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Weeks of protests across the U.S. following George Floyd's killing have put pressure on governments to scale back the use of force police officers can use on civilians and create new oversight for officer conduct.

Why it matters: Police reforms of this scale have not taken place in response to the Black Lives Matter movement since its inception in 2013, after George Zimmerman's acquittal for shooting Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager.

What's new: Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kennedy announced on Thursday that the city's police commissioner has placed a moratorium on tear gas and "other non-lethal methods," in response to videos of corralled Black Lives Matter protesters being tear gassed on June 1.

Catch up quick: The Minnesota Legislature failed to reach a deal on police reform measures, as Republicans clashed with Democrats pushing for restoring voting rights to felons and entrusting the state's attorney general with prosecuting police killings, the New York Times reports.

The bottom line: Allowing lawsuits, transparency into disciplinary records and limiting use of force are core to police reform, experts and advocates say.

Go deeper: More black police officers, yet the killings persist

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The major police reforms that have been enacted since George Floyd's death - Axios

The movement wants equality for all, but incidents such as the plane banner over Man City-Burnley shows not everyone understands the BLM slogan

Burnley captain Ben Mee was a picture of seething disappointment after his side's 5-0 defeat against Manchester City, but it had nothing to do with the result.

The game itself felt irrelevant as he directed his ire at the people who decided it was a good idea to fly a banner with the words 'White Lives Matter Burnley' over the Etihad Stadium.

A visibly furious Mee told Sky Sports that he was "ashamed and embarrassed" by the stunt, stressing that the message portrayed by the banner was not at all representative of the club or the players.

"It is not what we are about.They have missed what we are trying to achieve," the centre-back said in his rebuke.

"These people need to come into the 21st century and educate themselves. They don't represent what we are about, the club is about, the players are about and the majority of fans are about."

The banner in question appeared shortly after the players had knelt in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, as, indeed, other teams had done in previous games since the restart of English football.

Premier League stakeholders had also agreed to print the words 'Black Lives Matter' on the backs of jerseys and individual players have used their platforms toamplifythe voices of theBLM movement.

Mee was speaking on behalf of the Burnley team when he admonished those behind the banner, but his expression ofsharp disapproval was echoed by many within and outside the football community.

Man City star Raheem Sterling said it was "time for change" and former Manchester United captain Rio Ferdinand wrote on Twitter: "Well said Ben Mee... respect."

Former England star Gary Lineker lauded Mee's "leadership", while Labour MP David Lammy said that Mee had "given a lesson in how to call out offensive garbage".

Mee condemned the 'White Lives Matter' banner in the strongest possible terms, butthe most substantive part of his statement was that, as well as being offensive, itmisses the entire point of the BLM campaign.

'White Lives Matter' or 'All Lives Matter' reactions missthe point because the Black Lives Matter movement is not about denigratingthe worth of other ethnic groups; it is about highlighting a specific problem.

Black Lives Matter isagainstracism and systemic injustices against the Black community, andit works for equality for everyone.

The message of the slogan is not that Black lives matter more. It is not that thelives of Caucasian peopledon't matter. It is that Black lives matter just as much.

Reactionary cries that'White Lives Matter!' or even 'All Lives Matter!' demonstratea fundamentalmisunderstanding of what BLM is working for and fighting against.

Such cries also havethe effect of diminishing the plight of a community thathas sufferedviolentsubjugation in the pastand continues to feel the residual ill effects ofhistory, with overt and subtle racism still evident today.

The fact that 'White Lives Matter' has been used as a slogan for white supremacist groups is highly problematic and it creates an absurd false equivalence.

Robbie Earle noted that Mee had understood the issues"through the lens of a black man", telling NBC Sports in an emotional appraisal: "That is change, that is progression. That's people standing with you in the fight and if we can stand together in the fight we've got a chance."

So, when footballers take a knee and wear shirts emblazoned with the slogan, it is an act of solidarity, not of supremacy.It is an expression of a desire to rid the world of racism, in all its forms.

