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Black Lives Matter's history from Trayvon Martin to George Floyd

From Trayvon Martin to George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement continues to highlight Black lives lost to police and racial injustice.

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Since the nationwide protestsfollowing George Floyd's murder in summer 2020, misinformation about Black Lives Matter has spread online, ranging from misleading claims about the movement's founderto false assertions about the groups politics.

Anotherclaim surfaced Feb. 15 on Facebook.

BLM burned our cities and destroyed $2B of property. They faced no consequences.Their lawlessness celebrated and excused," reads text in the post, published by a page called The Right View of the United States."So yes, Im absolutely fine with some truckers & farmers clogging roads & bridges for freedom.

The post shows a Feb. 11 tweet fromBryan Dean Wright, an opinion writer and former CIA officer. Combined, the posts accumulated more than 5,000 shares within a week.

The "truckers & farmers"mentioned in the post refer to anti-vaccine mandate protesters in Canada. The protests, colloquially known as the"Freedom Convoy," began in late January after the Canadian government started requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for drivers crossing the U.S. border. Similar movementshave cropped up across the world, with demonstrations against COVID-19 restrictions also taking place in Belgium and the Netherlands.

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While the post contains an element of truth, it presents a misleading comparison of the Freedom Convoy and Black Lives Matter protests.

Some reports have estimatedinsurance claims for damagesrelated to the 2020 protests totaled about $2 billion. However, the post is wrong to claimprotesters saw no consequences in fact, over 10,000 protesters were arrested, most for low-level offenses.

USA TODAY reached out to Wright and The Right View of the United Statesfor comment.

Damages caused by the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests were estimated to cost $2 billion, a number that could "still go higher," according to a February2021 report published onthe World Economic Forum's website.

The reportwasauthored by the head ofProperty Claim Services, which hastracked protest-related insurance claims for decades. The group found that 2020 protests cost more than any other period of unrest in American history, as the average cost of demonstrations since 1950 has been about $90 million annually.

Other cost estimates support Property Claim Services' $2 billion figure.

Fact check: Posts mislead about crowd size, peacefulness at Canada Freedom Convoy protest

Axios reported inSeptember2020that the Insurance Information Institute, which collects data from Property Claim Services and related firms, estimated that damages could total as much as 2 billion and possibly more.

Contrary to the claim in the post, manyBlack Lives Matterprotesters did face consequences. Estimates vary, but news outlets reported thousands of protesterswere arrested in the months following Floyds death in May 2020.

A June 22, 2020,article from The Washington Post tallied over 14,000 arrests made since May 27.The Hill reported over 17,000 arrests had been made in the first two weeks of protests.

Despite the large number of arrests, The Hill reported most of those protesters were booked not for violent crimes, but for low-level offenses such as violating curfews.Obstructing roadways and carrying open containers were other reasons for the arrests, as well asfailure to disperse.

Some more serious charges were filed as well, however. The Associated Press reportedhundreds were charged with burglary and looting as of June 4, 2020.

In October 2020, researchers writing forThe Washington Post analyzed 7,305 protest eventsand found police made arrests at 5% of them. Only 3.7% of the events involved property damage or vandalism, according to the analysis.

PolitiFactreported in June 2020 that, while protests in several major cities started with violence, most demonstrations across the country were largely peaceful.

Based on our research, we rate PARTLY FALSE the claim that Black Lives Matter protesters caused $2 billion worth of damage and faced no consequences. It's true that, in 2020, protests over Floyd's death were estimated to have caused about $2 billion in damage. But the post is wrong to say demonstrators faced no consequences. News reports indicate more than10,000 protesters were arrested, most for low-level offenses.

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Fact check: Thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters ...