling that there was very little

that they could do to challenge injustices within the system,

until the Black Lives Matter movement began.

CHANTING: George Floyd!

Thousands of people have gathered across central London

to protest against the killing of George Floyd in the biggest

gathering of people since lockdown.

Am I next?

That is the question I'm asking myself. Regardless if I'm here

in the United Kingdom, am I next, because of my skin colour?

Black life matters.

Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!

The George Floyd protests started

on the streets of Minneapolis on Wednesday.

By Sunday, they were with us here in Trafalgar Square.

This level of engagement, is it about solidarity

with fellow citizens in America, or is it about change here?

I don't... Yeah, I don't think it's either/or.

There are parallels, there are significant parallels,

disturbing parallels between the black British experience

and the African American experience.

There was a young man that I was in primary school with.

His name's Julian Cole.

He was accosted by five officers outside of a nightclub,

had his neck snapped.

Guess how many convictions that debacle ended in? None.

There's been no jail time doled out for police.

But you're not putting America and Britain on the same footing?

I mean, I heard

that very moving, horrific account,

but our police aren't armed, they don't have guns.

It's not the same, is it?

If it's not the same, then you have to explain to me

why Julian Cole is not an exception.

Black people are twice as likely to die in police custody

as their white counterparts in this country, so this is very real.

The need for change is overdue and I hope this is a learning point

for many people who think along the lines

that you just expressed.

At the time George Floyd happened, I've had politicians say to me,

"Why are you worried?"

You know, "It's not British policing."

But I know, cos I've been in policing for a very long time,

that things like that happen in this country too.

That is the reality

and it's very much the real experience of the black community.

Julian happened to be my friend

and when I heard about George Floyd's murder, yeah, I immediately

thought about Julian, because it was all to do with the throat.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah...

I used to work with Julian in a shoe shop back in, like, 2013,

and we were cool.

Played football for the FC semi-pro and he was a sports science student.

He was a good... youth of good fortune.

So, when I found out about his case,

yeah, I was...I was shocked still.

I was...I was...

..like, what? What do you mean, his neck's broken?

What do you, like...?

Julian Cole's arrest was captured on CCTV.

He'd been restrained outside a nightclub in Bedford

and bouncers and the police were involved.

Officers dragged him into a van.

The officers sacked today had all lied that he'd been able

to move his legs.

He was initially taken to a police station, rather than a hospital.

And this is how he is now.

He's in a permanent vegetative state.

I'm not afraid to say Feds literally broke my bredrin's neck,

then lied on one of their statements.

It's too much, you know what I'm saying?

It was...it was too much, bro.

In a situation like this, you shouldn't be abusing your power.

All that's happened to you is that you've lost your job.

I don't think that's enough.

You would think that if you broke somebody's neck,

you'd be at the mercy of the law.

Any of us go outside and do that right now to somebody,

we are spending the rest of our lives in jail.

What the misconduct panel have found

is that the officers acted

without the honesty and integrity

that I would expect them to,

and nor did they conduct the welfare checks

that I would have wanted them to.

Cases such as Julian Cole challenge

that notion that justice in the United Kingdom

treats everybody fairly,

no matter what the colour of their skin.

They're searching my car for drugs, even though I told them what I do.

They checked me and they've not found anything.

I can get stopped once a week.

You detain me because of what?

Because of perception, because you perceive me to be something I'm not.

There's also a series of stories

where police brutality had been alleged,

cases like the Dalian Atkinson killing.

NEWSREADER: Police were called to his father's home.

A Taser was discharged and Dalian Atkinson was restrained.

He died shortly afterwards.

The cop kicks him in the head so hard

there's an imprint of his boot on Dalian Atkinson's head.

A lot of black people can relate to

George Floyd having the life squeezed out of him.

Not many of us can relate to the sharp end of the violence,

but I think most of us can relate to being looked at with suspicion,

being looked at like you're a threat,

being chased out of establishments, being asked to move on.

Police, prisons.

These are institutions that exacerbate inequality,

institutions that have pinpointed and terrorised us, you know?

What's his name? CROWD: George Floyd!

What's his name? George Floyd! What's his name?

NEWSREADER: In Minneapolis, the demonstrations continue.

Calls are growing for the three other officers involved

to also be brought to justice.

Lock up all four! Lock up all four!

Lock up all four!

I am your President of law and order.

If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary

to defend the life and property of their residents,

then I will deploy the United States military

and quickly solve the problem for them.

We must never give in to anger or hatred.

If malice or violence reigns, then none of us is free.

Go to the Instagram pages of some of your favourite celebrities

and you'll see nothing but a black box

where a photo or video should be.

Major corporations have flooded social media

with messages for the Black Lives Matter cause.

Quite quickly it started to become a social media event,

something to jump on.

Like, "Oh, my God, this is awful."

Tell me about how awful this is for you.

I didn't really think I could explain it in...

..in a text message.

A recent update for Google Assistant now has a custom answer

to the question, "Do black lives matter?"

GOOGLE ASSISTANT:

SIREN WAILS

Do not stay here!

If you are here for the protest,

make your way towards Hyde Park, please!

Arriving at that protest, you know,

as someone who has the dichotomy of

both experiencing racism, but also having privilege,

because of my skin tone and proximity to whiteness,

I felt like I had to show up.

I guess I didn't know what to expect,

but your pain had a place to be expressed.

No justice! CROWD: No peace!

No justice! No peace!

No justice! No peace!

No justice! No peace!

George Floyd! CROWD: George Floyd!

George Floyd! George Floyd!

Once I had that megaphone, it was like,

"Right, this is the job,"

and protesting was like a job that I took seriously.

George Floyd! Big up yourselves from everything...

CHEERING

It was one of the most magical days,

because it was a huge turnout.

Just felt like the whole park was covered with people,

and this sense of the fact that we are all coming from the same place

and we all want the same thing.

There was this energy, like, we were just there,

listening to each other, and that kind of felt cathartic.

I want to thank every single one of you for coming out.

