A global pandemic has now killed more than 100,000 Americans and left 40 million unemployed in its wake.
Protests — most of them violent — have once again erupted in spots across the country over police killings of black Americans.
America’s persistent political dysfunction were laid bare this week, as the coronavirus death toll hit a tragic new milestone.
Together, the events present a grim tableau of a nation in crisis — one seared by violence against its citizens, plagued by a deadly disease that remains uncontained and rattled by a devastating blow to its economy.
“The threads of our civic life could start unraveling, because everybody’s living in a tinderbox,” said historian and Rice University professor Douglas Brinkley.
In the days after a 46-year-old black man died in the custody of Minneapolis police in an incident caught on video, demonstrators took to the streets. In that city, a police precinct was breached and set ablaze, along with other businesses. In Colorado, shots were fired near the statehouse. At a protest in Louisville, seven people were shot.
Authorities announced charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter against the officer in the Minneapolis case Friday — which observers saw as a development that might quell some of the immediate unrest.
The protests that erupted in Minnesota spread to places like Columbus, Phoenix, Denver and Louisville, which recently experienced a controversial police killing when officers serving a warrant shot and killed a 26-year-old EMT inside her home. More demonstrations broke out Friday evening across the country, including in the District.
“I was amazed watching people who were out,” said Raoul Cunningham, head of the NAACP branch in Louisville. “To me, it made clear that we’re at a period of time like we’ve never faced before.”
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