As we continue to battle the coronavirus pandemic, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is currently in the process of lining his home with wall-to-wall posters of an illustrated mountain. Well, probably that’s not actually what he’s doing, but we wouldn’t be surprised if he were. After presenting his top prize science fair model of the New York COVID-19 “curve” two weeks ago, Cuomo has now unveiled his latest project: a Pandemic Poster™.

During a Monday briefing on New York’s COVID-19 response, Cuomo kicked things off by discussing his love of traditional poster art (ok!), and explained how he drew inspiration from the 1900 campaign poster of politician William Jennings Bryan. He then dramatically revealed his latest arts and crafts feat in the form of an illustrated “timeline” of the coronavirus impact on New York in the shape of a mountain with the words “New York Tough” strung across the top.

Created by Brooklyn-based artist Rusty Zimmerman, the artwork was meant, according to Cuomo, to show how far the city has come and what work is still left to do. But the poster — replete with illustrations of a giant nose being swabbed, a bottle of hand sanitizer, an octopus flopped next to a cruise ship, and even a fire emoji — immediately became the subject of internet fodder.

#NewYorkTough pic.twitter.com/jGIEMMxBLu

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) July 13, 2020

While Cuomo may have delighted in this artistic depiction of a pandemic that has killed thousands in New York, others were just confused, and left asking questions, like: What — and I cannot stress this enough — is the “Boyfriend Cliff?”

On the right side of the COVID mountain, just above where Cuomo’s daughters Cara, Mariah, and Michaela (and his dog, Captain) are apparently pulling the city’s curve back to normalcy, appears a tiny cliff where a figure can be seen dangling off. This is labeled the “boyfriend cliff.” There is no explanation for what the cliff is, or why it exists, but the Internet’s imagination knows no limits.

me and my friends hanging out at the boyfriend cliff pic.twitter.com/UaPVTSU37c

— himboist (@kamilumin) July 13, 2020

found boyfriend cliff pic.twitter.com/2euZ6xcBFs

— Geoffrey (@geofflapid) July 13, 2020

Some pondered whether the Boyfriend Cliff could be referring to Tellef Lundevall, who is dating Cuomo’s daughter Mariah, who was quarantined with the family in Albany. Lundevall has been the butt of a few jokes from the governor over the last few months. Still, though, why is he hanging from a cliff? What does it all mean? Let’s circle back with Twitter to find out:

the “Boyfriend Cliff” is when you date one of Cuomo’s daughters and he doesn’t like it so he draws you dying on a public poster pic.twitter.com/Ubq8m17veZ

— Katie Sicking (@KatieSicking) July 13, 2020

While the boyfriend cliff is still — and may always be — shrouded in dark mystery, Cuomo’s poster has tons to unpack that don’t involve people hanging off cliffs at all. Like, why is Donald Trump sitting alone on the moon?

Perhaps the answers to all our Pandemic Poster™ questions will be revealed once New York has fully reopened — if, you know, that ever happens. It’s hard to say if it will, though, considering our governor is so busy with his art projects.

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Five years ago, on July 13, 2015, Sandra Bland was found dead by apparent suicide in her jail cell in Waller County, Texas. Bland died only three days after she was pulled over for a routine traffic stop, at the tail end of her drive from Illinois to Texas to start a new job. Her death came during a time of extreme tension between police officers and the Black community: Freddie Gray and Natasha McKenna had died five months prior while in police custody; Tamir Rice and Mike Brown had been gunned down by officers the year before.

The circumstances surrounding Bland’s death remain unclear, with many people doubting that she died by suicide, and wondering why she was taken into custody at all. In the years since Bland’s death, activists have made a point to use the rallying cry “Say Her Name” to honor Bland, and to make sure that her life and legacy will remain a big part of the movement to end police brutality and racial injustice.

On July 10, 2015, Bland was pulled over by now-former Officer Brian Encinia for not signaling a lane change. Their interaction was captured by a 52-minute-long recording from Encinia’s vehicle’s dash camera; it showed the officer angrily confronting Bland, pointing a Taser at her, and yelling for her to get out of her vehicle and threatening to “light [her] up.”

That dash cam footage was shocking, and it was the only video of the traffic stop made available to the public until four years after Bland’s death, when a cell phone video of the stop taken by Bland herself was revealed, offering a whole new horrifying look at the encounter.

The 39-second footage from Bland’s phone, which had been previously held by investigators, shows Encinia clearly holding a taser directly up to Bland’s face while speaking to her. Throughout the video, he repeatedly tells Bland — who was only pulled over for failing to signal that she was changing lanes — to cease filming, which she refuses to do because the phone is “[her] property.”

Encinia is shown being combative and threatening, and the video made clear that the former officer’s declaration that his “safety was in jeopardy at more than one time” from Bland was false. The video also drives home an important point: The greatest visual tool against police violence and racist interactions with law enforcement is a phone video — not a police-provided body- or dash-cam.

Cell phone footage of interactions between police officers and members of the public, especially racist encounters with the Black community, have been published to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook en masse for years now. Their proliferation has made it impossible to ignore the brutality and violence faced by Black people at the hands of the police. These videos have also brought justice in situations that otherwise might have gone unnoticed or even unreported. Whether filmed by the person being assaulted, like Sean Reed or Sandra Bland, or filmed by a bystander, like George Floyd, phone cameras have forever changed how the public sees racist police violence.

Notably, when instances of violence by police officers against Black men and women don’t go recorded, they often don’t get the attention they deserve. Breonna Taylor’s death wasn’t publicly discussed until two months after she was shot and killed by police in her own home. Elijah McClain was killed by police officers in August 2019, and only gained attention in recent weeks. There was no phone video of his death, but part of his last moments were recorded on a body camera that allegedly fell off during the arrest.

The lengths authorities have gone to cover up the deaths of Black men and women have become more glaringly obvious over the years, and as heart-wrenching as it is to hear about each new case, it is necessary that they come to light, so that we all know what it is that we, as a society, are dealing with as we fight against racist authorities. While phone videos did not save the lives of Eric Garner or George Floyd or Sandra Bland, they have been instrumental in starting social justice movements and in holding police departments accountable.

Today, Sandra Bland’s name is still being invoked; the rallying cry to “say her name” is stronger than ever, as is the movement for racial justice. There is still a long way to go, but what activists are more certain of than ever is that we will have to move forward on our own terms, relying not on the videos and testimony of police officers, but on that of the people whose lives are on the line, who are fighting the fight that must still be fought — and must be won.

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Zindzi Mandela, the youngest child of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela and his second wife Winnie Mandela, died on Sunday at the age of 59. Mandela was South Africa’s ambassador to Denmark and her death was confirmed by the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation on Monday. While cause of death is still not confirmed, reports state that Mandela died in a Johannesburg hospital on Sunday evening. The country’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said in a press release that they were still in the process of gathering the details surrounding her death and would “release a detailed statement at a later stage.”

“Zindzi will not only be remembered as a daughter of our struggle heroes, Tata Nelson and Mama Winnie Mandela, but as a struggle heroine in her own right. She served South Africa well,” said Dr. Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations.

Much like her late father, Mandela spent her life actively advocating for the betterment of South Africa. The world became better acquainted with Mandela in 1985 when she read her father’s rejection letter of President P.W. Botha’s offer to release him from jail. He would later be released in 1990. Her life in the decades since have largely been occupied by political advocacy and decision-making. In a statement mourning her passing, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa noted that Mandela had, over the course of her life, acted as the “Deputy President of the Soweto Youth Congress, was a member of the Release Mandela Campaign, and was an underground operative of Umkhonto weSizwe.”

Mandela’s most well-recognized role was serving as South Africa’s ambassador to Denmark, which she’s held since 2015. She had also been named South Africa’s Head of Mission in Monrovia, Liberia.

Mandela was known to show her passion for keeping the apartheid mindset out of South Africa throughout her life. In June 2019, she took to Twitter to state “Dear Apartheid Apologists, your time is over. You will not rule again. We do not fear you. Finally #TheLandIsOurs.”

“I offer my deep condolences to the Mandela family as we mourn the passing of a fearless political activist who was a leader in her own right,” President Ramaphosa said on Monday. “Zindzi Mandela was a household name nationally and internationally, who during our years of struggle brought home the inhumanity of the apartheid system and the unshakeable resolve of our fight for freedom. After our liberation she became an icon of the task we began of transforming our society and stepping into spaces and opportunities that had been denied to generations of South Africans.”