This is very important. This is very vital.

Suddenly, this sort of energy in the crowd, like, kind of changed

and I could suddenly hear this voice.

Black lives have always mattered. We have always been important.

We have always... It was John Boyega.

Every black person understands and realised the first time

you were reminded that you are black. You remember...

You could cut the air with a knife, like, it was...powerful.

SHOUTING

I need you to understand now how painful this shit is.

I need you to understand how painful it is... Guys, guys, guys...

..to be reminded every day that your race means nothing.

And that isn't the case any more.

That is never the case any more. We are going to try today.

We are a physical representation of our support for George Floyd.

Stand on this, let's stand on this, stand on it!

We are a physical representation of our support for Trayvon Martin.

I'm speaking to you... I'm speaking to you from my heart.

Look, I don't know if I'm going to have a career after this,

but no, fuck that, bruv.

INDISTINCT SHOUTING

Fuck that!

John, you got this.

You got this, you got this! You've got this!

I'm so grateful to him.

His speech went a long way.

Black boy from Peckham and he's using his power

and his influence in a way that's really going to benefit people.

NEWSREADER: Star Wars actor John Boyega

is joining the call for racial equality after George Floyd's death.

I just think it's really cool that John Boyega,

star of Star Wars, went out and spoke.

I just think this is super powerful.

My guy is shelling and I love the fact that he's shelling

and he's creating waves.

There's not really as much racism or violence as there used to be,

so there's no reasons to protest any more,

so they have to kind of make things up

and exaggerate and blame things on racism,

even though racism wasn't proven to be involved yet.

CROWD: No peace! No justice! No peace! No justice!

So, I remember my editor had given me a call.

There was a gathering for George Floyd in Hyde Park.

The speakers encouraged people, "Let's keep making noise,

"let's walk towards central London."

Forget about Covid.

There are not supposed to be any gatherings happening

anywhere in the country right now,

and there are thousands and thousands of people,

young people, who are here today.

What I notice is groups of police officers, on the side,

sort of following them on.

CROWD: George Floyd! George Floyd!

So, some people would start interacting with the police.

There has always been a sense of

black people versus the police,

or racialised people versus the police,

and how the police deal with those communities.

So, when I see the police, I feel threatened. I don't feel safe.

I do believe that their presence there is aggressive.

No justice! No peace!

Those protests were essentially about police brutality.

The BLM protests had a real impact on policing at the time,

and I know that because I was in all of the meetings

when that was discussed.

I was one of the National Police Chiefs' Council's

52 chief constables.

So, Chiefs' Council that I sat on, lots of people sitting around,

at least a third of that council going,

"This is terrible, we've got to do something about it."

A third didn't speak, but I strongly suspect were...

..wanted to do something but were nervous of the political reaction.

The political context of the time from the Conservative Party was,

"There's a culture war here and there's nothing to see here."

NEWSREADER: Police chiefs in the UK offered a message of solidarity

to the protesters, saying they too were appalled

and horrified by Mr Floyd's death,

but that didn't go down well here.

The police in the UK have killed people

and are held unaccountable for.

Look at the T-shirt.

These are the names of people they've killed.

How dare the chiefs of police across the country issue a statement

saying they're in solidarity with George Floyd.

They are disgraceful!

They have never been accountable in this country.

How dare they use his death as a publicity stunt!

We're out here for people in this country that have been killed

and we will fight for our rights!

CROWD: Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!

You, you're a racist.

It was very tense.

Very, very tense.

It was just total chaos.

Do you understand why people in this country

feel that there is enough of a parallel to come out

and protest here in the streets like we saw yesterday?

I understand people are feeling very strongly

about what has happened over there,

but I would draw a distinction, actually, between the United States

with its history, its culture, its policing models, and ours.

I think that George Floyd's murder brought people

out on the streets, but I think this racialised state violence.

It keeps happening because it's the norm,

and we don't want this norm any more.

That's why people came out on the streets, cos they were like,

"We don't like this norm. This norm is wrong.

"This norm is perverse."

Just because it's the norm doesn't mean that it's OK.

NEWSREADER: Breaking news overseas,

a major protest under way right now in London.

A protest in London. What's going on?

What we're seeing here feels uniquely American.

I guess it's not. Well, it isn't any more, Steph,

because what you're seeing is

those same protests being mirrored around the world,

people both inspired and outraged.

This is just one example of the protests that are happening now

and building around the world, from Australia...

Whose lives matter? CROWD: Black Lives Matter!

..to Paris yesterday, where 20,000 people protested.

Black Lives Matter!

Meanwhile, back here in the US,

three other officers have been charged with aiding

and abetting second-degree murder.

Protests in the UK feel like they're gathering momentum.

Strength of feeling hasn't yet diminished

and those wanting to add their voice is growing.

I'd been seeing it build and it's so interesting,

cos it was, like, building on WhatsApp

and stuff.

It was very, very community-level,

in the same way that aunties will send you chain prayers,

do you get me? It was coming in like that.

And then you get this sense of I know the community's going to...

..going to really step out for this.

You just kind of feel it, you know what I mean?

You feel it, like, and maybe that thread gets tugged a little bit

and it...everyone's, like, very community ready.

It felt like we were focused.

We can't get to where we want to be if we don't do this right now.

What's his name? CROWD: George Floyd.

NEWSREADER: It has been a day of mass demonstrations across the UK.

Thousands took to the streets in cities across the country

to make their voice heard, chanting, "Black Lives Matter."

CROWD: Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!

Black Lives Matter!

Black Lives Matter!

CHEERING

MUSIC: My Block by Che Lingo

Silence is violence, no cap.

# Things I know, God forbid

# Probably would've made Jesus cross

# That's my blood, family tree

# No excuse, freedom costs

# Take the risk, make mistakes

# Pray I never repeat the loss... #

We kneel together for eight minutes, 46 seconds.

That's the time it took for George Floyd to die.

# Do this for my people

# Black don't mean illegal

# They don't know me... #

Earlier in 2020, I had put out My Block.

