While angry protests turned violent in many U.S. cities over the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, large crowds of demonstrators in cities and boroughs in our five-county Times News region expressed their rage and concern, but they did it peacefully.

We did not see any of the violence and looting that went on for days in more than 50 American cities, some right here in Pennsylvania. The destruction in nearby Philadelphia was hard to watch as peaceful protests turned ugly after dark, and fires dotted parts of the city as looters trashed big and small businesses, and demonstrators closed down major highways and bridges for a period of time.

I want to commend the protesters in Lehighton, the Stroudsburgs, Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton for carrying out the First Amendment right “of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Their cause was just, and their call for change should resonate accordingly. Anyone who has been following the George Floyd case has to be shocked to the core by what happened to this African-American man at the hands of a white police officer, the latest in a string of similar outcomes in our country’s history - including too many this century.

I also want to commend police and local and state officials in these communities who worked with protest leaders to establish ground rules to ensure peaceful and effective events which got the protesters’ main message across without the story becoming the protesters’ behavior.

Some participated by marching or addressing the crowd. U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pennsylvania, whose district includes central and northern Monroe County, and state Rep. Maureen Madden, D-Monroe, marched in the Stroudsburgs along with an estimated 1,500 others; Allentown Mayor Ray O’Connell and Allentown Councilwoman Ce-Ce Gerlach participated in the Allentown event, which brought out more than 1,000, and Gerlach, also a community activist, and Bethlehem Police Chief Mark DiLuzio were among more than 1,200 in Bethlehem.

DiLuzio said that in smaller cities, most protesters are truly moved by the death of Floyd, while in larger cities that concern is present, but it also is compromised by others who are looking for “free stuff” by engaging in looting and violence. Nearly 2,000 chanting protesters in Easton on Sunday afternoon rallied at Centre Square then marched about a half-mile to the Northampton County Courthouse.

I have seen the 1968 riots after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, the 1992 riots in Los Angeles and elsewhere after the police injuring Rodney King, and any number of other riots following the killing of African-Americans by white police officers in Ferguson, Missouri; North Charleston, South Carolina; Baltimore; New York City and elsewhere.

In each case, there were promises that things would change, and they did, but, for many, not enough. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here again.

All of us who watched the video of the police officer with his leg on George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes while three fellow officers looked on without intervening couldn’t help but think: “What could they possibly be thinking?”

The technique, called a knee restraint, involves putting a knee to a suspect’s neck while the suspect lies on his stomach. It is routinely discredited by law enforcement experts because it can lead to suffocation, just as it apparently did in Floyd’s case. Despite this, the technique is allowed in Minneapolis, although I can almost assure you that it will be banned after this horrible outcome. I also wonder about keeping his knee on the suspect’s neck for this extraordinary amount of time while the suspect was gasping for air, pleading, “I can’t breathe, officer,” and even invoking his mother’s name in desperation.

The police officer, Derek Chauvin, has been fired and as of Wednesday faces upgraded charges of second-degree murder along with the original charges of third-degree murder and manslaughter. I expect that his defense team will point to the permitted use of this technique in trying to bring about a “not guilty” verdict if the case goes to trial.

Charges of aiding and abetting murder were also filed Wednesday against the other three officers, who were fired immediately after the death.

One note of caution: The recent deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor (in Louisville, Kentucky) at the hands of white police officers might give the impression that little has changed since the “Black Lives Matter” movement took hold in 2013, but this is not true.

Since the 2014 wave of protests in Ferguson, Missouri, over the killing of Michael Brown, the number of black people killed by the police has gone down, according to data from Mapping Police Violence, as has the number of unarmed people of all races killed by police. And the number of unarmed black people killed by law enforcement has seen a sharper decline. That said, however, one such death is one too many.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com