The George Floyd protests are on my doorstep – and I’m joining in

It’s not the sound of summer outside Holly Baxter’s apartment, but thousands of demonstrators demanding an end to a racist system

No justice, no peace: a protester stands in front of a burning police car in Brooklyn (Richard Hall/The Independent)

Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ll be aware that last week a police officer called Derek Chauvin in the state of Minnesota was charged with murder after kneeling on a man’s neck until he killed him. George Floyd was a 46-year-old father, and he died not long after the owner of a corner deli called 911 because he suspected Floyd of paying for cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 (£16) bill. According to a meticulously constructed timeline in The New York Times, Chauvin continued to kneel on Floyd’s neck after he lost consciousness and even for a substantial amount of time after paramedics arrived to try to revive him.

It is a shocking story, but not a surprising one for anyone who is aware of how the American police interact with black people. Far too many have been sentenced to death on the streets by cops for crimes as minor as possessing counterfeit bills, or even just for jogging in their local area. A few days before Floyd died, a white woman named Amy Cooper called 911 on video when a black man named Christian Cooper (no relation) asked her to leash her dog in Central Park. Floyd’s treatment at the hands of Minneapolis officers should underline why Christian Cooper had reason to be scared when she did that.

My neighbourhood in Brooklyn has become the epicentre of the borough’s protests, as I found out a couple of days ago when I started getting texts from friends asking if I was all right. “I’m fine,” I replied, “why?” and was, in turn, sent videos of police cars driving into protesters and people screaming that they’d had mace or tear gas sprayed into their eyes. As I zoomed in on the videos, I realised they had been taken two streets away from my apartment – and about twenty minutes earlier.