I wrote this song for Julian.

# Frustrated Look at how they got us in papers

# Black boy, black hood, black trainers

# Judging the cover of that book, no pages... #

It came from a place of controlled rage.

I was looking for a way to be able to say I'm frustrated

without actually losing my composure.

# And that bird they're serving's plateless... #

Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!

Black Lives Matter!

Around that same time, we started seeing, like,

videos of people, like, playing My Block at protests.

# No excuse, freedom costs

# Took the risk, made mistakes... #

I was grateful.

It actually is used for the thing that you want it to be used for,

which is help amplify the voices of people

who can't do it for themselves.

We'd managed to make Julian Cole's situation

grab some traffic on the internet.

This now has had an effect beyond me.

The movement, this isn't going to go away.

Thinking about that video of George Floyd and that experience,

there were moments in that period of time

where I would just sit and hysterically sob,

just acknowledging that things were just shit

and had been shit growing up,

and what the murder of George Floyd brought out,

particularly when I look at kind of, around here,

the things that my friends and my family were saying

in my local community, and seeing Facebook posts of,

you know, "If black people didn't steal and loot,

"then maybe they wouldn't have a problem," and just...

And these are people who were, like,

some of my closest friends growing up,

and it was a really pivotal moment for me.

I was starting to acknowledge that I am a black woman.

Where's the one of me and Jake?

Mum was born and raised in the Forest of Dean.

My dad is West African Senegalese.

Looking at these, there's a complete flashback to kind of growing up.

My parents separated when I was quite young,

so I grew up with my mum and my grandparents

in Gloucestershire.

The school ones. I know, I just...

I mean, yeah, they're re... They're lovely photos.

They're really cute, but I just, yeah...

So, is there stuff about school that I don't maybe know about?

This is my old secondary school leaver's shirt.

It's from kind of old friends, people I went to school with.

Right across the front of that shirt says,

"Nigger," that someone's written.

Erm, you've got, "I love you always, Nigs."

That was, yeah, my nickname in secondary school.

It started off with my nickname being Nigger

and then shortened to Nigs in kind of an endearing term.

You've got, "Good luck to my favourite Nig."

SHE SIGHS

"Nig nog, golliwog, give a coon a bone

"This black bitch just stole my phone."

SHE EXHALES

Mm.

Yeah. PRODUCER: Are you OK?

Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm fine.

Erm...

These are all people that, like,

I considered some of my closest friends,

that I spent every single day of my life with,

and there's a real sadness that that was my reality for so long.

For a group of 16-year-olds, for this to be the product of, like,

us celebrating leaving school,

I don't know how you can argue

that we don't have an issue with racism in the UK, looking at that.

The area I live in, the context in which I grew up in,

the only thing that was acceptable was to be white.

That was... That's the norm.

That's what the world here looks like.

I just wanted to be normal, and being white...

God, I'm going to go now...

Being white was the only thing that was normal or OK,

and I wasn't that, so it was kind of how do I...

Yeah, how do I find my place in this world?

I just didn't want to be black growing up.

That's how I spent my whole life, you know?

The murder of George Floyd felt like a really powerful moment...

..knowing that if it didn't happen in this moment...

..your life carries on as it was.

Racism is happening all around us.

Take a stand.

If you are white and you're listening to this right now,

this is your problem too.

The way it was being reported was very, very different.

Like, basically, white people were shocked, and they'd not really been

shocked by these events previously,

and this has happened so many times.

But this particular time, everybody, it... Because everybody

was still and didn't look away,

it changed the way the air felt.

Even when you went outside,

like, everything felt, like, electric.

The whole world was in pain about this one man

and his horrible murder.

On the morning of the protest in Bristol, I wake up with

this, like, urgency and this sort of fire.

It's like I need to be there.

I don't think I ever actually watched the video,

the murder of George Floyd, but the thing that was being

talked about a lot was the fact

he was asking for his mum.

Doesn't matter, like, race doesn't matter in that situation, does it?

That's just a human being murdered by another human.

I actually don't know what was going on for the average white person

in that moment, but I think every decent human that sees

that video is going to feel something and want to respond.

There was an outpouring of solidarity, right?

And there was also a recognition

and a response to the fact that the UK is not innocent.

Anybody who was in the streets, they were carrying placards.

There was a placard said, "Colston must fall."

The significance of these statues here, of Colston,

are largely responsible for a lot of the slave trade through Bristol

so they are just blocking it off right now.

There wasn't a single person of colour in my school

and, you know, my mum, I would never have called her racist

but her partner, my stepdad,

he wouldn't shy away from saying the N word.

CHEERING

And so, after the murder of George Floyd,

I suddenly felt like I'd been blind

and I think that's the awakening.

It's like the blindfold coming off.

Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!

But the main thing that was capturing my attention

was Bristol's history

with the transatlantic slave trade.

Black Lives Matter!

To have in the city centre the Colston statue,

this awful slave trader,

a man who trafficked 85,000 African people,

to have that man glorified in the city centre,

it says he was "the most virtuous and wise son of the city."

I just got really passionate. I got really angry

that this could still be existing now.

So, we get to the statue...

Edward Colston, reviled for his part in the slave trade.

There has been a growing campaign in recent years to remove

Colston's name from buildings across the city.

CHEERING

There's nothing quite like being in a crowd, feeling the same,

and I did a bit of rigging.

I've got a rope in my bag.

Take him down! Take him down! Take him down!

We didn't need to communicate what was going to happen.

And I remember just having an anger and passion

about the removal of this abhorrent man.

CHEERING

There was this Saddam statue-esque moment,

this cathartic moment.

To see young black men climbing up on top of that plinth

where this slave trader had once stood

felt like poetic justice.

That statue represents years of oppression.

It represents years of hurt and just a lot of hatred that has been

built up inside of us, that we've internalised for years,

and that coming down today hopefully signifies change.

The Colston statue, I thought, good for them.

You know, we know how he made his money.

