In May 2020, Shamar Betts published an angry FB post reacting to the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. His act intersected with the Trump administration's decision to characterize the BLM protests as a national security threat and use the full weight of the Federal Courts to discredit and disrupt protests and send a chilling message to social movements challenging police violence. Shamar Betts was caught in the middle of that crackdown. Arrested by Federal agents, treated as a terrorist, imprisoned for over a year before being sentences, and finally charged with the full cost ($2 million) of property damage sustained during in his hometown of Champaign-Urbana, IL...Betts was persecuted as a symbol of the anger that swept the US in an attempt to distract attention from the problem of racial violence that led to that murder.