Live updates: George Floyd’s brother to testify at congressional hearing on police violence

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday said President Trump raised “legitimate” questions when he shared a tweet endorsing the baseless conspiracy theory that a 75-year-old protester in Buffalo, seen on video being pushed to the ground by police in the past week, could have been part of a “set up” coordinated by anti-fascist demonstrators.

“So the president was raising questions based on a report that he saw,” McEnany said during an appearance on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.” “There are questions that need to be asked. In every case, we can’t jump on one side without looking at all the facts at play. This individual has some very questionable tweets, some profanity-laden tweets about police officers.”

Trump’s speculation Tuesday — which originated on a conspiracy theory website and was not supported by any evidence — drew rebuke from the Buffalo man’s lawyer, condemnation from Democrats and a now-familiar refrain from many Republicans claiming not to have seen a tweet by the president that was making headlines.

Two Buffalo police officers have been charged with assault after footage showed them shoving Martin Gugino to the ground and blood pooling on the sidewalk below his head.

In defending Trump, McEnany noted that several dozen police officers resigned from their unit after their colleagues were suspended.

“So I think we need to ask why those officers resigned, what happened, what facts were on the ground,” she said. “The president was raising some questions, some legitimate ones.”

In his tweet, Trump said Gugino “could be an ANTIFA provocateur,” a reference to the anti-fascist movement that he has blamed for violence at protests in response to the death of George Floyd.

Kelly V. Zarcone, a lawyer for Gugino, said in a statement Tuesday that Gugino has always been a peaceful protester and questioned why Trump would make a “dark, dangerous and untrue accusation.”

LONDON — Several cities across the United Kingdom are reviewing the “appropriateness” of their statues and monuments as the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police trigger a reckoning with Britain’s colonial past.

In the past few days, statues of two slave traders have been taken down. Protesters in Bristol toppled a statue of slave trader Edward Colston — an action referenced at Floyd’s funeral. Then, on Monday evening, a local council in east London removed a statue of Robert Milligan, a British merchant who owned more than 500 slaves on his sugar plantations in Jamaica. As a crane yanked the statue off its plinth, onlookers clapped and cheered.

Like the United States, where Confederate statues and plaques have been removed in some places, Britain is grappling with what to do with monuments that pay tribute to controversial figures. Across England and Wales, more than 100 councils led by members of the opposition Labour Party have said they will review the “appropriateness” of monuments and statues standing on public property.

Activists have identified more than 60 statutes they say should be removed, including those of imperialist Cecil Rhodes in Oxford and Henry Dundas, a Scottish politician who delayed the abolition of slavery, in Edinburgh. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced a review of all of the statues and monuments across the British capital, as well as street names. Those with links to slavery, he said, “should be taken down.”

Tweeting a video of the removal of the Milligan statue, Khan wrote: “It’s a sad truth that much of our wealth was derived from the slave trade — but this does not have to be celebrated in our public spaces.”

Hundreds in Oakland, Calif., marched this week to demand answers in the fatal police shooting of an apparently unarmed driver on Saturday, a case that has become a focal point in the city amid ongoing demonstrations against police brutality after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

Erik Salgado, 23, died after California Highway Patrol officers fired at him and his pregnant girlfriend as they sat in a suspected stolen vehicle, which police say Salgado “rammed” into CHP vehicles. Salgado’s girlfriend, identified by Berkeleyside as 23-year-old Brianna Colombo, survived but was seriously wounded; family could not be immediately be reached Tuesday night regarding whether her baby survived.

“Those officers belong in jail right now,” Hoku Jeffrey, an organizer with Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary, said during a news conference Monday.

Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, is scheduled to be the lead witness Wednesday at a high-profile congressional hearing as House Democrats seek to build support for a sweeping police overhaul bill unveiled earlier this week.

After Floyd’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, seven other witnesses, including legal experts, civil rights advocates and police officials, are scheduled to testify about potential legislative remedies in response to Floyd’s death in Minneapolis last month at the hands of a white police officer.

Dan Bongino, a conservative commentator and former Secret Service agent who frequently appears on Fox News, is among three witnesses who have been summoned by Republicans.