So, I first heard about the Colston statue live on social media

and my instant reaction was, this is quite embarrassing.

I saw to me what looked like quite middle-class white people,

essentially engaging in an act of vandalism in the name

of helping black people, people that they perceive of as victims.

But I actually think it makes it harder to win over

potentially sympathetic majorities to your cause.

Cast in bronze, now daubed with graffiti,

one of Bristol's most famous sons.

This had begun as a Black Lives Matter demonstration.

Removing statues and airbrushing out history,

totalitarian regimes do that.

I just think not everything should be taken down.

So, how many statues are we going to destroy?

How many buildings do we deface to make things fit a narrative?

I know, but how can you address the systemic racism

when you have a giant statue honouring them?

But not that way.

It was just crazy.

So, at the time, you have Nigel Farage arguing

about BLM being a Marxist movement.

Black Lives Matter is a far-left Marxist organisation,

whose chief aim is to defund and close down police forces

so that we would live under anarchy... Nigel?

Oh, you're full of such utter nonsense!

Talk shows, radio shows, Jeremy Vine, all sorts going back

and forth about the merits or not of something like Black Lives Matter.

And if you say you don't condone criminal damage,

why are you then justifying it and saying,

"But criminal damage is OK providing you feel strongly

"enough about the issue"? Because that's exactly what you're saying.

That's exactly what I'm not saying and if you'd heard me,

Carole, what I said every single time was, I do not condone violence.

This was a turning point at which suddenly a statue

changes people's minds to think it's not civilised behaviour.

That's enough.

You can't erase history and you haven't solved anything.

So what are they going to do?

Take the pyramids down? Cleopatra's Needle down?

The Coliseum?

It actually became, I think,

one of the most divisive moments of that summer.

The history of the British Empire has been brought into focus.

This was sprayed next to the statue of Winston Churchill.

To many, he's a hero, but he is a controversial figure.

SHOUTING

I will not support or indulge those who break the law

or attack the police, or desecrate public monuments

and so I must say clearly that those who attack public property

or the police, who injure the police officers

who are trying to keep us all safe,

those people will face the full force of the law.

This hooliganism is utterly indefensible.

There is no justification for attempting to disrespect

the Cenotaph or vandalising the statue of Winston Churchill.

Does the Home Secretary recognise that there's structural

inequality, discrimination and racism in our country?

Does the Home Secretary recognise that people want to see

action from this government?

Denise emails, "If a slogan about lives mattering is needed,

"then surely All Lives Matter is the only one acceptable to all."

Of course all lives matter, like, point out the obvious,

but we're here to talk about lives

that are historically harmed and lost.

All Lives Matter is a slogan used malevolently by the far-right

to undermine racial justice movements.

All lives should matter, not just one, right?

Yeah, exactly, you fucking spotty-faced bastard.

They were waiting for an opportunity. And defacing Churchill,

well, you know, all bets are off now.

Why have they come here? Why have you not moved them on?

Why are they coming antagonising us? They're antagonising us.

No, no, not everybody. Fuck off!

This was the direct backlash.

The energy being thrown back the other way.

Burnley Football Club spoke out

against the flying of a White Lives Matter banner at their match

against Manchester City yesterday.

White Lives Matter is being used as turning this into white v black.

I think that the pandemic was a really significant factor...

Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land!

..and that pandemic confinement.

The fabric of society has changed completely, right,

because of the lockdown regulations.

People are trying to make sense of it, people are scared by it,

people are angry about it.

The police are weak. Boris Johnson doesn't give a shit.

This is our country and we will not stand by

and watch our monuments and memorials be vandalised.

At the same time,

I don't think progressives were great at responding to some of those

feelings and some of those worries and some of that anger,

and I think that that left a lot of space open

for the right to capitalise.

Ah, man, I'm just watching it and I'm getting so fucking angry.

Just thinking, how the fuck can you let that happen in our capital city?

BLM, you've done more to break down race fucking integration

in this country than anyone's tried to do.

Much more than the National Front ever done.

Look what you've done! Look what you're doing!

The divide that you're about to create in this country

is fucking going to be unrecognisable, and you've done it.

Anyway, next Saturday, I'll see you all in London.

What were you planning on doing? Marching up to London.

Stop anyone attacking any statues.

That weekend, the word went around, which was, "Don't go out,"

and so a lot of people didn't go out, including myself.

I didn't protest that day.

Well, there's going to be trouble, ain't there,

between black and white people?

Travelling on the underground...

G'wan, boys! Get out, go on!

..people were just there, staring at one another.

You know what?

You've had your five minutes of fame,

now fuck off and get out the train.

You could just feel the tension.

Go on.

LAUGHTER

Get that? Yay!

Right, good for you! Well done!

One of my friends sent me the rant from Tommy Robinson.

Tommy Robinson was going to start a counterprotest with the EDL,

English Defence League.

EDL! EDL!

We just knew, my friends and I, that we needed to be there.

There were going to be young men from the community going down there

to face the far-right and it wasn't going to be pretty.

At a time when the whole world is standing up against racism,

if we're not going to protest because racists are turning up,

it sets a bad precedent.

We just felt we could help to defuse some of it, you know?

Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land!

Well, this is the scene live right now.

Get on your knees! Get on your knees for me.

What we know is that this is a coalition, really,

of far-right groups like Britain First

and also the Football Lads Alliance.

Well, let's go to some live pictures now of Trafalgar Square.

Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!

Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!

I just knew it wasn't going to end well and I just wanted black people

to stay as far away from all of that as possible.

The atmosphere here has turned suddenly toxic.

In Trafalgar Square, we see the far-right guys throwing bottles,

racially abusing BLM protesters.

And what appeared to be a small group of far-right sympathisers

broke through into Trafalgar Square.

Oy-oy-oy-oy!

There were skirmishes happening, clashes, fights.

Things escalating and getting out of hand.

And then what happened was the police sort of chaperoned

everybody over towards Waterloo Station.

Fuck EDL! Fuck EDL! Fuck EDL! Fuck EDL!

