News & Commentary

Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project

Somil Trivedi, Former Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project

Amreeta Mathai, Former Staff Attorney, ACLU’s Racial Justice Program

Somil Trivedi, Former Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project

Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project If t

Victoria Burton-Harris, Criminal Defense Attorney, McCaskey Law, PLC

When Kishon McDonald saw the video of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of four officers from the Minneapolis Police Department, he could tell it was going to turn the country upside down. “I knew it was going to catch fire,” he said. McDonald, a former sailor in the U.S. Navy, watched over the following days as demonstrations against police brutality spread from Minneapolis to cities and towns across the country, eventually reaching Washington, D.C., where he lived. On June 1, he heard that people were planning to peacefully gather at Lafayette Square, a small park directly across from the White House, and decided to join them. By then, police had begun to attack and beat demonstrators in Minneapolis, New York, and others in states everywhere, escalating tensions as smaller groups broke into shops and set fire to police cars. But when McDonald arrived at Lafayette Square, he found a crowd of a few thousand people cheering, chanting slogans, and listening to speeches. Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had imposed a 7 p.m. curfew after clashes the night before, but that was still an hour away. “Everybody there was like, it’s alright, we’re going to be here until 7 o’clock,” he said. “It was a very good energy.” It wouldn’t be long before that would change.

One out of every 1,000 Black men in the United States can expect to be killed by police during their lives. Black, Brown and Indigenous communities are being physically, psychologically, spiritually and economically devastated by over-policing. Police are killing members of those communities at terrifying rates. 

Social and political change never happen overnight. For decades, the ACLU of Minnesota has challenged the status quo here, and we’ll keep working to ensure that all people in our state can live, love and care for each other.