Article Writing: ‘The Observer’ Newspaper Editorial
View on the killing of George Floyd
Language and Structural Read top of Pg. 26 before you begin to read below
Analysis
__________________________ There is a dreadful familiarity about the killing of an
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__________________________ unarmed black man, George Floyd, by white police
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officers in Minneapolis last Monday. Floyd’s final
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__________________________ moments were videoed from a bystander’s phone. He
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__________________________ repeatedly pleads for mercy. His last words, “I can’t
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breathe”, have become a rallying cry for often violent
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__________________________ protests that have since shaken cities across America.
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__________________________ The fact that the US has been here before, countless,
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countless times, does not lessen the horror of this crime
__________________________ nor mitigate brutal police actions. Quite the opposite. It’s
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right that all four officers involved have been sacked. One, who kept his knee pressed
on the handcuffed Floyd’s windpipe for several minutes even though he plainly did
not pose a threat, has been charged with murder.
The widespread fury that this killing has aroused is not
unprecedented. Similar eruptions followed highprofile
police killings of black men,
including Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and
Eric Garner in New York City, both in 2014. Nearly
30 years ago, rioting in Los Angeles sparked by the
police beating of Rodney King left 63 people dead.
All the same, why does this latest incident feel
dangerously different? For three reasons. One is the
sense that increasingly militarised US police forces,
Comments on article’s tone
and cyclical structure
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which often appear remote from and antagonistic to the communities they serve,
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