This is actually Black Lives Matter that's causing this.

It's Antifa, the anti...they're fascists.

The antifascists. They're the reason why people are here today.

And we are getting reports now

that there have been several clashes at Waterloo Station.

The EDL far-right guys,

they run off and they leave one guy.

He looks concussed and he's, you know, sort of staggering around.

Some BLM supporters start to descend on him.

My friends and I, we rushed over there.

I wasn't just going to stand and watch it unfold.

You know, I had the power to do something about it

right there and then, and I did.

Amidst so many ugly images, so much hatred and so much division,

there was one that offered hope.

Two hours afterwards, I had a message from my sister.

It said, "Bruv, is this you?"

And she said, "It's going viral."

That's when I realised this is a big story.

So I said to her, like, "Don't tell Mum."

I didn't expect to get caught on camera, full stop. You know?

I mean, I guess I should have known better,

but I didn't expect it to go viral.

Not globally, anyway.

When I saw the photo, in that moment my mind said,

"Look, I'm going to treat this man like a human

"because that's how I want to be treated.

"I can see this guy's injured. Let me help him out."

That humanity, I think, is the core note at the heart of everything

that happened, and that's what makes it a symbolic image.

Living in rural Britain, you experience a lot of racism

and we don't talk about diversity, we don't talk about difference.

But now that was happening, I felt really inspired by that.

It gave me a bit of hope that I have moved through my life

not being vocal enough and here's an opportunity for me to do so,

and I can do it somewhere where

nobody ever talks about these things.

So I text my friend, Eleni, shall we do a protest in the forest?

And she was like, "Oh, my God, yes."

So, yeah, it started off from a text.

So we called the Town Clerk

and then I think within like an hour or so,

we were given the go-ahead to run a demonstration from Bathurst Park.

And we were like, "Right, what's next on our list?"

We kind of went through all these things we needed to do

and we were like, "Great, we make a Facebook group next."

Like, we start advertising.

We'll just invite all of the people that we know.

You know, people are going to think, "Great, this is brilliant,"

like, "Let's get on board," and people started sharing it

and, you know, we got quite a lot of traction quite quickly on the

Facebook group. And we were like, "God," like, "This is going well."

Forest of Dean, Black Lives Matter demonstration.

But then, there is a problem because it started quite public outrage.

A petition had been created trying to oppose the demonstration

going ahead, for the concerns around Covid,

and then the Council sent us a letter

and they'd made the decision to cancel the event.

"I feel I can speak for all of the Council

"and the overwhelming majority of Lydney residents to say that we

"all support the underlying aims of the Black Lives Matter campaign

"and therefore indeed the wider sense that All Lives Matter.

"I'm calling on the organisers to show due respect for Lydney

"and that indeed 'All Lives Matter' to cancel or at least postpone

"your event as it demonstrates respect for all lives."

So, yeah, I think we just put a post up that said,

"This event is now cancelled.

"Please see the letter attached below."

And within about an hour of posting it,

someone from the Guardian reached out.

The Council had been backing the celebration

and then the sentiment changed and one councillor, I think,

resigned in protest.

And it's just...it's a real microcosm in some ways

of what was unfolding in the rest of Britain,

one side very impassioned, and the other feeling threatened by it.

I think we must have spoken to the Guardian that evening

and then it was picked up by the BBC.

"Our top story tonight..." and I was just like, "Oh, my God!"

Welcome to BBC Points West on this Friday evening.

Our main story tonight, the town divided over Black Lives Matter.

You know, racism is not something that is recognised in this area.

You shouldn't go around accusing people that don't agree with you

of being racist.

Yeah, I mean, it's...

..a poor choice of words at best.

It's offensive at worst.

It speaks to how much of a problem this is in the area

that I live in, because that's your councillors that have said

that "All Lives Matter" three times in a letter.

If you're going to underline three times "All Lives Matter",

which is a statement that's used by the far-right,

you've already aligned yourself not on the side of racial justice.

The Council said the event was causing anxiety among residents,

but the organisers believe the rejection has racial overtones.

It was just everywhere and I think, you know, as soon as a news

outlet posted something on their Twitter and their, like, website,

I was getting a kind of barrage of abuse, comments, overt racial slurs,

threatening to follow me home, or that they wanted to kill me.

There was websites that were set up at that point, that still

exist now, that are like, KhadyGueyeisacunt.com.

So, these are from the KhadyGueyeisacunt.com website.

"As atonement for the slave trade, we should take immediate steps

"to make things right for those who don't feel welcome.

"We can start by selling this cunt back to the Africans.

"A sort of reverse slave trade, if you will."

Someone else said, "I would fuck it as long as she called me Master

"while I was banging away, then drop it off in deepest, darkest Africa."

I just don't unders... I can't get my head round it and I mean,

I suppose, in a sense,

I suppose that it's so awful

that you kind of almost block it out.

Which I do understand,

but I think the privilege you get to turn away from it that I don't get.

I will never not be black, and I think...

I know, cos I know part of who I am is

I'm not very good at challenging,

cos you remember you said to me, "You need to do better, Mum."

Sounds so brutal when you put it like that.

No, but it was tough, it was tough. Yeah.

I was really shocked when you said it to me.

It was really tough

and I was in a really dark place, I think,

at that moment in time.

But I think the Council,

they did face a lot of backlash for that letter.

They had a vote and they voted to change their decision

and the protest was allowed to go ahead.

You know, people were accusing the Council, the Mayor, councillors,

of being racist, and that isn't a good look for a local council,

so I think a lot of their change of heart

was around the optics.

On the day of the protest, just seeing the number of people

was so supportive and I think really acknowledging

how serious this problem is.

It was an incredible experience.

..says only white people can fix racism.

My colour is not my problem.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Like, the racist abuse and threats, it's been difficult, but I think,

for us, it's become so much more than we ever thought it would be.

It was something we were passionate about before,

but I think now it's something that means ten times more to us.

Hello.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Black Lives... Matter!

Black Lives...

Just being there in that moment and watching that all play out,

it's one of my proudest moments.

Yeah, it made everything feel worth it.

During that time, in the middle of the summer of 2020,

the protests dwindled, and they got smaller,

but the energy was still there, the energy was the same.

All right, guys.

And it just felt like people were changing

and their opinions were changing.

Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!

Black Lives Matter!

By the time it got to the end of June, July, everyone started

to refer to activism as, like, this new thing now that we're all

going to be a part of, we're all going to be activists

in some way or another.

Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!

Why are you wearing it? You're not dressed for summer.

Cos I wear anything I want, man, I wear anything I want.

What's wrong with you?

You're not dressed for the climate today, it's very warm.

What do you mean, the climate? Who...

After the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protest,

any incident involving the Met and people of colour,

they were becoming viral incidents.

The other police officer asked me where I live, where I was going.

That's also none of your business.

Yeah, I'm not...

It's none of your... Do you understand that?

They were becoming issues of public confidence

and there was a different level of media interest in it as well.

For instance, the stop and search of Bianca Williams

and Ricardo dos Santos.

Wait, wait, wait!

Why are you doing this? What you doing?

That's my home, bro! What you doing? I'm at home!

This is my home, this is my...

This is the moment that British sprinter Bianca Williams,

her partner and three-month-old baby were stopped and searched by police.

He's just been detained for a search.

For what? For what? Don't, why are you touching me?

My son is in the car! OK, madam, we're going to look after your son.

My son is in the car! I don't want you to look after him.

My son is in the car!

So just calm down, we'll look after your son for you.

I know all of those statistics, and they are horrific.

And that is the exemplar of policing, over-policing

and under-protecting minority communities.

And it's so well known, I think it's actually quite difficult for anyone

to argue that disproportionality, overrepresentation in the

criminal justice system is not an absolute fact in this country.

You're detained in a Section One of PACE, it's a search for weapons.

We're both professional athletes, bro.

Why don't you act like one, then?

Huh? Act like one, then.

I don't need to act like one. For what reason?

You're detained under Section One of PACE, OK? It's a search for weapons.

For what reason? I did not act suspicious.

Policing in this country definitely has a problem,

policing both black and Asian ethnic minority communities

when the vast majority of the police force is white,

the majority of it is male.

It has a lack of understanding

and empathy with the issue of race.

Speaking yesterday, Mr Johnson said that as a leader,

he could not sit back and ignore what was going on.

The British Prime Minister acknowledged

that much more needed to be done to tackle the issue.

My job at the time was just to find a way

to help the government to respond.

The discussions with the Prime Minister were mainly

focused on, how do we respond?

And the Prime Minister's concerns around the strength of feeling

amongst the public, particularly the black population,

and he is wondering what he as Prime Minister could or should be doing.

Boris Johnson's announced that a commission will be

established to examine all aspects of inequality in the UK.

We have to look at discrimination in the education system,

in the criminal justice system.

We have to look at all ways in which it affects black

and minority ethnic groups.

A new cross-governmental commission to look at what is going on,

and what I really want to do as Prime Minister

is change the narrative so it's...

..so we stop the sense of victimisation and discrimination.

We stop the discrimination, we stamp out racism.

Now I'm in this building

and there are people who have very strong views on race relations,

institutional racism, the use of the term. Very strong views.

They think, you know, the race relations industry has gone too far

and there's overreach, and, you know,

they don't speak for the majority, etc.

I have a slightly different view,

because I feel like I don't have to agree with everybody

that I serve, and so, my feeling was,

it makes a lot of sense to take stock.

Let's see what the evidence says.

And so there was myself, and Munira Mirza,

the Head of the Policy Unit at the time,

and Kemi Badenoch, a junior minister.

The three of us were responsible

for trying to put together this commission.

And then the Chair is...

Appointment of the Chair was where things were maybe slightly more...

..challenging. For me.

My view was we needed somebody that would be willing

to follow the evidence.

But for my other two colleagues, there was only one option,

and that was...that was Tony.

Dr Tony Sewell. He has previously rejected evidence

of institutional racism in schools as "flimsy",

and has said that black boys were being held back

because of what he called "their over-feminised upbringing".

Well, I was very clear.

I said, "Tony's a good guy, but he shouldn't be a chair

"because of the things he's said in the past."

Do you think you were hired to do this job

to confirm the views that already exist in Number 10?

There's a kind of perception out there that this report

is going to be some kind of

right-wing whitewash about...around race.

You know, there are issues around crime and policing but,

on the whole, the picture is, for those areas, is one of improvement.

But my other colleagues, their worry was the Chair that was going to,

for example, conclude that the UK is institutionally racist,

would that be palatable for...for them,

or...or even for the administration?

I really wanted us to have a fresh start,

commissioners who haven't done this sort of review before.

There must be no jumping to conclusions,

and I think that that's absolutely what we're going to get.

For me, it was very important that I had nothing to do with...

..whatever happened next.

The Prime Minister's senior adviser on ethnic minorities,

Samuel Kasumu, is to stand down.

News of his departure comes the day after

the publication of a government-commissioned report

on race that has been heavily criticised by campaigners.

PROTESTERS: Black Lives Matter!

After all the calls for black lives to matter,

the answer came that all the accounts we've heard

of discrimination do not tell the tale of a racist country -

that there is no proof of institutional racism in the UK.

It points to social class,

geography and family set-up

as more important factors in life than race,

arguing that the UK should be held up as a model

for other white-majority countries.

This distinguished group was tasked with reviewing

inequality in the UK, and they focused on education,

employment, crime and policing, and health.

The report does not deny that institutional racism exists

in the UK. Rather, the report did not find conclusive evidence of it

in the specific areas it examined.

I'm a big defender of the Sewell Report.

I think people will say that the government was trying

to put forward their own agenda.

Now I think, actually, the government was attempting to find

the real answers to the problems that were being raised.

