Restrained Black Man Killed by Police Outside Store, Sparks George Floyd Comparisons Amid Protests

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]We'll begin with the protests. They're breaking out after Congalles man is murdered by police in Ireland. Here it is.

[00:00:22]I didn't >> make me feel bad. I couldn't sleep at night. It made me I I just repeat watching it time over time. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. It's just like a nightmare.

[00:00:40]And I was trying to think why why this excessive force. Why?

[00:00:48]>> The fact that even if he was shoplifting, it's a dreadful thing to happen. It is awful. And I think we were we we are really racist >> with that. I saw colleagues doing that and I find after >> silence, >> no more silence.

[00:01:12]>> You don't see this for children. You see this in um you see this in sorts of American things like that.

[00:01:19]>> We we call this a George Josh George Floyd moment because it happened the same situation, same incident. Like >> I can't believe it happened in America 2020 and then happened in Ireland.

[00:01:31]>> You look at that video, it literally is like a reenactment of what happened to Joyce George Floyd.

[00:01:36]>> You see that? And did you hear that America? It's happened again. Uh, and they're looking at us not as uh from a position of love or understanding, but racism. This is Ireland. How could it happen?

[00:01:51]As you saw in the footage, a 35-year-old man, Eve Squila was detained by Dublin security guards after being accused of shoplifting. Happened last Friday evening. He was held on the ground by a number of guards for nearly 5 minutes.

[00:02:08]In the video, you can see one of them kneel on his head or neck. He became unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. Erily similar.

[00:02:20]John Gerald Cullen, who is representing the Tequila family, said he had been told that a corner's or a pathologist report was carried out last Saturday.

[00:02:30]Ordinarily, the results of that preliminary report should be made available to the family within 24 hours, he added, quoting, "There seems to have been an extraordinarily disproportionate use of violence. What we are looking for is just and a proper forensic injury, inquiry, rather, a forensic inquiry into this case that from the Irish Times." He said the apparent withholding of information about Tequila's death was disquing, potentially a breach of the Victims of Crime Act. Cullen went on to say that the family were told some sort of a vague story that Squila died 20 minutes after the whole event. That would mean he would have been in police custody. Cullen also said that members of the family were asked to provide DNA samples, but not given any reason why they should do that. Let's get to the reactions. Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin has called for a thorough investigation. The full circumstances of what happened need to be examined and investigated fully and thoroughly.

[00:03:36]Situation is deeply concerning. Martin told Parliament on Tuesday.

[00:03:42]Irish Network Against Racism expressed concern too that excessive force may have been used against Mr. Tequila. said in a statement that the death of a black man in such circumstances is extremely worrying.

[00:03:55]Laura Zoya, vice president of the congalles community and Ireland group said its members who she said were among the first black communities to move to Ireland were shocked, disturbed, and no longer felt safe. Mr. Squila, whom police said was in his 30s, moved to Ireland when he was very young. She added, "The Ireland that they knew 30 years ago was no longer the same." Miss Zoya told National Broadcaster RTE.

[00:04:25]Little more context for you. There has been a sharp rise in anti-immigrant protests in Ireland in recent years.

[00:04:33]Anti-immigrant activists helped trigger largecale rioting in central Dublin in 2023, which is close to where Mr. Squila died.

[00:04:44]um gut-wrenching, disturbing, traumatic as uh that video and the people speaking in it represented. Jamie, for them to reference George Floyd, which people in this country often refer to as a moment of reckoning, uh we know that what has happened since and before perhaps maybe contextually does not make that the moment, but it was one that the world paid attention to. But the fact that people in Ireland had to experience this, the Zakquila family had to see this and now similar I would say to George Floyd who we were told was, you know, that sudden black man syndrome, whatever they call it, that sudden thing where you just drop dead and the police had nothing to do with it. Um, this family is now experiencing uh something similar. What say you about what we heard and what we saw?

[00:05:34]>> Well, you know, a I don't think it shocks any person in America. Uh well, it may shock half of America to find out that we have a terrible terrible reputation on the global uh I guess stream of consciousness. Uh we have we have a reputation for having terrible healthcare here. Uh and now or maybe not now, maybe for always we have the reputation of killing unarmed black men uh through the state. Um, and I know many people will not be bothered by that fact because if they were bothered by the fact we wouldn't be doing it still, but till, you know, George Floyd was unfortunately not the latest example of that. It happened probably 15 times since his death. Um, you know, this is wrong and it's racist and and I don't want to hear governmental officials, you know, they're denouncing it and they're addressing it, but call it what it is.

