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Black & Blue: Life on the front lines with KPD's Black officers

In the months after George Floyd's death at the hands of a White police officer, KPD's Black officers who are living and serving in this moment.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — If you’re ever pulled over by the cops, chances are those bright blue lights will shine on a White face. 

That's what happened on May 25, 2020, when a White police officer pulled over George Floyd in Minneapolis. 

The officer knelt on Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, killing him as he cried out for his mother. 

George Floyd joined the growing list of unarmed Black men killed by White police officers in the United States of America. 

In the months after his gruesome death on camera though, new life has been given to a movement around the world. 

It is a movement that questions police brutality, the use of force. It questions systemic inequities, and examines daily cruelties Black people face especially in the United States.  

It is a movement that scrapes at the 400-year-old wound that never fully healed in our country - racism.

It  has also served as a reckoning of sorts for thousands of Black police officers across the country. 

In Knoxville, 367 officers serve with the Knoxville Police Department. 22 are Black.

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