Background: Police brutality and race protests in the U.S.

George Floyd, the African American who died on May 25 after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, has become a fresh symbol of police brutality against blacks in the U.S. 

Benjamin Crump, the lawyer for the family of Floyd on Thursday said it was "the pandemic of racism and discrimination" that killed Floyd. 

Floyd's death has sparked protest nationwide and some has turned violent. The situation is like a déjà vu as the "pandemic of racism" has been rooted in the U.S. society for a long while.

Black deaths caused by police 

About one in every 1,000 black men will be killed by the police in the U.S., a tragedy 2.5 times more likely to happen than to a white man, according to a study published by the National Academy of Science journal in 2019. 

"Mapping Police Violence," a research and advocacy group, found that in 2019, 24 percent of killings were of black Americans, despite only making up 13 percent of the U.S. population. Rates in cities like New York and Washington DC, where the black population accounts for nearly 50 percent, even reached 88 percent.

The research also noted that 99 percent of all officers involved in police killing cases were not charged.

Click here for some of the major cases from 2014 onward.