Mandela’s death comes five days before what would’ve been her father’s birthday on July 18. He died at the age of 95 in 2013.

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Joseph DeAngelo, the man believed to be the infamous Golden State Killer, pleaded guilty on Monday to multiple counts of murder as well as charges of rape, kidnapping, and robbery for crimes dating back to 1973-1986. DeAngelo’s admission comes as part of a deal with prosecutors and California counties that will spare him the death penalty, the Washington Post reports. To date, the Golden State serial killer is one of the worst predators in history, committing a timeline of unsolved crimes that include rapes and burglaries across California.

An audience of survivors and their relatives, alongside Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman, gathered in Sacramento State University’s Union Ballroom, which acted as the hearing’s de facto courtroom in compliance with social distancing regulations. DeAngelo, now 74 and behind bars since 2018, has 13 charges of kidnapping with the intent of robbery against him and 13 murders pinned to his name. He pleaded guilty to one murder charge prior to the court’s recess and expectedly the remainder of the charges when the court returned.

“The scope of Joseph DeAngelo’s crime spree is simply staggering,” Thien Ho, assistant chief deputy District Attorney for Sacramento County, said. Ho also described DeAngelo’s self-admission in the waiting room when he was to be interviewing. He allegedly said, “I’ve done all those things, I’ve destroyed all their lives.”

The Golden State Killer, who has also been known by the names “Visalia Ransacker,” the “Diamond Knot Killer,” “the Original Night Stalker,” and the “East Area Rapist” over the years, terrorized the West Coast for 13 years, resulting in 13 murders and 50 women raped. The suspect in these crimes had evaded police forces until April 2018, when DNA found at one of the Killer’s 1980 crime scenes matched an identified relative’s online genealogy profile. At that time, Joseph DeAngelo was arrested.

A list of every charge against DeAngelo was read aloud in the makeshift courtroom on Monday, including prosecutors reading the details of his various rape charges aloud, and he agreed to plead guilty to every one of them.

Amy Holliday, the Sacramento County deputy district attorney, cited the current coronavirus pandemic as the reason why the court wanted to move forward with getting DeAngelo’s confession. Holliday also noted, according to CNN, that courts being closed throughout the state and the complications of having older prisoners in the courtroom played a role. She said in Monday’s case that, as a result of DeAngelo pleading guilty to the charges and accusations against him, he will be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.

Upon his initial arrest in 2018, DeAngelo reportedly admitted to crimes committed between 1973 and 1986, though he did not specify how many and which ones. “His monikers reflect the sweeping geographical impact of his crime,” Ho said, according to the Los Angeles Times.“Each time, he escaped — slipping away silently into the night, leaving communities terrified for years.”

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In a new win for the fight for reproductive rights, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Louisiana’s abortion law, which required doctors at clinics to have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles, was unconstitutional. The law, which first came to be in 2014, was challenged last fall by two Louisiana medical professionals and the Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport clinic. They ruled that patients seeking abortions would only have access to one doctor in the area. According to the New York Times, if this law was not overturned, it would have left the state with one single abortion clinic.

Admitting privileges have been more widely discussed within the realm of reproductive rights over the last decade, though they date back to 1986;  abortion clinics within states calling for admitting privileges must perform the procedure at the hospital, or risk closure. But this decision comes as a major victory to reproductive rights, setting a precedent for similar battles in other states.

The decision came down to a 5-4 vote, with Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Chief Justice John Roberts voting in favor to abolish the law; Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

What is perhaps most striking about Monday’s decision is that it marked the third time Chief Justice John Roberts has stood on the more progressive side of Supreme Court issues ending in a split vote in just the past two weeks. Earlier in June, he wrote in favor of upholding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and against job discrimination that impacts gay and transgender workers. This is a recent wave of progressive votes for Roberts, who was first appointed as Chief Justice in 2003 by former President George W. Bush, still does not discount his past. Bush was known throughout his presidency for his anti-abortion stance, and Roberts has a storied history of supporting conservatism in the court room.