Black Lives Matter (or BLM) is asocial civil movement that arose in 2013 in response to police brutality against Black peoplein the United States.

George Zimmerman's acquittal in the case of the fatal shooting of Black teenager Trayvon Martin is considered the catalyst for the Black Lives Matter movement. It began to spread on social media platforms before developing into organised street protests and activism.

Inspired bythe civil rights movement, the Black Power movement and Black feminist movement among others, Black Lives Matter is most prominent in the U.S.,but has spread across the world.

The BLM website says that the movement is committed "to imagining and creating a world free of anti-Blackness, where every Black person has the social, economic, and political power to thrive".

The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 are driven primarilyby the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed at the end of May duringan arrest bya police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Video footage circulated online of a handcuffed Floyd lying on the ground with police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on his neck for approximately nine minutes. Floyd could be heard in the footage saying that he could notbreathe.

His death sparked outrage in the U.S. and prompted hundreds of street protests across the country despite public health concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic. Protests subsequently spread to Europe and across the world, with demonstrators clashing with police in many cases, such as the UK, but on asmaller scale.

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Explained: Why 'White Lives Matter' and 'All Lives Matter' misses the point of Black Lives Matter - Goal.com

Effie Caldarola

By Effie Caldarola Catholic News Service Posted June 5, 2020

The year was 2012, ancient history in our Twitter-universe. But to me, as recent as yesterdays headline.

Trayvon Martin was 17 years old, wearing a hoodie on a chilly night. Hed been to the convenience store for snacks and was walking to his dads apartment.

He was accosted by a self-appointed vigilante, a neighborhood watch captain, named George Zimmerman. To Zimmerman, a black kid in a hoodie was a suspicious character. Zimmerman called police and was told to stay in his vehicle and not follow Martin.

He disregarded that advice, with tragic results. Well never know the exact details, but a scuffle ensued. Zimmerman had a gun. Why? Why are there always guns? Martin paid with his life. Zimmerman, the predator, was found not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

In 2012, I had a son a few years older than Trayvon. We jokingly called him, as a kid, the mayor of Oceanview, our neighborhood in Anchorage, Alaska. He was everywhere, a kid on his bike, sometimes in a hoodie.

Like Trayvon, Mike was neither a troublemaker nor a perfect kid. I felt he was safe, though, in our community, with our neighbors and our police. The talk with white kids was about sex; with black kids, it was about survival.

Our president in 2012, Barack Obama, empathetic in crises, said that if he had a son, he would look just like Trayvon Martin. My Irish-Italian son did not look like Trayvon, the handsome black child of black parents. And yet, to me they looked painfully similar. They were, as kids will say, brothers from another mother.

Because, honestly, if youve ever done genealogy, you know were all eventually cousins. We mothers feel every mothers pain, because every child is ours.

In the past several days, an egregious killing, less ambiguous, visually stunning, brought our country into national consensus. The deliberate, vicious killing of George Floyd shook us. We yearn to think that after all the years of deaths, of injustice, of assassinations, that maybe this time things will be different.

But will they?

This November, the ballot box in every state, every city and county, will be a sacred place. Those who peacefully protested and they number in the thousands and thousands must register and vote. We must fight for voting by mail and resist voter suppression. We must stand up, as mothers of every son and daughter.

For our church, this is a pivotal moment. I know a nun, very old now, who was at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Her bishop, after seeing protesters beaten there, wanted a visible Catholic presence. Clergy came in their collars, nuns in their long serge habits.

We need desperately, now, to see and hear that Catholic presence. For the integrity of our American church, to ensure the churchs future with our youth, to be a church that witnesses Christ poor among us, we need presence.

Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, took a knee, very visibly, at a June 1 demonstration to pray for George Floyd. Two days later, Pope Francis called to thank him.

Washington Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory protested that it was baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated after President Donald Trump used the St. John Paul II National Shrine for a photo op.

Seattle Archbishop Paul D. Etienne said of another photo, The word of God is not a prop.

