Ma’Khia Bryant, killed by a cop, left. Credit: MEAWW

It was the major story that went viral globally on Tuesday, 20 April, 2021. That was when former US cop, Derek Chauvin who murdered George Floyd, a Black, was found guilty on all three counts by Judge Peter Cahill in Minneapolis. Unfortunately as the trial of Chauvin went on, it was as if the racists in the US Police are bent on causing more deaths of Blacks. There are two examples here.

A police officer in the US state of Ohio shot dead a 16-year-old black girl, Ma’Khia Bryant,  while responding to an emergency call over an attempted stabbing. Columbus police, according to a BBC report, have produced bodycam footage which appears to show the girl attacking others with a knife before being shot.

It reported further: “An inquiry is under way, with officials urging local residents to remain calm. The officer involved, who has not yet been named, has been placed on paid administrative leave.  Bodycam footage provided by the police shows an altercation with a group of individuals outside a house before one of them – said to be Ma’Khia Bryant – appears to lunge at another member of the group with a knife in hand. A police officer then approaches the group in the driveway and shouts ‘get down’ before firing several shots, fatally injuring the girl.

Duante Wright. FoxNews photo

Officials have said the officer opened fire in order to save the life of one of the girls, although a woman identified in local media as Ms Bryant’s aunt said her niece was simply defending herself after being attacked.”

Worse still, protests erupted 12 April, after police fatally shot a young Black man, Duante Wright, in a suburb of Minneapolis. According to a report by Al Jazeera, the 20-year-old Black man’s mother, Katie Wright, told a crowd earlier on Sunday evening (11 April) that he called her to say he had been pulled over by police.

The mother, according to the report, “said she heard officers tell her son to put his phone down, and then one of the officers ended the call. Soon after, her son’s girlfriend told her he had been shot.”

With 40 years (imprisonment) dangling on Chauvin’s neck, will the killer cops in the US Police departments in the states change in their racist ways? The world is watching.