This decision was particularly surprising given Roberts’ support for the same law in Texas. Louisiana’s law being overturned drew comparisons to Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Texas law that limited locations for patients seeking an abortion in the state. The law, then shot down by former Justice Anthony Kennedy — who sided with the Court’s known liberal judges Breyer, Sotomayor, and Ginsberg — would have taken away options for where abortions could be performed and not have reaped any medical benefits.

Now, pro-choice organizations are celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision to abolish Louisiana’s unconstitutional requirement and hoping it will create a wave of change in other states, too. Aimee Arrambide, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, said in a statement, “In my state, laws like the one struck down by the Supreme Court today devastated our communities, shutting down more than half our clinics a few short years ago, and creating massive barriers to care that persist to this day. As I celebrate today’s outcome, I also know—as all Texans do—that a Supreme Court ruling in our favor is just the beginning of our fight for justice and abortion care for all.”

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President Donald Trump is the subject of another flattering Twitter hashtag after he retweeting a video promoting white supremacy. On Sunday, the president shared a clip of a June 14 rally held in his honor at the Villages, a retirement home in Florida. In the first few second of the video, a man driving a golf cart past the group of supporters and yelling “White power!” at them. Another can be heard loudly agreeing, yelling back “Yeah, white power!” The video was up for three hours on the president’s page before it was taken down and later shared by other accounts.

Prior to deleting the tweet, Trump praised the crowd, writing “Thank you to the great people of The Villages. The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!” White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere was quick to reply to the controversial tweet, noting in a released statement that “President Trump is a big fan of the Villages. He did not hear the one statement made on the video. What he did see was tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters.”

But for the many who watched the video, the impossibly unsubtle chants of “white power” are inexcusable. As a result of Trump’s tweet and his praise of the actions caught on camera, #TrumpIsARacist began trending on the social media platform. Users slammed the president for applauding the clearly racist action, leading to a reexamination of how Trump has touted practices of fascism and white supremacy in recent months.

Trump has long looked down on communities of color going against his agenda, ignoring the cries of thousands of protestors who, for weeks, have stood against police brutality of Black people in America. However, just a few months ago, at the peak of COVID-19, Trump was praising protesters against statewide lockdowns. Those protestors, who were mostly white and donning MAGA hats, stood outside the homes of state leaders with rifles and other firearms. They made open threats and Trump referred to them in press conferences as “great people.” But examples where the president has supported white supremacy aren’t all recent either: In 2017, he called white nationalists who wreaked havoc during the Charlottesville rallies “very fine people.”

Meanwhile, after the death of George Floyd and countless other unarmed Black folks at the hands of police, Trump sided with law enforcement, threatening to call in the National Guard, and supported tear gassing and rubber bullets. He referred to Black Lives Matter protesters “hoodlums” and “anarchists,” and vowed to support the racist monuments they sought to topple over the lives lost that they continue to fight for.

Ahead of November’s presidential election, Trump supporters must now grapple with his outright racism and support of white supremacy as the country continues to see massive unrest and a cry for change.

Former Vice President and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden tweeted on Sunday in response to the video,“Today the President shared a video of people shouting “white power” and said they were “great.” Just like he did after Charlottesville. We’re in a battle for the soul of the nation — and the President has picked a side. But make no mistake: it’s a battle we will win.”

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On Monday, 19-year-old Chrystul Kizer was released from custody after the Chicago Community Bond Fund announced that they had raised enough money to pay her bail. In 2018, Kizer was charged with murder for killing Randall P. Volar, III, who was abusing and sex trafficking her in Kenosha, Wisconsin when she was 16. Kizer’s case received national attention in recent months, despite the fact that she has spent two years in custody awaiting trial.

However, after her bail bond was lowered from $1 million to $400,000, the Chicago-based organization advocated to pay it off. Teaming up with the Chrystul Kizer Defense Committee, the Milwaukee Freedom Fund, and Survived & Punished, the Chicago Community Bond Fund stated in a press release on Twitter that they were able to pay Kizer’s bail after receiving an influx of donations spurred by the Black Lives Matter movement. It wasn’t confirmed if Kizer’s bail was paid because of those specific donations, but they detailed that all excess donations would go toward helping “establish a national bail fund for criminalized survivors of domestic and sexual violence under the direction of Survived & Punished and housed at the National Bail Fund Network.”

