El Paso Officer Kneels in Solidarity with George Floyd Protesters

As you've seen over the past few days, protests are happening all over the U.S. in response to the death of a man by the name of George Floyd at the hands – or, more appropriately, the knee – of a Minneapolis police officer.

At many gatherings across the country, police officers have knelt with demonstrators – including here in El Paso.

The Instagram account FitFam El Paso published video of a police officer taking a knee “in solidarity with protesters” in front of what the caption refers to as “headquarters”.

The recording shows the LEO, identified as an EPPD officer, kneeling and bowing his head as the crowd cheers loudly in recognition of his peaceful gesture. The video then cuts to the officer, still kneeling, and a female protestor hugging it out before the clip abruptly ends.

The moving scene took place “while tensions rose just a few blocks away,” according to the caption. The sentence is a reference to the melee in Memorial Park where police and protesters clashed after water bottles were thrown at police and police responded with tear gas to disperse the crowd.

And while the mostly peaceful protest did devolve into a short-lived skirmish with police near the end, it never rose to the level of anarchy like those that graced your TV screen all weekend where vandalism, looting, and the burning of police cars was the order of the day.