From the death of a black man in Minneapolis to a racist incident in Central Park, camera phones are increasingly being used as a weapon against racism even when justice doesn’t always follow.Two videos shot on smartphones spread from social media to mainstream media this week, highlighting how bystanders are now frequently capturing incidents that in the past may have gone unnoticed.It was a member of the public who filmed George Floyd grasping for breath as a white Minneapolis policeman pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for at least five minutes on Monday.Floyd went still and was later declared dead in hospital. Four police officers were fired from their jobs but remain free and the city has had three nights of angry protests.”If we did not have a video, would the officers have been fired as quickly?” Ibram Kendi, director of the American University’s anti-racism research center, asked in an interview with Democracy Now! “Would they have believed all of those witnesses who were looking at what was happening and who was the asking officers to stop?”In the second incident, a white woman falsely reported Christian Cooper, an avid birdwatcher, to police after he requested that she leash her dog in a wooded area of New York’s Central Park.”I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,” she told Cooper as he filmed her dial 911 in a video that has been viewed over 43 million times on Twitter.Rodney KingIn February, Ahmaud Arbery — also African American — was shot and killed by two white residents while jogging in their neighborhood in Georgia.A third man, who was later also charged over Arbery’s death, filmed the murder, with the cellphone video sparking outrage when it was leaked onto social media earlier this month.The filming of such violent incidents is not new.Since the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police in 1991, which was filmed by an amateur cameraman, videos have frequently documented acts of racism across the United States.But in recent years the capturing of such incidents, with them subsequently going viral online and then being broadcast across major news networks, has becoming more systematic.”Here’s the sad reality,” tweeted Sen. Kamala Harris, a black former candidate to be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.”What happened to George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery & Christian Cooper has gone on for generations to Black Americans. Cell phones just made it more visible.”Katheryn Russell-Brown, director of the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations at the University of Florida, said the videos remind us that “wherever people of color are there’s a vulnerability.”I would be hard pressed to think of cases involving Whites that show the same kind of instances of harm and assault particularly if we’re talking about law enforcement,” she told AFP.The increased use of police officers wearing body cameras while on duty over the past decade had raised hopes that the use of force against African Americans would fall.But after initial studies showed encouraging results, more in-depth reports found that “the cameras aren’t producing the reductions in use of force that were expected,” according to Urban Institute researcher Daniel Lawrence.Many forces allow officers to turn the cameras off whenever they want, while some have been accused of editing the images before making them public.’Torn apart’In the death of Eric Garner — by asphyxiation at the hands of a New York police officer in 2014 which sparked the nationwide “Black Lives Matter” movement — it was witnesses who filmed the incident, not police, like with Floyd’s death.”These videos that are published in public forms really do point to a kind of dysfunctionality in our criminal legal system,” said Russell-Brown.”It’s sort of suggesting that we need private citizens to make it necessary to watch public officers or people in public spaces to achieve justice or to at least raise the alarm bells about justice,” she added.Russell-Brown also notes that the presence of a camera often doesn’t prevent the act from being committed in the first place.Filming can also have major repercussions, with specialists warning of the risks of rushing to judgment on social networks.Within a day of the Central Park incident, Amy Cooper lost her job as vice president of a wealth management company, her anonymity and her dog amid a media storm.”I’m not excusing the racism. But I don’t know if her life needed to be torn apart,” said Christian Cooper, who is no relation to Amy.As powerful as videos may be, they mean little, if the law doesn’t run its course, say experts.”They got fired,” said Russell-Brown referring to the officers involved in Floyd’s death.”Is that enough? No. We have a dead person. So now we want the legal system to do what it’s supposed to do.” 
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Alec de Rham sat with his back against a stone obelisk marked “International Boundary” as he and his wife visited with a daughter they hadn’t seen in 10 weeks.  
Hannah Smith took a bus and a bicycle from Vancouver, British Columbia, to the border to meet her “main person,” Jabree Robinson, of Bellingham, Washington.
And beside a large, white arch symbolizing U.S.-Canadian friendship, Lois England and Ian Hendon kissed giddily, reunited for a few hours after the longest separation of their three-year relationship.
Families, couples and friends — separated for weeks by the pandemic-fueled closing of the border between the U.S. and Canada — are flocking to Peace Arch Park, an oasis on the border where they can reunite, and touch, and hug.