Criminalized trafficking survivor Chrystul Kizer has been incarcerated in the Kenosha County Jail for the last two years awaiting trial.

Today, we worked with the @FreeChrystul Defense Committee & the Milwaukee Freedom Fund to pay her $400,000 bond. https://t.co/L4XMROx2by

— Chicago Community Bond Fund (@ChiBondFund) June 22, 2020

Kizer’s bail had previously been set to $1 million before being dropped to $400,000 in February by Judge David Wilk in Kenosha. During that hearing, Kizer was also offered a plea deal where, if she pleaded guilty to Volar’s death, she would be charged with felony murder and armed robbery and sentenced to 43 years in prison. But she had stood her ground that she acted out of self-defense.

Kizer, a then 17-year-old victim of human trafficking who was being abused by Valor for at least a year, was first charged with first-degree murder and arson in addition to being in possession of a firearm. In June 2018, 34-year-old Valor was found shot and killed in his home in Kenosha, Wisconsin before his entire house went up in flames. Kizer allegedly posted a photo from Valor’s home in the hours before the arson and filmed a video of herself waving a gun three days later and alluding to this murder. When confronted by police, Kizer allegedly confessed and said that “she got upset and was tired of Volar touching her” and that she had shot him.

Following Kizer’s arrest, the Kenosha Police Department revealed that Valor had been on their radar since at least early 2018 due to his involvement in human trafficking and sexually abusing underage girls. Valor’s bank account with TCF Bank had been flagged multiple times in the past and his activity was brought to the attention of the Kenosha Police Department for possible “child pornography,” Kizer’s attorney had relayed to Judge David Wilk during the trial in October 2019.

Kizer had been receiving an outpouring of support from activists and celebrities including Alyssa Milano and former human trafficking victim Cyntoia Brown-Long. Now the Kizer has been set free on bail, The Chicago Community Bond Fund — along with other advocates — explained that they would continue to fight against convictions for survivors of human trafficking.

“This traumatized child, Chrystul Kizer, enticed and abused repeatedly by Randy Volar, will continue to suffer for the rest of her life. While Chrystul will never be able to erase what Mr. Volar did to her, she now has a fighting chance to assist in the preparation of her defense to these very serious charges from outside of a jail cell,” said Jennifer Bias, Trial Division Director at the Office of the State Public Defender.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced that nine hand sanitizers currently on the market potentially contained an unsafe alcoholic ingredient and should be avoided by consumers. Methanol, a type of wood alcohol, was found in sanitizing products produced by Eskbiochem SA de CV in Mexico, the FDA revealed in a press release; the substance, they said, “can be toxic when absorbed through the skin or ingested.”

The FDA discovered the toxicity of the products while testing two brands of sanitizers produced by Eskbiochem: Lavar 70 Gel Hand Sanitizer and CleanCare No Germ, the latter of which is available with varying levels of alcohol. Lavar Gel was discovered to contain 81% methanol, and CleanCare contained 28% methanol. When the FDA reached out to Eskbiochem to remove their products from store on June 17, the company did not comply, allowing their products to remain available for purchase in a variety of locations.

FDA is now recommending that all consumers stop using Eskbiochem’s hand sanitizers as a result of their noncompliance, listing the following brands as potentially toxic: All-Clean Hand Sanitizer, Esk Biochem Hand Sanitizer, CleanCare NoGerm Advanced Hand Sanitizer 75% Alcohol, Lavar 70 Gel Hand Sanitizer, The Good Gel Antibacterial Gel Hand Sanitizer, CleanCare NoGerm Advanced Hand Sanitizer 80% Alcohol, CleanCare NoGerm Advanced Hand Sanitizer 75% Alcohol (under a different national drug code), CleanCare NoGerm Advanced Hand Sanitizer 80% Alcohol (also under a different national drug code, and Saniderm Advanced Hand Sanitizer as potentially dangerous. People who did use any of these brands are advised to seek immediate treatment and throw the product in the “appropriate hazardous waste containers.”