I mean, what I can say is that

we don't need a commission or a review to tell us

that suspicionless stop-and-search should be repealed.

They're just letting the government get away with

looking like the government is doing something

and taking you seriously without actually doing anything.

The report came out around the time of April Fool's.

Morning, guys. Morning. Morning, my slime.

How's the race report going?

Er, yeah, good. We've been having a bit of a brainstorm.

A BAME-storm.

THEY LAUGH

You know, if you have to do a race report,

it means there's a problem with race,

if you have to commission a report.

And we've decided to be more inclusive

by renaming Big Ben, "Tall Tunde."

BIG BEN CHIMES AND DISTORTS

April Fool's!

You try and create laughter so that the real pain

and the actual bitterness of the issue,

you're sort of shielded against it.

Er, no, but we've done the report and we found that there is

no evidence for institutional racism in Britain.

Ah!

HE LAUGHS

April Fool's!

Yeah, that, that one is true. Yeah, that is.

HE LAUGHS WEAKLY

What?

It truly felt like an April Fool's joke.

You know, it's a huge slap in the face

of everyone who has had, you know,

real, life-defining racism in their life here in Britain,

to be told it doesn't exist.

REPORTER: Once again, the eyes of the world are on Minneapolis,

the city braced for the trial of the former police officer

accused of murdering George Floyd,

tense in the knowledge this will be a defining moment for America.

Today starts a landmark trial.

There will be a referendum on equality and justice for all.

No justice! ALL: No peace!

No justice! ALL: No peace!

Almost a year after the world was shocked by the video

of George Floyd's death, the police officer seen kneeling on his neck

is standing trial in Minnesota's first trial to be televised live.

No justice! ALL: No peace! No justice! ALL: No peace!

For many, this trial will be a defining moment

for race relations in America -

the outcome uncertain and the stakes high.

Chauvin is in the courtroom.

The family goes in this court seeking justice

for all of us in America.

There was a lot of uncertainty,

whether or not a jury would see value in the life of George Floyd

and would see criminal conduct at the hands of Derek Chauvin.

There is no guarantee that because an officer kills someone,

that it's caught on camera,

that there are witnesses,

that there will be justice and accountability.

Have you made a decision, uh, today, whether you intend to testify

or whether you intend to invoke your Fifth Amendment privilege?

Er, I will invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege today.

The defendant has the right not to testify.

I just sat there and just stared at him.

And I seen him with my...his knee on my nephew's neck.

I seen my nephew begging for his life,

and he's just sitting there.

He's destroyed a lot of lives because of his act of aggression.

We plan to prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt

that Mr Chauvin was anything other than innocent.

It's a case that's going to be important to America

and our discussion around systemic issues and around equal justice.

We're going to ask that you find him guilty of murder

in the second degree,

murder in the third degree and second-degree manslaughter.

It was important, in the opening statement...

You will hear him say, "Tell my kids I love 'em."

..for the jurors to feel the humanity.

You will be able to hear Mr Floyd saying, "Please, I can't breathe."

"Please, man, please."

And I figured not much needed to be said.

You just see it for yourself.

Please, the knee on my neck, I can't breathe shit.

You will hear Mr Floyd as he's crying out.

You will hear his voice get heavier.

You will hear his words further apart.

You will see that his respiration gets shallower and shallower.

Well, you got him down, man. Let him breathe, at least, man.

I can't breathe.

Those videos were critical.

Critically important.

When the ambulance arrived, he was not responsive

and the defendant had to know what was right beneath him.

And when you see it,

just sort of that feeling that you get,

that understanding that something terribly wrong is happening,

that was something that we wanted to get out right away.

George Floyd begged until he could speak no more,

and the defendant continued.

And so we settled on the theme of "believe your eyes".

This case is exactly what you thought when you saw it first,

when you saw that video.

It is exactly that. You can believe your eyes.

It was important the jury believe,

because we knew that that was our best evidence.

And it's very difficult to convict a police officer of wrongdoing.

Think of the Rodney King case -

an assault captured on video, with an acquittal.

We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty of the crime of assault.

Because they were somehow able to convince this jury

that they didn't need to believe their eyes.

And we really wanted to make sure that that didn't happen here.

This wasn't policing.

This was murder.

The defendant is guilty of all three counts.

All of them.

The defence was first trying to argue

that this was a justified use of force.

I felt that Derek Chauvin was justified,

was acting with objective reasonableness,

following Minneapolis Police Department policy.

Derek Chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do

over the course of his 19-year career.

And that is why we wanted Chief Arradondo

to be particularly compelling and brave.

Chief Arradondo, he had to make the decision on whether or not he,

in some ways, broke that blue wall of silence.

When do you believe...or do you have a belief as to when this...

I felt that this...was a moment...

It has to be objectively reasonable.

..where there was a moral obligation to speak out.

So I did.

Once Mr Floyd had stopped resisting, and clearly when Mr Floyd

was no longer responsive,

to continue to apply that level of force -

that, in no way, shape or form, is anything that is by policy.

It is not part of our training,

and it is certainly not part of our ethics or our values.

Mr Floyd was pleading that one person wearing a uniform

that day would come to his aid.

And we failed him.

REPORTER: Prosecutors say Chauvin betrayed his badge

when he used excessive force.

Because human behaviour is unpredictable.

Chauvin's lawyers have argued that Floyd's death was really

an overdose caused by the fentanyl found in his blood.

The toxicology, the fentanyl and methamphetamine,

all of those combined to cause Mr Floyd's death.

Did some of the drugs in his system have something to do with it?

Did it play a role?

Maybe, but certainly was not the actual cause of his death.

What today remains your opinion as to the cause of death?

That's cardiopulmonary arrest,

complicating law enforcement subdual restraint

and neck compression.

GAYLE KING: ..with closing arguments all set today

in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin...

The State has failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

No justice! GROUP: No peace!

PRESENTER: After they hear closing arguments, Jamie,

what are the next steps for the jurors?

They will be sequestered.

That means no contact with the outside world.