Pray God this is the vanguard of church leadership for justice. The times demand that this be our moment.

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This is the church's moment to show Black Lives Matter - CatholicPhilly.com

A third night of protests erupted in Louisville over the police shooting of Breonna Taylor, an African American who was unarmed when police executed a "no-knock" search warrant at her apartment Louisville Courier Journal

I have lived in Atlanta and remain ahomeowner in Georgia, where Ahmaud Arbery was killed by a former police detective. I have lived in Dallas, where a police officer killed Botham Jean in his own apartment. I have lived in Charlotte, where former Florida A&M Universityfootball player Jonathan Ferrell sought help after a car accident and ended up being killed by a police officer. I've lived in Minneapolis, where life was choked out of George Floyd by a police officer, and in nearby St. Paul, where Philando Castile was gunned down by an officer during a traffic stop.

I'm from Sanford, Florida, where vigilante George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. I now live in Louisville,where Breonna Taylor was shot eight times and killed by police in March after they entered her residence on a no-knock warrantat 12:40 a.m.

I am exhausted. I am enraged. I'm fed up and I'm hurting. I am afraid for black men and women. I am afraid for this country.

Our view: George Floyd protests: Dont deploy active duty American troops to battleAmericans

Opposing view: American carnage: These aren't protests they're riots. Someone must end the lawlessness.

I am disturbed and disappointed by the burning buildings and destroyed communities.

But I am not distracted. These fires weren't sparked out of thin air.

The anguish of racism, the pain of inequity and the absence of justice are the agents of outrage.

Shattered storefronts representshattered communities. Looting is inexcusable. So, too, is the theft of hopes and dreams and futures of peoplesnuffed out by police brutality.

Rana Cash, sports director(Photo: Courier Journal)

Burning down buildings solves absolutely nothing. Instead, set aflame the systems that set the stage for economic imbalance, health disparities exasperated by COVID-19, educational gaps and a criminal justice structure that has a stranglehold on black and brown people.

Buildings will be restored, but jobs will be lostandlives will be changed beyond the damage already dealt by the coronavirus. And while violence has too often been the answer for police, it is not the answer for those demanding justice reform and an overhaul ofpractices and policiesthat have disenfranchised black lives.

Time to face up: America's overdue reckoning with white supremacy: 'We have allowed evil to flourish'

The work of eradicating 400 years of racism is harder. The work of eliminating police brutality is harder. The path to healing from trauma induced by videos on a loop of murdered black bodies is treacherous.

It's much easier to condemn violent riots and call for peace than it is to fix a system that isn't broken, but is doing exactly what it was built to do. Alas, this is the work of creating from the ground up a new, fair andjust system for all.

Rana L. Cash is the editor of the Savannah Morning News and Georgia state director for the USA TODAY Network. This column originally appeared in the Louisville Courier Journal. Follow her onTwitter:@rana_cash

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Looting is inexcusable. So is the ongoing police brutality that steals hopes and dreams. - USA TODAY

As many as 10,000 flooded downtown in a noisy but peaceful demonstration

Photo by Melodie Newman

By Hope McKinney

Thousands of protesters dressed in black, faces clad in masks, and carrying signs flooded into downtown Providence Friday afternoon for the Protect Black Lives protest. It was one of many seen around the country and across the globe following the recent killings at the hands of police of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky.

The energy felt palpable as protesters of all ages gathered at Kennedy Plaza and walked up to the State House. People driving by were sticking their fists out of their car windows and honking, many shouting their support.

Protesters quickly picked up different chants, No justice, no peace, and, Black lives matter, to Hey hey, ho ho, these racist cops have got to go.

The names of unarmed black people recently murdered by police, including Floyd, 46 at the time of his death, and Taylor, 26, could be heard chanted repeatedly throughout the day. Friday would have been Taylors 27th birthday the tune of Happy Birthday erupted as the crowd stood outside the State House.