The ingredient in these hand sanitizers is causing wide spread speculation over potentially harmful effects. Methanol, according to the Center for Disease Control, is “a toxic alcohol that is used industrially as a solvent, pesticide, and alternative fuel source.” While the body can handle small amounts of it, usually found in fruits and vegetables and diet sodas containing aspartame, larger amounts can be dangerous to ingest. The CDC also explains that methanol entering the body through the skin, i.e. by way of hand sanitizer, equates to ingesting the poisonous alcohol orally.

In a time when clean hands are encouraged due to the coronavirus pandemic, using products with a high amount of methanol is flat out dangerous, especially when side effects of overexposure include nausea, vomiting, visual hallucinations and blindness, and kidney failure, among others. 

The FDA goes on to explain that people should be cleaning their hands with soap and water to ensure that they are clean as often as possible. If hand sanitizers are going to be used, one with at least 60% ethanol is the most effective option. Popular hand sanitizer brands that fall into that category include Purell, Equal, and Highgate. 

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A New York Police Department officer has been suspended without pay after putting a man in an illegal chokehold in Rockaway Beach on Sunday. David Afanador was later identified as the officer in question following the early morning incident on the Queens beach boardwalk where he is depicted struggling to hold down a Black man while someone screams “stop choking him bro!” Initial cell phone footage was captured by another man who was reportedly involved before the NYPD released an 11-minute body cam video of the confrontation.

The body camera footage details the moments leading up to the chokehold of 35-year-old Ricky Bellevue. Bellevue was with a group of other men who were allegedly “taunting” officers. He reportedly picked something up out of the trash, and moments later, Bellevue was tackled to the ground and surrounded by four police officers, including Afanador, who all stood and leaned over him. The cell phone camera footage, which was first seen on social media, show that while three officers handcuff Bellevue, who is lying face down on the pavement and unmoving, Afanador is seen with his arms tightly around Bellevue’s neck.

An off-screen witness is heard yelling off-screen “Yo, stop choking him, bro! He’s choking him, let him go!” repeatedly while Bellevue was being put in an “apparent chokehold,” according to CBS News. Another officer was forced to slap Afanador on the back multiple times to get him to release Bellevue’s neck, according to the footage. The cell phone camera then zooms in on Afanador’s name and badge number while the person records Bellevue’s motionless body and berates Afanador’s actions.

According to Bellevue’s attorney, he was taken to St. John’s Hospital shortly after and was treated for a laceration on his head. He faces two misdemeanor charges and a violation of disorderly conduct. Meanwhile, Afanador was suspended without pay.

Mayor Bill de Blasio later congratulated the first officer for his de-escalation, tweeting “The officer who intervened to stop his colleague did exactly the right thing. I commend him. That is what we need to see from all our officers.” He also said that this was the fastest that he had ever seen the NYPD take action against an officer.

But de Blasio’s congratulatory response seems all-too convenient. The mayor has infamously upped the number of police on the streets during mass civil protests in recent weeks, not accounting for the potential of further escalating police brutality in the process. And, although he commended the department for suspending Afanador, the officer was already in the database after being charged in 2014 for attacking a 16-year-old boy suspected of holding marijuana. According to a Times report sourcing video footage of the attack, Afanador swung his gun at the teenager’s mouth and broke his teeth. He was found not guilty in a 2016 trial.

Beyond the fact that Afanador is a repeated offender, and has still not been fired, the use of chokeholds executed by the NYPD are now illegal in New York State, with Gov. Andrew Cuomo signing that motion into law on June 12. Known officially as the “Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act,” the bill is named after Garner, who was killed in Staten Island in 2014 after being put in a fatal chokehold by former officer Daniel Pantaleo. Both Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio have voiced their disdain for the chokehold tactic in the past, with de Blasio revisiting his promise to ban chokeholds within the NYPD in the days after George Floyd’s death and prior to Cuomo’s signing.

“Chokeholds are prohibited, period,” he said during a May 31 press conference. “We’ve got to recognize when it’s a situation that is absolutely abhorrent and it does happen from time to time where an officer is fighting in a life and death struggle.” 

