Kanye West donated $2 million to the legal teams of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, and has created a 529 college savings plan for Floyd’s 6-year-old daughter Gianna.
West isn’t much of a social media person these days, so he didn’t mention anything about the $2 million donation on Twitter, and his Instagram page is no longer up. A representative for West, however, reportedly has confirmed the donations.
The GOOD Music founder is also giving money to a group of Black-owned businesses in his native Chicago and other U.S. cities whose businesses have been affected during the current nationwide protests.
The deaths of Floyd, Arbery, and Taylor, all Black people, have been linked together during the protests, with protesters demanding justice for all three. The protests began after Floyd died during an arrest when then Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on his neck for almost nine minutes.
Arbery was killed on Feb. 23 in Brunswick, Georgia, by Gregory and Travis McMichael, two white men who are father and son. Arbery was unarmed and jogging at the time, and the father and son pursued him in a pickup truck.
After struggling over a shotgun with Travis McMichael, Arbery was shot three times. The pair was arrested on May 7 and William “Roddie” Bryan, who filmed the shooting, was arrested two weeks later.
Taylor was killed by police after three plainclothes officers from the Louisville Metro Police Department barged into her apartment on a no-knock search warrant on a drug raid in March.
Taylor’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker said that he didn’t know the people storming in were officers and shot back, hitting one of them in the leg. Returning fire, the officers killed Taylor by shooting her eight times. Authorities didn’t find any drugs in the apartment.
In Minneapolis, third-degree murder charges for Chauvin were upgraded to second-degree murder on June 3. On that same day, charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder were announced for three other officers who were present during the arrest: Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thao.
