A protester throws a US flag into a burning barricade during a demonstration near the White House on May 31, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Images
Cities across America are reeling from a weekend of unrest after widespread protests erupted after George Floyd died during an arrest in Minneapolis. The unarmed black man died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck despite cries from Floyd that he could not breathe.
Many local governments instituted curfews over the weekend in an effort to dissolve mass gatherings. Still, the protests continued into the early hours of Monday morning in some places.
CEOs and business leaders are largely voicing support for the demonstrators and calling for aggressive and intentional efforts to reduce socioeconomic inequalities.
This is CNBC’s live blog covering all the latest news on the demonstrations gripping the U.S. This blog will be updated throughout the day as the news breaks.
Minneapolis police rendered 44 people unconscious with neck restraints in five years
10:09 a.m. ET — The neck restrained used by a former Minneapolis police officer to subdue a prone and handcuffed George Floyd is not uncommon for the city’s law enforcement. Since early 2015, Minneapolis Police Department officers have rendered people unconscious with neck restraints 44 times, an NBC News analysis found.
Experts told NBC that number appears to be unusually high.
Ed Obayashi, an attorney and the deputy sheriff in Plumas County, California, is a national use-of-force expert who trains and advises California police agencies, said neck restraints, in general, have “inherent life-threatening potential.”
“It’s common sense,” Obayashi said. “Any time you cut off someone’s airway or block blood flow to the brain, it can lead to serious injury or death as we have seen in so many of these tragedies. By using this tactic, it’s a self-fulfilling tragedy.” —Terri Cullen
Officials warn protests could help virus spread
10:07 a.m. ET — As protests erupt across the U.S., officials are sounding the alarm that such mass gatherings could allow the coronavirus spread throughout the population.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of challenges coming out of the events of the past week,” former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in an interview on “Squawk Box” on Monday. “One of them’s going to be that probably chains of transmission will have gotten lit by large gatherings. I don’t think there’s really a question about that.”
States have eased restrictions meant to curb the spread of the virus in recent weeks, particularly as some studies indicate the virus doesn’t spread as easily outdoors. However, the protests present a significantly larger risk to increasing spread of the virus, Gottlieb said.
“This isn’t a day at the beach or going out to a picnic where you’re outside and you might be in larger groups but there’s some social distancing and you’re able to take some precautions,” he said. “In these kinds of gatherings, in these kinds of crowds, many of which lost control of the crowds, you’re not going to be able to take those kinds of precautions.” —Will Feuer
Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier calls on business leaders to create jobs amid pandemic
9:54 a.m. ET — In discussing the connection between the coronavirus and the recent protests stemming from the death of George Floyd, Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier said leaders in the business community can be a “unifying force” and have the ability to create new jobs, CNBC’s Amelia Lucas reports.
“Joblessness leads to hopelessness,” Frazier told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“Hopelessness leads to what we see in the streets.” More than 41 million Americans have lost their jobs since mid-March amid the economic devastation caused by the pandemic. —Hannah Miller
Protests break out nationwide
Facebook staff speak out against policy on Trump posts
BET founder calls for $14 trillion in reparations for slavery
9:12 a.m. ET — “Now is the time to go big” to keep America from dividing into two separate, unequal societies. That’s from Robert Johnson, founder of BET, in an interview with CNBC following a weekend of widespread protests over George Floyd’s death at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis.
Decrying inherent racial inequality in America, Johnson called for massive wealth transfer in the form of $14 trillion in reparations for slavery.
“Think about this. Since 200-plus-years or so of slavery, labor taken with no compensation is a wealth transfer. Denial of access to education, which is a primary driver of accumulation of income and wealth, is a wealth transfer,” Johnson said.
Read Matthew Belvedere’s full article about Johnson’s call for reparations here. —Elisabeth Butler Cordova
Read CNBC’s previous coverage of the nationwide demonstrations: U.S. crisis deepens as protests erupt over police brutality amid deadly pandemic and record unemployment
