A video of a handcuffed black man dying while a Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck for more than five minutes sparked further rage in the United States over police treatment of African Americans on Tuesday.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey fired four police officers after George Floyd died in police custody on Monday as the suspect was pressed shirtless on an Minneapolis street, an officer’s knee on his neck.
“Your knee in my neck. I can’t breathe … Mom. Mom,” pleaded Floyd.
Bystanders filmed the scene as Floyd, in his forties, slowly became silent and motionless, unable to move even when officers taunted him to “get up and get in the car”.
He was taken to hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
Frey expressed his outrage as calls increased for officers to be prosecuted for murder.
“What I saw was wrong on every level,” he said of the video.
“For five minutes, we watched a white officer sink his knee into the neck of a black man,” said Frey.
“Being black in America shouldn’t be a death sentence.”
Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump said he was detained by Floyd’s family.
Crump said in a statement that Floyd had been arrested by the police on a forgery charge, a charge often used for making bad checks or using false banknotes for purchases.
“This abusive, excessive and inhuman use of force cost the life of a man detained by the police for interrogation without violence,” he said.
Floyd’s death was reminiscent of the 2014 sweltering death of New Yorker Eric Garner by police, who was detained for the illegal sale of cigarettes.
“Pure evil”
His death helped spark the national Black Lives Matter movement.
Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo said he had referred the matter to the FBI for investigation, which could make it a violation of federal rights.
But there were more and more calls for the arrest of officers for homicide.
“This is pure evil,” tweeted Nekima Levy Armstrong, an African American civil rights lawyer from Minneapolis.
“These same officers must be charged and convicted of murder,” she said.
Floyd’s death comes after two other African-American deaths involving police wrongdoing.
On March 13 in Louisville, three white Kentucky police officers broke into the home of a black woman, Breonna Taylor, and killed her in a drug investigation.
And police and prosecutors in Brunswick, Georgia, allegedly concealed the murder of a young black jogger by the son of a retired investigator for local law enforcement.
The police allegedly hid for two months a video showing Ahmaud Arbery, 25, followed, then shot with a shotgun in broad daylight.
The families of Arbery and Taylor are also represented by Crump.
The American Civil Liberties Union said that the Minneapolis affair showed that US police continue to apply harsh treatment to African Americans charged with minor charges.
“This tragic video shows how little significant change has taken place to keep the police from killing blacks,” said Paige Fernandez, ACLU police specialist.
“Even in places like Minneapolis, where chokeholds are technically prohibited, blacks are targeted by the police for minor crimes and are subjected to unreasonable and unnecessary violence,” she said in a statement.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