The park covers 42 acres (17 hectares) of manicured lawn, flower beds, and cedar and alder trees, extending from Blaine, Washington, into Surrey, British Columbia, at the far western end of the 3,987-mile (6146-km) contiguous border. As long as they stay in the park, visitors can freely roam from the U.S. to the Canadian side, and vice versa, without showing so much as a passport.  
It’s a frequent site of picnics and sometimes weddings, not to mention an area for travelers to stretch their legs when holiday traffic clogs the ports of entry. And for now it’s one of just a few areas along the along the entire border where those separated by the closure can meet.
Officials closed the park in mid-March over coronavirus concerns. The U.S. side reopened early this month, as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee eased some of the restrictions in his stay-home order, and the Canadian side reopened two weeks ago. England, of Sumas, Washington, said she cried when Hendon called to give her the news and they quickly made plans to meet.
England said she and Hendon have generally been careful about social distancing, but there was no thought of keeping 6 feet apart when they saw each other.
“I was really getting depressed over it — this was a huge reprieve,” she said.
It typically takes 40 minutes for England to get to Hendon’s home in Surrey, and they have usually seen each other at least once a week since they met online three years ago. Hendon, an electrician, has kept busy with work during the pandemic, while England has spent time with her daughter and her mother, who live nearby.
The couple chat by Skype almost every morning, but England missed Hendon so badly a few weeks ago that she tried to enter Canada as an “essential” visitor — a category reserved for medical workers, airline crews or truckers hauling crucial goods. Canadian guards turned her away.
One reunion was not enough. The next day, they returned with a barbecue and steaks.
About a half-hour drive to the east, other families met where roads on either side closely parallel a small ditch marking the border. Visitors set up chairs across from each other and had long chats; there’s less freedom to touch there.  
Before they tried it, Tim and Kris Browning thought it might be too hard to see each other without touching. Kris lives north of the border in Abbotsford, where she is a hospital cook, and Tim lives just south, where he works as an electrician for a berry grower. They married in 2014 after meeting online; the virus has delayed Tim’s application to move to Canada.
But chatting across the ditch and a rusty guard rail, or in a nearby raspberry field owned by Tim’s employer, has become a weekly highlight — much better than a device, they said.
“It’s been really heartwarming to see all the families out, and everyone’s been so nice,” said Tim, who usually spends three days a week with Kris and her two children in Canada. “One Border Patrol agent came by and said, ‘Why aren’t you hugging your wife? Go on, hug your wife!'”
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Police in the eastern U.S. state of Maryland, along with federal agents, captured a college student Wednesday who had been sought as a suspect in a crime spree including two slayings in Connecticut.Peter Manfredonia was wanted in the machete killing Friday of a man and the wounding of another man in Willington, Connecticut. He is also suspected in the shooting death of a male acquaintance in Derby, Connecticut, and the abduction of the acquaintance’s girlfriend.The Connecticut State Police, which led the investigation, says the 23-year-old Manfredonia was arrested at a truck stop near Hagerstown, Maryland. He had been the subject of a six-day search involving several police agencies and the FBI.  Officials say he was apprehended without incident.  At a news briefing, Connecticut State Police Spokeswoman Christine Jeltema said Manfredonia could face both state and federal charges.Police say the investigation began Friday when Manfredonia, a senior at the University of Connecticut, allegedly attacked two men in Willington, killing 62-year-old Theodore Demers, and wounding the unidentified second victim.Authorities say Manfredonia then went to another man’s home, held him hostage, stole his guns and truck and drove about 110 kilometers southwest to Derby, Connecticut.In Derby Sunday, police found Manfredonia’s high school friend, Nicholas Eisele, 23, shot to death in his home. They believe Manfredonia then forced Eisele’s girlfriend into her car and fled the state. The woman was found unharmed Monday with her car at a rest stop near Columbia, New Jersey.Police say Manfredonia traveled across the state of Pennsylvania before finally being arrested in Hagerstown Wednesday. They say a gun that police believe was used in the slaying of Eisele was recovered near where Manfredonia was taken into custody.Authorities have not offered a possible motive for the crimes. A lawyer for Manfredonia’s family said he has a history of mental illness.
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