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On May 26th, riots took place in the city of Minneapolis after George Floyd, a black man, was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck as he lay on the ground during an arrest. Footage of the incident showed Floyd shouting “I cannot breathe” and “Don’t kill me!”
Demonstrators and police clashed on the intersection where the man was killed.
A large and diverse crowd had gathered at the start of the protest, with some carrying signs reading “I can’t breathe” and “Jail killer KKKops” and chanting “Prosecute the police.”
Just before I interviewed this man across the street from the third precinct, one of the officers in riot gear walked down the line of police chanting something close to "Take the precinct back," as if he were trying to pump them up. They repeated it, like a call and response. pic.twitter.com/OIjqUFb5zK
— Jared Goyette (@JaredGoyette) May 27, 2020
The police responded with flash bangs, riot gear and tear gas.
Flash bang rounds and tear gas #GeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/doSdFdjeTt
— Brandon Long (King of Westeros) (@BLongStPaul) May 27, 2020
So much tear gas. pic.twitter.com/mEW2lwqB7c
— Evan Frost (@efrostee) May 27, 2020
Lots of police reinforcements. Seem to be holding a line in the precinct parking lot. Protests crowds on Lake st moving back in. @MPRnews pic.twitter.com/HGbQ36scTs
— Evan Frost (@efrostee) May 27, 2020
George Floyd died late on May 25th, when officers responded to a call from a grocery store that claimed Floyd had used a forged check. Police said Floyd “physically resisted officers” while possibly under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
In the video footage, witnesses can be heard shouting at officers to get off Floyd’s neck. One yells: “Bro, he’s not even fucking moving!” Another asks if “you’re going to just sit there with your knee on his neck?”
In a press conference on May 26th, Minneapolis police confirmed he “died a short time” after a “medical incident”, after being transported to hospital.
“[They] were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and realized that the suspect was suffering a medical distress,” a spokesman said, saying officers “called for an ambulance”.
Jacob Frey, mayor of Minneapolis apologized to Floyd’s family, saying that he “should not have died.”
“For five minutes we watched as a white officer pressed his knee to the neck of a black man,” Frey said. “For five minutes. This officer failed in the most basic human sense.
On May 26th, the FBI announced it had launched an investigation into the death, for possible civil rights violations, four police officers involved in the incident have been fired from the force.
Four responding MPD officers involved in the death of George Floyd have been terminated.
This is the right call.
— Mayor Jacob Frey (@MayorFrey) May 26, 2020
Floyd’s family retained the prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who in a statement said Floyd’s death was the result of “abusive, excessive and inhumane use of force”.
“We will seek justice for the family of George Floyd, as we demand answers from the Minnesota police department,” Crump said. “How many ‘while black’ deaths will it take until the racial profiling and undervaluing of black lives by police finally ends?”
The mayor of St Paul, Melvin Carter, called the footage of “a defenseless, handcuffed man one of the most vile and heartbreaking images” he had ever seen.
The video of a Minneapolis police officer killing a defenseless, handcuffed man is one of the most vile and heartbreaking images I’ve ever seen. The officer who stood guard is just as responsible as his partner; both must be held fully accountable. This must stop now.
— Mayor Melvin Carter (@MayorCarter) May 26, 2020
Minneapolis city council member Andrea Jenkins said in a statement the community “must demand answers” as it “continues to be traumatized again, and again and again”.
Earlier, back in 2016, 32-year-old Philando Castile, who was black, was shot and killed by a St Anthony police officer during a traffic stop. Footage of the incident also went viral online.
The officer, Jeronimo Yanez, who is Latino, was acquitted of a second-degree manslaughter charge and two counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm.
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US is a failed racist society bankrupt at every level and lacking the most basic moral compass. The African Americans were enslaved and subjected to the worst kind of racism since then. It is unbelievable that Black people are being killed in the streets by the corrupt racist US police state without any cause. There is no difference between the Apartheid era or current Zionist genocide of Palestinians.
That’s why they keep coming, to be enslaved.
Actually, no educated person now goes to the shithole, mostly Latins come as it is their country anyway.
Yankee state is the most racist in the world
Last time I checked “Latins” were of European origin.
Yeah, amerindians were speaking latin
Natives and white Irish were slaves well before the black slave trade And it wasn’t the United States that started this slave trade but western European countries most notably in this case Britain.
You should look up the Tuskegee experiment. Absolute evil.
The only thing worse than the stupidity, selfishness or malevolence of an individual is that of those in power.
US system is built on racism, injustice and violence as well as exploitation of the weak and vulnerable and hence has sown the seeds of its own destruction.
The US system is built for the wealthy It has nothing to do with race, it is a class war.
“Democracy”
Democracy at home with bullets for blacks, in rest of the world by dropping bombs.
Exactly. They are doing dirty work for Zionist scumbags.
Russia and China should arm the oppressed native population, Hispanics and African Americans so that can liberate themselves from the murderous WASP and Zionist cunts.
Waiting for my AK-74. Come on Russia, I want one. ;)
This is an almost daily occurrence in the US. Which shows how the judicial system doesn’t work and the government doesn’t fix it.
This happened not only because he was black, though that makes the cowardly police nervous from the start, but probably more due to the fact that he resisted. What did the officer interpret as resistance? Did the man argue? Get defensive? Give him a bad look? Tell the hyper authoritarian prick to f off? You can see that in a one-on-one with no blue shield to hide behind the dead man would have crushed the cop, but the badge is the shield of these weaklings, and we all know one, no matter how deserving, that if we touch one the rest of the bastards in blue will pound the tar out of you and get away with it. If they are successfully sued it is still us that pays for it, not the a’hole that commits the brutality. This is something we can all expect to happen to us if we resist in the slightest, no matter our skin color. Civilians are not the masters though we supply the pay for their checks. We are the prisoners. And everyday it gets worse.
The 2nd is there for a reason. I’m waiting for when the last shoe drops.
This police brutality happens all the time. Why is it only publicized when it is a black person?
1st point I would like to make is that the Gestapo forces in the United States kill far more white people then they do black people. Both working classes need to unite against this Terrorism.
Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an Arresting officers life if necessary. Plumber versus state, 136 Indiana. 306. This premise was upheld by the supreme court of the United States in the case of John bad elk versus US, 177US529.