Despite the NYPD and de Blasio deeming this move to suspend Afanador a success, an officer with a recorded history of violence could have been removed from the police force six years prior, after he beat a teenage boy and broke his teeth. Instead, he is now the subject of breaking a chokehold ban that was barely just enacted in the state, and could have potentially led to another tragedy. “I’m just lost for words,” Councilman Donovan Richards, a Rockaway Beach representative, told the Times. “We just went through George Floyd. We see these incidents time and time again. When is it going to end?”

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One week after being reported missing by loved ones, the body of 19-year-old activist Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau was discovered in Tallahassee, Florida along with the body of 75-year-old AARP volunteer Victoria Sims. According to the police report, which was released on Monday, both Salau and Sims’ bodies were found on Saturday, June 13, on the 2100 block of Monday Road in connection with a missing persons investigation.

Salau, who was known for her support of the Black Lives Matter movement online and off, initially went missing on June 6, hours after tweeting about being sexually assaulted by a man at 5:30 a.m. that same day. Although Salau’s disappearance garnered massive online attention, her death was first confirmed publicly by her family to local outlets outlets and then by the Tallahassee Police Department in a press release late Monday morning.

The department also stated that one suspect, 49-year-old Aaron Glee Jr, was taken into custody. They also haven’t confirmed a relationship, if any, between Salau and Sims.

But in the days leading up to this discovery, advocates erupted in an effort to find Salau after she tweeted details of an alleged assault last week. Salau, an activist who had been a fixture in Black Lives Matter protests in Tallahassee since the death of George Floyd, detailed her experience being molested before she disappeared in a Twitter thread.

“I was molested in Tallahassee, Florida by a black man this morning at 5:30 on Richview and Park Ave,” Salau tweeted the morning of her disappearance. “The man offered to give me a ride to find someplace to sleep and recollect my belongings from a church I refuged to a couple days back to escape unjust living conditions.”

In her Twitter thread, the 19-year-old wrote that she went home with the man, who “came disguised as a man of God,” before informing him that she was sexually assaulted by a 32-year-old in March. According to her depiction of events, she said that the man exposed himself to her after offering her a shower, and later started rubbing her back and body “before he climaxed.”

“Once I saw he was asleep I escaped from the house and started walking from Richview Road to anywhere else,” she wrote. “Literally wearing this man’s clothes right now DNA all over me because I couldn’t locate his house the moment I called the police because I couldn’t see.”

Anyways I was molested in Tallahassee, Florida by a black man this morning at 5:30 on Richview and Park Ave. The man offered to give me a ride to find someplace to sleep and recollect my belongings from a church I refuged to a couple days back to escape unjust living conditions.

— Oluwatoyin (@virgingrltoyin) June 6, 2020

Salau’s family and friends have openly mourned the loss of their loved ones following the confirmation of her death. “I had a feeling that we were not going to find Toyin alive,” Salau’s friend, Denise Hemphill, who last saw her one day before her disappearance, told the Tallahassee Democrat on Monday. “There is no justice that can be served that will replace my sister’s life,” her brother, Oluwaseyi Salau, said.

In response to her death, advocates mourned via Twitter and other social media channels, calling Salau a “Queen,” and using the #JusticeForToyin to spread information about what happened to her. Police have not confirmed whether the suspect is the same man who allegedly molested Salau, but activists say they will continue to demand justice for Salau, who is among so many Black women that continue to experience sexual violence in the U.S.

“Toyin was a strong minded, passionate soul who was brave enough to fight against racial injustice and then came out to speak about her abuser and has now been found dead,” a petition in her name reads. “She reached out for help and she is one of the many black women that have been failed by the system.”

The Change.org petition, which you can sign here, has garnered nearly 40,000 signatures as of 2 p.m. EST on Monday, and is a direct call to action from the Tallahassee Police Department, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Senator Janet Cruz.

Refinery29 reached out to the Tallahassee Police Department for comment. We will update this story as we know more.

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Another wave of protests condemning police brutality against Black men and women occurred over the weekend following the Friday night death of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, Georgia, who was killed by two white police officers. Brooks, who was a young father, was shot and killed in a Wendy’s parking lot after being pulled over.