A few speakers were heard urging the city of Providence and the state of Rhode Island to act with love, fighting darkness with light. One of the speakers, 16-year-old Ayee Yeakula, was one of the youth organizers for the protest, alongside Kiara Cruel, 16, and Faith Quinnea, 16.

Elizabeth AVant, a mother from Lincoln who works in the Providence school system, was one of the protesters.

I have three black boys, she said. My oldest is 26 and I have twins that are 23, and every time they leave my house, I worry about if theyre going to be the next victim. So, I have to be here.

She said she felt overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and support from the community.

Its really meaningful, she said. Its bringing tears to my eyes to see so many people black, white, of all different denominations.

Macey Hardin from Bristol talked about what it was like being a black person growing up in a predominantly white town.

Brett Smiley and Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott at the State House during Fridays protest.

All throughout elementary school, I was literally the only African American there and I feel like I was targeted a lot just because of my race, she said. They tried to paint me out to be the problem black kid. Im fighting for the 8-year-old girl that I used to be and Im also fighting for my future kids who will be African American, as well. This is just not a world they belong in, so we need to change it right away.

AVant and Hardin urged people to educate themselves and be vocal.

Silence does nothing, Hardin said. Do as much as you can. Donating. Even just Instagram posts. Theres nothing too small, everything is good enough to show your support.

Theres some really, really good books out there on the market that you can read about anti-racism, about privilege, said AVant. People dont like to hear that term white privilege. Its real. So, do some reading. Open your mind.

As the sun began to set and the air cooled, some protesters headed out, while others broke off from the crowd and created different groups. The Sam Cooke song A Change is Gonna Come, widely known for representing the struggles of black people in America, floated throughout the area, providing a sense of calm after the vivacious noise at the State House.

Photo by Melodie Newman

One group got on their knees surrounding Ibiolatiwa Akomolafe, a young woman who recited,

Capitalize the A in America and remember to capitalize the T in Trayvon Martin, recalling the death of 17-year-old Travyon Martin killed by vigilante George Zimmerman, 28, in Florida in 2012. Zimmerman was later acquitted.

At around 7:30 p.m., Superintendent of the State Police Department, Colonel James Manni, spoke about the protest.

We found the protesters to be respectful overall, and well-organized, and they exercised their constitutional rights First Amendment, freedom of speech and we respect that, he said. We stood with them and continue to let them exercise their right.

As for any concerns about the aftermath of protesters continuing past the 9 p.m. curfew, set after the looting and vandalism earlier in the week, he said he felt hopeful.

Im not nervous about it, he said. Its always a concern, you know, public safetys a priority here in the city of Providence and I just hope it remains calm throughout the night and that it remains respectful to everyone and we get through it.

Members of the R.I. National Guard and police officers were seen on the outskirts of the protest, quietly watching from afar, even engaging with many protesters.

Intermittently, some protesters chanted, Wheres Gina? Soon after curfew, Governor Gina Raimondo went out to the steps of the State House, thanking the protesters for remaining peaceful.

I want you to know that I hear you, Im praying with you and Im fully committed to taking action and working with you to eliminate racism in RI, she wrote on Twitter.

Soon after, a moment of silence was held for the victims of police brutality. A protester yelled, Make some noise for George Floyd! Protesters erupted in applause.

Multiple live streams showed protesters continuing to march throughout the city until almost 11 p.m. Many people on the streets were outstretched from their homes, yelling in support of the movement.

Police let protesters continue to march past 9 p.m. despite the curfew. Raimondo did make an appearance outside the State House, strongly urging remaining protesters to remain peaceful and offering a prayer. As WPRI reporter Kim Kalunian tweeted out, not everyone was on board with Raimondo at that point. And things got tense in other parts of downtown, but peace held.

At one point, protesters seemed to be cornered by state police on Broadway but were eventually allowed to keep walking.

Some ended up marching back to Kennedy Plaza alongside officers, seemingly ending the day of the protest on a positive note.

United we stand, divided we fall! a protester yelled over a megaphone.

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Thousands Gather in Providence in Support of Black Lives East Greenwich News - East Greenwich News