Also scheduled to appear is Angela Underwood Jacobs, whose brother Patrick Underwood, a federal protective services officer, was killed in Oakland, Calif., in a shooting that police said was related to a protest of Floyd’s death.

“She’s going to come and speak to the committee today about her loss, just like the Floyds’ loss as well, the senseless murders that have taken place during this time period,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said during an appearance Wednesday on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.”

The hearing will set the stage for a debate later this month on the Justice in Policing Act of 2020. The legislation, crafted by Democrats, would ban chokeholds, establish a national database to track police misconduct and prohibit certain no-knock warrants, among other initiatives.

The legislation has more than 200 co-sponsors in the House and 36 in the Senate.

Some Republicans have complained that the roughly 140-page proposal included no GOP input. But Democrats said this hearing will launch several weeks of consideration, first in committee and then a full House floor debate, perhaps with a vote by the end of the month.

Protesters flooded into Seattle City Hall on Tuesday night and called for the mayor’s resignation and the defunding of the police department.

City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant led the march into the building and delivered an address about the city’s budget and police use of chokeholds and chemical weapons, KOMO reported.

The crowd stayed in the building for about an hour before heading back onto the streets to observe moments of silence for victims of police brutality, the Stranger reported.

The office of Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) told KOMO in a statement that the mayor “will not be distracted from the critical work that needs to be done at a moment that Seattle is facing its most challenging time in its history.” The statement added that the city “has so much healing and work to do — that is where Mayor Durkan will continue to spend her focus in the coming days, weeks and months ahead.”

In 1989, media outlets nationwide clamored to cover the debut of “Cops.” The documentary-style crime program promising an intimate look at the daily lives of law enforcement officers marked one of the earliest forays into reality TV — and many viewers at the time couldn’t get enough.

But as its popularity rose, social and criminal justice advocates charged that the very elements fans loved — namely raw footage of action-packed arrests — glorified officers, normalized questionable police tactics and reinforced racial stereotypes.

On Tuesday, just days ahead of the scheduled premiere of its 33rd season, “Cops” came to an unceremonious end when it was canceled amid widespread protests against racism and police brutality.

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, calls for expanding loans to black entrepreneurs, addressing discriminatory housing practices and diversifying the nation’s teachers, among other initiatives, in an op-ed Wednesday.

The former vice president uses the piece, published by USA Today, to argue for a broader response to the death of George Floyd in police custody. He also elaborates on his opposition stated earlier this week to “defunding police” — a cause embraced by some liberal activists.

“We need to root out systemic racism across our laws and institutions, and we need to make sure black Americans have a real shot to get ahead,” Biden says in the piece, in which he identifies several specific lending programs that he says should be better funded.

As he has done previously, Biden says the “better answer” to “defunding the police” is to “give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful reforms, and to condition other federal dollars on completing those reforms.”

But he also echoes some sentiments of the liberal activists whose slogan he is rejecting, saying, for instance, that there are 911 calls to which police should not be first responders.

“That means making serious investments in mental health services, drug treatment and prevention programs, and services for people experiencing homelessness,” Biden writes. “That may also mean having social service providers respond to calls with police officers.”

He also endorses a proposal pending in New York to enhance penalties for making a false 911 call based on race, gender or religion.

Protesters have torn down a statue of Christopher Columbus in Richmond’s Byrd Park.

Late Tuesday, a few dozen people gathered in the park, looking at the bronze state submerged facedown on the edge of Fountain Lake.

“I’m not going to say I approve, but I’m not going to say I disapprove either,” said Ronald Johnson, 33, a call center supervisor who has marched five nights in Richmond over the past 12 days. “It would have been more, but I got blisters on my feet.”

Johnson was with at least 100 people at the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee — which Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) has said he plans to put in storage — when word spread that the Columbus statue had been torn down. A “massive cheer” went up, he said, and he drove over to Byrd Park to see it for himself.

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the idea for the statue came from the city’s Italian American community in the early 1920s. It was dedicated in December 1927, the newspaper reported.