What the George Floyd protests have achieved in just two weeks

In the weeks since video evidence showed a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, for almost nine minutes, protests have erupted across the US and the rest of the world.

From Minneapolis to London to New York and Atlanta, thousands have taken to the streets in a show of solidarity. Organizations and individuals have donated millions; editors have resigned; and statues have toppled. Here are just some of the concrete changes we are seeing happening across the US right now.

Minneapolis commits to dismantling its police

Protesters gathered outside the Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey’s home over the weekend, and demanded to know his position on defunding the police. When he said he did not believe in fully abolishing the police, he was subjected to chants of “shame” and protesters telling him to leave.

But his reluctance didn’t matter. A veto-proof majority of councillors subsequently vowed to dismantle the police on Sunday, pledging a “transformative new model of public safety”.

In doing so, they accepted that the Minneapolis police department – which five consecutive mayors have ultimately failed at reforming – might be beyond repair. Now, council members plan to develop a plan for policing with the community. Having analysed 911 calls, they have already found that the majority pertain to mental health services, health and emergency medical services and fire services – and so, in part, are committing to redirecting efforts to social services instead.

Big reforms pledged in New York City

With social service budgets under threat in New York due to Covid-19, campaigners knew their target: the NYPD’s $6bn budget – which amounts to more than the budgets for health ($1.9bn), homeless services ($2.1bn), youth and community development ($872,000), and small business services ($293,000) combined.

The NYPD defended its budget, arguing that a cut would result in a spike in crime. But others noted that when New York police went on strike to prove how important they were, and in fact, people reported less crime.

That call seems to have been heeded. On Sunday, the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, pledged to redirect some of New York City police department’s funding towards youth and social services. He committed to repealing section 50-A, which prevents the public from accessing disciplinary records of police officers.

Confederate statues toppled across the country

On Saturday protesters in Richmond, Virginia toppled the statue of slave and plantation owner, the Confederate general Williams Carter Wickham, using ropes to pull it down. Earlier in the week, protesters in Montgomery, Alabama took down the statue of the Confederate general Robert E Lee.

On Friday, a 5ft statue that had stood on the waterfront in Mobile, Alabama, for 120 years was removed by the council. Mayor Sandy Stimpson released a statement Friday, saying: “To be clear: This decision is not about Raphael Semmes, it is not about a monument and it is not an attempt to rewrite history.

“Moving this statue will not change the past. It is about removing a potential distraction so we may focus clearly on the future of our city. That conversation, and the mission to create One Mobile, continues today.”

Bristol, in the UK, also had its own revolutionary moment this weekend, toppling the statue of the 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston.

Reddit co-founder resigns to make room for a black candidate

Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian on Friday resigned on a video urging the board to fill his seat with a black candidate – a decision he said was “long overdue”. In it, he said: “I am doing this as a father, who needs to be able to look in the eyes of his black daughter when she asks: ‘What did you do?”

Ohanian also pledged $1m to Colin Kaepernick’s Know your Rights Camp in the announcement, and committed to further donations in the future.

Ohanian has argued that resigning can be an act of leadership – and has asked other leaders to consider doing the same.

A database has been set up to record police brutality at the protests

This week, lawyers T Gregg Doucette and mathematician Jason Miller began creating a database of video footage documenting police violence at the protests over the past week. They argue that the document will prevent police from being able to shield themselves by arguing that incidents of violence as one-offs, instead showing a pattern of violence and brutality.

As of midday Monday, the spreadsheet contains more than 500 cases of police brutality at the protests – in a week which has seen journalists and citizens teargassed, beaten and pepper-sprayed.

This article was amended on 8 & 9 June 2020: to correct a reference to Minneapolis city council plans – councillors have committed to dismantling the police but have not voted on the matter. The statue of Raphael Semmes was in Mobile, Alabama, not Birmingham, Alabama as an earlier version said.