Brooks, who was unarmed at the time of his death, was approached police officers after reportedly sleeping in his car in the Wendy’s drive-thru on June 12. Officers Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan responded to the incident and, following an altercation between the officers, Brooks was shot. Brooks’ official cause of death, according to the autopsy report released by the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office on June 14, was a homicide caused by “two gunshot wounds of his back that created organ injuries and blood loss.”

But on Sunday, mourners got a clearer look of Rayshard Brooks’ final moments when video footage from the night of his death showed exactly what happened. According to the footage, Officers Rolfe and Brosnan pulled Brooks into a parking spot after moving him from the drive-thru line. They then performed a Breathalyzer test on him after he said he’d been drinking and was visiting his mother’s gravesite. Shortly after, Brooks was instructed to put his hands behind his head, which is where he struggled with the two officers, leading to the police officers’ body cameras falling off and only capturing a small fraction of the incident.

While only part of interaction was caught on the fallen body cameras, the remainder of the fatal struggle was caught on the officers’ dash cam, an additional camera outside of the Wendy’s restaurant, and the cell phone video of those watching nearby. The dash cam footage depicted the fight for a taser between the three men. Brooks then fled on foot around the parking lot, and, after he grabbed hold of the stun gun, police demanded he put it down. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation then released surveillance video that shows Brooks turning to point his taser at the officers and Rolfe firing at him with his handgun.

Officer Rolfe, who ultimately killed Brooks, has since been fired from his position, and Officer Brosnan has been placed on administrative duty as of Sunday. Criminal charges against both men are pending as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation further communicates with Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, according to Fox 6 News.

In the days since, the public backlash against the killing of another unarmed Black man has been swift and loud, with Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms noting during a news conference on Saturday, that “I do not believe this was a justified use of deadly force.” Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields responded to the incident by stepping down from her position, noting in a statement that she was doing so “out of a deep and abiding love for this City and this department.” Now, the city of Atlanta, and the nation, mourn Brooks’ death through vigil ceremonies and rallies that continue to take over the city streets.

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On Monday, Meghan McCain made herself the subject, once again, of internet ridicule — this time in the face of massive cries for police abolition. During a segment on The View featuring Sen. Kamala Harris, who addressed the growing movement to defund the police, McCain made it clear that she doesn’t quite understand the movement — at all.

While interviewing the California senator, McCain recalled the Minneapolis City Council’s move to disband their Police Department over the weekend before asking her outright “I want to know from you, do you support defunding and removing the police from American communities, and if not, why do you think there is such a hard time being differentiated right now between defunding and reforming police departments?”

Harris stated that the current conversation surrounding the defunding of police has to do with “reimagining how we do public safety in America,” something she supports; she then lists other ways that the U.S. can make life safer and better in its various communities, including supporting small businesses and more accessible healthcare, and how “in many cities in America, over one-third of their city budget goes to police.”

The View co-host then goes on to say that, while she doesn’t think “there’s any rational American right now that doesn’t think we need to take a cold, hard look at reforming our police,” she needs to know “Are you for defunding the police?”

“How are you defining ‘defund the police?’,” Harris questioned, to which McCain gave a flustered response: “Well, I’m not for anything remotely for that. I assume, and again, this is something that is new to me, I assume it’s removing police.”

After Harris repeatedly explained the benefit of cutting police budgets as a form of defunding the police, Sunny Hostin chimed in, saying, “Just to add to the conversation, defunding the police doesn’t mean abolishing the police. It means taking some of those funds that are typically one-third of the budget of a city and giving some of those funds to services like education and mental health resources.”

It’s clear that McCain, like many who oppose the movement to defund the police, is unaware of the implications behind it. Still, conversations around police abolition have become more and more mainstream after weeks of protests fueled from George Floyd’s death continue to span the country.

But the movement to defund is not an avoidable one, and it’s one that McCain — and many others who seem concerned about the implications of abolotion — will have to grapple with in the coming weeks, as national police budgets see major slashes. In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti proposed to direct $250 million towards the Black community, some of which would come from the LAPD; the Minneapolis City Council members who voted to abolish the city’s police department plan to see a complete change in safety systems. And other cities will grapple with the same.

While many continue to debate police reform versus defunding, it looks as though McCain is in for an education on dismantling this country’s police systems.

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