Minneapolis has been rocked by angry protests and civil unrest following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed African-American man who, in a May 25 video, can be heard pleading, “I can’t breathe,” while pinned on the ground by arresting officers. And the repercussions of Floyd’s death are being felt far from Minneapolis in the Pacific Northwest, where the Bethel School District is investing a video by first-year wresting coach Dave Hollenbeck that shows him pinned on the ground with a knee on his neck.

In social media posts, Hollenbeck has argued that the protestors speaking out about Floyd’s death are “race baiters.” Hollenbeck, on Facebook, posted, “This is for all the race baiters and people that don’t What (sic) they’re talking about when they’re saying that this could kill you.”

A caption used with the video reads, “Not dead yet I’m doing this for Are [sic] police officers the media is a race-baiting machine and I’m tired of it I’m going to speak out every time if you don’t like that I’m sorry but I love All people.. Wake up America.”

One of the parents in the Bethel School District who is speaking about against Hollenbeck is sports coach Jay Davenport, who asserted, “There is no reasonable rationale for him to post anything like that. It’s about humanity, it’s about integrity; that post lacks both.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/high-school-wrestling-coach-posts-photo-mocking-george-floyds-death-but-insists-im-not-a-racist/

We are not prepared for a pandemic. Trump has rolled back progress President Obama and I made to strengthen global health security. We need leadership that builds public trust, focuses on real threats, and mobilizes the world to stop outbreaks before they reach our shores.

https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1266000948217950208

Air Force One has landed at @Andrews_JBA. @PressSec told reporters aboard that Pres Trump will be signing an Executive Order on social media. Follows his irritation with Twitter for doing fact check on his vote-by-mail tweets.

https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/1265771583089541120

Christian Cooper is already back birding at Central Park. “I’m not excusing the racism,” he said. “But I don’t know if her life needed to be torn apart.”



His binoculars around his neck, Christian Cooper, an avid birder, was back in his happy place on Wednesday: Central Park during migration season. He was trying to focus on the olive-sided flycatchers and red-bellied woodpeckers — not on what had happened there two days earlier.

That was when Mr. Cooper, who is black, asked a white woman to put her dog on a leash. When she did not, he began filming. In response, the woman dialed 911, falsely claiming “an African-American man is threatening my life.”

On Tuesday, the video went viral on Twitter and garnered over 40 million views, setting off a painful discourse about the history of dangerous false accusations against black people made to police.

The birds were a welcome distraction from thinking about what had happened next: By that day’s end, the woman, Amy Cooper (no relation) had surrendered her dog and had been fired from her high-level finance job. As he wandered the park’s North Woods on Wednesday shortly after dawn, he said he felt exhausted, exposed and profoundly conflicted, particularly about Ms. Cooper’s fate.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/nyregion/amy-cooper-christian-central-park-video.html