The crowd as of 2 am.
The crowd as of 2 am.

George Floyd Tested Positive for coronavirus on April 3: But he had no symptoms, and the hard-to-figure-out disease had not damaged any of his organs. The more we examine Floyd's life and death, the more he appears to be the man of 2020, the most horrible year of this new century.

The Media's Focus on the Murder of George Floyd: Is throwing a bright light on other recent cases of police brutality that were ignored by officials, the press, and the public. One such case concerns an arrest that occurred in Tacoma on March 3. A black man, 33-year-old Manny Ellis, who was restrained by police officers, died from respiratory arrest. A woman, Sarah McDowell, recorded a significant part of the incident on her phone, but the footage, which captured Ellis making the same plea as Eric Garner and George Floyd, "I can't breathe," never reached the surface of the public's attention. The police department's official account of the incident (a crazy black man, suspected of being a thief, walked up to their patrol car and began banging on it for no good reason) was pretty much going to be end of the matter had history not taken an unexpected turn on Memorial Day. The forgotten video is now on the web. Now we see the official account of Ellis's last moments in this, our one and only world, does not jibe with that of the visual record. Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards is now demanding the firing and arrest of the officers "involved in the death of Manuel Ellis."

The May Jobs Report: After losing 21 million jobs between April and March, the US economy added 2.5 million jobs in May. This is surprising because the standard expectation was a sharp decrease in the payroll fall (7 million as compared to April's 20 million), but not an out-and-out positive payroll surge. Many states have, true, reopened their economies; but for the most part business is slow, hotels are mostly empty, planes are still on the ground, and large sections of the economy are on life-support (government assistance).

Also, unemployment claims rose by 1.87 million in the last week of May, and that was the lowest increase that month. The unemployment rate dipped down to 13.3 percent, but Wall Street Journal believes that it likely soared. Donald Trump celebrated the jobs report in a tweet, of course. He really needed news that was not negative.

I Honestly Do Not Know What to Say About This Kind of Madness: And 40 percent of Americas will nevertheless vote for him, vote for a man who is bonkers enough to say a recently murdered black man is in heaven celebrating an upbeat jobs report.


This one might prove to be too toxic for Sarah Cooper.

By The Way: Thousands of Americans are still dying from the virus.

Wall Street Journal Believes the Presidential Election: Will be determined by black men.

Joe Biden Is Getting Heat From the Right For Being too Generous to the Right: He claimed ā€œ10-15% of Americans are bad people.ā€ But that is way too low. It's more like 40 percent of Americans. Why? Because about 40 percent of Americans support Trump consistently, and anyone who supports a president who repeatedly lies, who blames others for his failings (such as bungling the pandemic response), who throws children into cages, and calls black men the son's of bitches, cannot, by definition, be a good person.

If You Attended the Protests: Please get tested for the virus. It's free in Seattle. The battle against the pandemic is far from over.

Three Movies to Watch This Weekend: One, Charles Burnett's Glass Shield (1994): A black man's dream of becoming a superhero cop is shattered when he joins a police department (the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department) that's run by white supremacists. Two, T. J. Martin's and Daniel Lindsay's LA 92 (2017): A superb Netflix documentary about the events leading to the 1992 explosion that history calls the LA riots. Three, Alfonso CuarĆ³n's Children of Men (2006): A dystopian science fiction film that's set in 2027 but has the mood, or stimmung (existential dread, immigrants in cages, demonstrations, buildings on fire), of 2020.


And Now For Some Disturbing Videos From Around America:

And here's what happened very early in the Slog AM: Good morning! It's past 2 a.m. and we're signing off for the evening from 11th and Pine, where the seventh night of protests related to the killing of George Floyd continues outside the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct. You can read all of our earlier updates from tonight's protest here.

The morning started off by singing "Happy Birthday" to Breonna Taylor, who was killed by Louisville Metro Police Department officers after they entered her apartment in plainclothes with a battering ram. The officers were serving a "no-knock warrant," which allowed them to enter without identifying themselves. After a confrontation, officers shot Taylor at least eight times. She was an E.M.T. and would have been 27 today. Post birthday wishes, the crowd started chanting "rest in peace, fuck the police."


And then an explosion:


At around 12:45 a.m., what appears to be a firework went off inside the crowd of protestors: The crowd had been peaceful the entire night and was dancing to music when the explosion went off. In the ensuing confusion, a couple of protestors threw traffic cones and signs across the barricade as more SPD officers and National Guard came to the police line, putting on gas masks and issuing warnings.


Protestors called on people to stop throwing things: The DJ started playing ā€œWhere Is the Love?ā€ by the Black Eyes Peas, which, uh, strangely helped de-escalate things.

Two protestors even crossed the police barriers to sprinkle flowers in front of the police line: Police then warned them to stay on their side of the barricade.


As of 2 am, this was the scene: Night!