IN EAST & WEST, MARCH FOR RIGHTS
Minneapolis: Police, protesters clash over black man’s death
Minneapolis cops in riot gear fired rubber bullets at thousands of defiant protesters who took to the streets to demand justice for George Floyd, the black man who died after a white officer was filmed kneeling on his neck during his arrest.
Demonstrators carrying placards reading 'I can't breathe' and 'Justice 4 Floyd' surrounded a police precinct Tuesday night after the disturbing video of 46-year-old Floyd begging the cop to stop before falling unconscious was shared online, according to Daily Mail reports.
Four Minneapolis officers involved in the arrest of a black man who died in police custody have been fired, hours after a bystander's video showed an officer kneeling on the handcuffed man's neck, even after he pleaded that he could not breathe and stopped moving.
Mayor Jacob Frey announced the firings on Twitter on Tuesday, saying "This is the right call." The man's death Monday night was under investigation by the FBI and state law enforcement authorities. It immediately drew comparisons to the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died in 2014 in New York after he was placed in a chokehold by police and pleaded for his life, saying he could not breathe.
In a post on his Facebook page, Frey apologized Tuesday to the black community for the officer's treatment of the man, who was later identified as 46year-old George Floyd, who worked security at a restaurant.
"Being Black in America should not be a death sentence. For five minutes, we watched a white officer press his knee into a Black man's neck. Five minutes. When you hear someone calling for help, you're supposed to help. This officer failed in the most basic, human sense," Frey posted.
Police said the man matched the description of a suspect in a forgery case at a grocery store, and that he resisted arrest. The video starts with the shirtless man on the ground, and does not show what happened in the moments prior. The unidentified officer is kneeling on his neck, ignoring his pleas. "Please, please, please, I can't breathe. Please, man," said Floyd, who has his face against the pavement.
Floyd also moans. One of the officers tells him to "relax." The man calls for his mother and says: "My stomach hurts, my neck hurts, everything hurts ... I can't breathe." As bystanders shout their concern, one officer says, "He's talking, so he's breathing." But Floyd stops talking and slowly becomes motionless under the officer's restraint. The officer does not remove his knee until the man is loaded onto a gurney by paramedics.