Four Minneapolis cops sacked after black man died after officer knelt on neck
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TOP LINE
Four officers were fired from the Minneapolis Police Department on Tuesday after being implicated in the Monday night arrest of a black man who died after an officer pinned him to the ground by a knee in his neck as the man shouted “I can’t breathe,” shown in a video of the incident that surfaced on social media.
A protester prays outside the memorial to George Floyd on Tuesday, who died after a clash with … [+]
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HIGHLIGHTS
The video, recorded by a passer-by, shows a white policeman resting a knee on the man’s neck, identified as George floyd, for about eight minutes as he lies handcuffed to the ground like horrified onlookers plead with the police to stop.
Floyd appears to be unresponsive and is taken on a stretcher by paramedics.
The officers involved were responding to a report of an ongoing fake in southern Minneapolis just after 8 p.m. when they found Floyd sitting in his car, according to a Tuesday declaration from the Minneapolis Police Department.
Floyd exited the vehicle when asked to do so, but then “physically resisted the officers,” the police department said. The officers thought that Floyd was “in pain medical distress ”, and called an ambulance to take him to hospital, where he died shortly thereafter.
Darnella Fraziern, a witness at the scene, told NBC News that Floyd was “clearly trying to tell them he couldn’t breathe” as he was immobilized, adding that “[the police] ignored him.”
Minneapolis Police Department First request an independent investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and subsequently contacted the FBI after the force received additional information indicating that the incident “could be a matter of civil rightsPolice chief Medaria Arradondo said on Tuesday.
Floyd’s family reportedly retained the benefits of Benjamin crump, a well-known civil rights lawyer who previously represented the family of Michael Brown, a black teenager whose 2014 murder by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, helped propel the Black Lives Matter movement to national prominence.
Arradondo announced that four officers involved in the incident had been fired On Tuesday afternoon, what Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said was “the right decision.”
TANGENT
The video drew wide condemnation from social media users and local officials, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey denouncing the officer involved, saying he “failed in the most basic human sense.” Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Who has been criticized for in decline to prosecute officers involved in the fatal shootings of black men while she was a prosecutor, said it was a “tragic loss of life” and called for a “close examination outside investigation. Melvin Carter, the mayor of nearby St. Paul, Minnesota, called the clip “one of the most vile and heartbreaking images [he’d] never seen ”, adding that“ the officer who stood guard is just as responsible as his partner; both must be held fully indebted. “
KEY CONTEXT
The incident echoes the death of Eric Garner, who gasped “I can’t breathe” as a New York police officer held him in a choke as spectators filmed in 2014. Video of the Minneapolis case went viral the same day it was released. a clip of a white woman threatening to call the police on a black man in Central Park in New York City after he asked him to put his dog on a leash.
FURTHER READING
FBI, BCA investigate death of man in custody in south Minneapolis (Star Tribune)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on death of man in custody: “This man shouldn’t have died” (Bring me the news)
‘I can’t breathe’: man dies after pleading with officer when arrested in Minneapolis (NBC News)