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'SHOT POINT BLANK'
Shocking moment George Floyd protester is ‘hit with a tear gas canister’ fired from just feet away
THIS is the shocking moment a George Floyd protester in Michigan appeared to be blasted in the face with tear gas after being maced.
The alleged attack occurred in on Saturday, prompting social media outrage and a police investigation after it was posted .
On Tuesday, Grand Rapids Police Sergeant Dan Adams confirmed they were investigating it after cops allegedly fired tear gas and mace at a demonstrator.
reported the began peacefully but descended into violence.
One witness James Curley told the video was taken by his friend Dakota Spoelman.
"Some people were lighting fireworks, that were going straight up, because we have a point to make," Curley told the publication. "Black Lives Matter. Police brutality needs to stop."
"[The man in the video] walked up to police to express his freedom of speech. The cop stepped up to him and pepper-sprayed him. Completely no threat after that. Don’t know what’s going on.
"They shot him, it looks like they shot him from the chest to the head wit some type of flash grenade."
A police brutality lawyer Ven Johnson also weighed in on the footage, saying the incident was "despicable."
"This young man is clearly walking towards the officers," Johnson said. "Let's even give them the benefit of the doubt.
"We don’t have any video of what happened before that. Who knows what they’ve been told. Who knows what happened before.
"But he’s walking toward the officer in a relatively non-threatening manner … clearly has nothing in hands except maybe a cigarette."
"It looks like he got shot with a projectile. Whether it hit him or not I don’t know," he added. "That is horrible, tragic. We want to know why things are escalating.
"This is a perfect example of where the police could have stayed back, stayed in line, said nothing, which they’re trained to do."
That night, a group rioted in the Downtown area of Grand Rapids, setting cars on fire, smashing windows and looting until the early hours of Sunday morning, reported .
Local cops reportedly arrested seven during the riots, roughly in the chaos, seven cop cars were set on fire along with three buildings.
The shocking video is just the latest incident as similar demonstrations around the US ended in violent clashes between protesters and police this week.
The unrest comes after viral footage showed Derek Chauvin kneeling on 's neck during as Floyd tells him: "I can't breathe."
While beyond to , , and even other countries amid the pandemic, looting and the also ensued.
Echoing multiple other state and local leaders, issued her support for the Black Lives Matter movement on Wednesday.
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"Today, I requested that the Michigan Commission of Law Enforcement Standards provide guidance to law enforcement agencies on continuing education, including diversity and implicit bias training, and urging law enforcement agencies to implement duty to intervene polices," she .
"I also called on our Legislature to act on Senator Irwin’s bill, SB 945. Under this bill, incoming law enforcement officers would be required by law to go through training on implicit bias, de-escalation techniques, and mental health screenings."
She concluded by saying "until Black mothers share the same set of concerns as White mothers when their kids leave their homes, we have work to do."
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