THE VALUE OF SURVEILLANCE:

It was a member of the public who filmed George Floyd grasping for breath as a white Minneapolis policeman pressed his knee on Floyd's neck for at least five minutes on Monday.

Floyd went still and was later declared dead in hospital. Four police officers were fired from their jobs but remain free and the city has had three nights of angry protests.

"If we did not have a video, would the officers have been fired as quickly?" Ibram Kendi, director of the American University's anti-racism research center, asked in an interview with Democracy Now! "Would they have believed all of those witnesses who were looking at what was happening and who was the asking officers to stop?"

In the second incident, a white woman falsely reported Christian Cooper, an avid birdwatcher, to police after he requested that she leash her dog in a wooded area of New York's Central Park.

"I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life," she told Cooper as he filmed her dial 911 in a video that has been viewed over 43 million times on Twitter.

In February, Ahmaud Arbery -- also African American -- was shot and killed by two white residents while jogging in their neighborhood in Georgia.

A third man, who was later also charged over Arbery's death, filmed the murder, with the cellphone video sparking outrage when it was leaked onto social media earlier this month.

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