And how sweet it is to come out on the day

where we may turn this country around with a guilty verdict.

INDISTINCT CHANTING

PROTESTERS: All three counts!

All three counts! All three counts!

When the verdict was going to be read...

Please, be seated.

Members of the jury, I understand you have a verdict.

..I get into the courtroom and one of the family members was there.

I just remember thinking to myself as I saw him, "What in the world

"am I going to tell this person if the verdict comes back not guilty?"

SOUND ON TANNOY: Members of the jury,

I will now read the verdicts as they will appear in the permanent records

of the Fourth Judicial District.

The State of Minnesota plaintiff

versus Derek Michael Chauvin, defendant.

Verdict, count one, court file number 27, CR2012646.

"We the jury in the above entitled matter, as to count one,

"unintentional second-degree murder while committing a felony,

"find the defendant guilty."

CHEERING

"We, the jury, in the above entitled matter, as to count two,

"third-degree murder, perpetrating an eminently dangerous act,

"find the defendant guilty."

CHEERING

"Verdict, count three, second-degree manslaughter,

"culpable negligence, find the defendant guilty."

Guilty! Guilty!

CHEERING

I cried tears of joy and thankfulness.

We were triumphant.

I feel vindicated but I also feel emboldened, because today

the Black Lives Matter movement served notice on you that,

going forward, if you take our lives, there will be consequences.

Say his name! George Floyd! Say his name! George Floyd!

I didn't cry, I didn't holler, I didn't scream, I didn't do anything.

I knew that that was just the right thing, so in my mind, OK,

we can move on from this.

Yeah, this is done.

This part's done.

We knew that the verdict was not going to ever

bring back George Floyd.

We're adjourned.

But it was a symbol of hope that we can fight back

against an oppressive system and get some measure of justice.

I know people who have been killed by the police.

I've never seen an officer get that much time.

It is a kind of relief

and a releasing for all the people who didn't get to hear "Guilty."

And then,

keeping with the George Floyd case...

REPORTER: In convicting PC Monk,

the jury rejected his claim that he'd used reasonable force.

..you see the conviction of a British cop...

REPORTER: Anything to say to the family, Mr Monk?

..for killing Dalian Atkinson, the former footballer.

It felt like a huge moment.

Benjamin Monk's the first police officer convicted

of manslaughter while on duty in England and Wales in 35 years.

In terms of what's shifted with the police, in terms of race,

police potentially understand themselves

as being under far more scrutiny.

But Dalian Atkinson, that verdict of manslaughter is...

It's a rare one.

Two officers are concerned here,

and one of those officers is now in prison. And I think

it can help to reinforce this sort of "one bad apple"

perception of police violence, and therefore the norm is OK,

when, actually, the norm of policing is the problem.

It's not a few bad apples

and simply locking up officers that get caught going too far.

It's not going to stop it from happening again and again.

So, the thing about policing is,

policing only ever changes when there's been a catastrophe.

So, after George Floyd, I went to Chiefs' Council

in December 2021 to say to them,

"You have got to use this moment to admit we are still

"institutionally racist, apologise for it

"and then launch the plan saying

"you're going to do something about it."

And, in January, I was told the Chief Constables

had voted against me.

And that's when I decided to retire.

Well, one possibility...

..is that it doesn't matter enough

to the people who can make it change.

They took a man's potential away from him,

and that is nobody's fault but theirs.

And the fact that no-one was held accountable for it directly...

..I just don't think that's fair.

Everything always feel fragile.

And I think that was a moment,

and there was a moment where we took charge of the narrative,

and look how resentful people have been about it.

Like, "How dare they?" Yes.

"How dare they say that they matter?" Mm.

There's quite a lot of that, I feel, in the last few years.

There's quite a lot of, like... The eye rolling.

"Isn't this over?" It's like, "You tell me."

How does that make you feel?

Really pissed off. Frustrated and exhausted.

And angry. It pisses me off. It makes me angry.

The backlash is about ideas and about an understanding

of what norms we are expected to accept, you know?

But the authoritarian lean towards

attempting to shut down these conversations now,

I just feel like you can't really

put the feathers back into the pillowcase.

At the end of the day, like, the minds have been changed.

Backlashes don't erase legacies.

I think it's about recognising how much that moment in time

impacted so many people, but I think my personal experience is

the severity of that level of racism has got significantly worse.

I'd been out with some friends.

I was approached by a man who I didn't know.

It quite quickly moved into, you know, "Where are you from?

"Where are you really from?"

You know, "Black people will never be British."

I think the phrase he used was, erm,

"Pigs that are born in stables don't grow up to be horses."

And then, yeah, he came back 20 minutes later with a gun

and a knife and pointed it in my face.

We've ended the tyranny of so-called diversity,

equity and inclusion policies,

and our country will be woke no longer.

We have not ever been able to escape this notion

that we go three steps and then we're pushed ten steps backwards.

We've stopped all government censorship

and brought back free speech in America.

It's back.

CHEERING

There is one person that President Trump should pardon

from federal charges forthwith. That person is Derek Chauvin.

Elon Musk commented on X, "Something to think about."

There will always be forces that will seek to diminish us

and stifle us and keep us in our place,

but resistance requires that we rise up.

Any black person can put themselves in that situation and think,

"What if that had been me?

"What if that was my husband or my brother, or my uncle, or my father?"

And if this could happen to George Floyd

under these circumstances, over an alleged counterfeit $20 bill,

it could happen to any of us, under any range of circumstances,

and if we don't stand up, speak up and fight back,

it could very well happen to us next.

To discover more about the power of protest slogans

and the reactions that follow,

watch bonus content from the experts at the Open University.

Scan the QR code on screen or go to bbc.co.uk/backlash

and follow the link to the Open University.

# Look, black ain't just a single fuckin' colour, man

# There's shades to it

# Her hair's straight and thick, but mine's got waves in it

# Black is not divisive

# They been lyin' and I hate the shit

# Black has never been a competition, we all make this shit. #