[00:06:26]This is racism. This is racism through and through. is racism or we have people who are in positions of power and it may be discomforting for some people to uh come to that realization who are oblivious I guess but it is that is exactly what it is. It is racist.

[00:06:40]They killed if he was a a white man a person of European descent he would not been killed that way. He would have died. He would have he would got arrested for whatever it is he did or didn't do and he would have been booked into custody and he been perfectly fine.

[00:06:54]his family gets to go on having that relative as a living member of the family tree. But because he's black man, he gets killed and he gets killed in a violent inhumane way in front of hundreds if not thousands of people in person and definitely on the internet. I have a conversation often times with folks, my aunt in particular, uh who because we're I'm in Alabama and there's a bunch of crazy stuff going on in Alabama in the south and I tell her and I tell everybody that brings this up, you cannot outrun racism. You cannot outrun fascism. It is a cancer. It grows and it spreads. That's why I one of the reasons I have stayed in this state because there needs to be somebody on the front line of it because if you move clean across the the country, it's going to catch on. So the Trump the Trump MAGA movement is one that I'm familiar with even before there was a Trump cuz it was here and it didn't sit quietly.

[00:07:44]It grew and grew and spread and spread and spread. So you have to head this kind of stuff on face on and there's no way that you can escape it. Moving across the the sea doesn't escape it.

[00:07:55]You know, in these European nations that are supposed to be these these progressive havens, they experience racism just like they do here. We do here.

[00:08:02]>> Yeah. There's the internet, there's international travel, there's oh yeah, colonialism and what was there before any of Trump. Um, here's what I'm resenting more and more beyond the outright killing of another young black man 30 years old. Come on, in his 30s is we're in this precarious position where the pause to investigate is is used against us. Right? You said call it what it is. It's actually as if we're telling the public, telling us don't believe what your eyes see. We have to wait for a certain amount of time in an investigation. And investigation's fine.

[00:08:41]Find out every little detail. Who did what, who was holding his hands, who was on the net, all that's great, but at the end of the day, we saw what we saw. And I tend to think, and I'll give you the last word, Jamie, that a lot of this investigating is really just a pause for the temperature to come on down and so you can move on to the next.

[00:09:01]>> Absolutely. It's the same same response like they do after every school shooting. Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers. And for 30 years, we've been thinking and praying. Thinking and praying. I, you know, I I'm a firm believer in action.

[00:09:15]Um, and I think being saying the polit correct thing doesn't fix the problem.

[00:09:21]Uh, you know, I I don't give a rip. You if you are kind of person that I don't like people trying to plate me. I don't like people trying to search for the answer that they think I want to hear. I want you to do something. Tell me that this was racism. So I rec that I recognize that you recognize the problem. And then take an action.

[00:09:38]>> Tell me that the there's a reform in the way that your officers educated. Don't tell me they have to now sit through a 30 minute desensitivity course because you shouldn't have to sit through some kind of course to know not to kneel on somebody's neck for a prolonged period of time. You shouldn't. And they they don't they don't need that because you don't see them do it to white people.

[00:09:57]>> Yeah. And so there's no Go ahead.

[00:10:00]>> No, I was going to say you're absolutely right. It's like we've fallen into this thing. Where's where's the emergency? A black man has been in front of our very eyes snuffed out and it's like there's doesn't seem to be an emergency to make sure this doesn't happen again. Like we got have a race here. This is a public health crisis. This is an epidemic.

[00:10:20]>> Well, what did he what was the last guy you said? He said the the killing of an unarmed black man is worrying. No.

[00:10:30]Okay. Well, thank you for for that, Sherlock. It's worrying. You know, this is a little problematic. You know, we're going to have to send a strongly worded letter.

[00:10:39]>> Yeah, I agree with you 100%. We'll keep following the situation out of um Ireland. We wish the Squila family the best, which is it's for hollow to even say didn't have to happen. And we don't want to see uh we don't want to hear anymore slow singing and flower bringing.