RACE RIOT FURY
Black suspect dies after policeman ‘knelt on his neck for 8 minutes’
VIOLENT clashes have erupted in the US over a black suspect who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for as long as eight minutes.
Officers in the northern city of Minneapolis had to fire tear gas and flash grenades as thousands of protesters surrounded a police station.
Demonstrators carrying placards reading ‘I can’t breathe’ and ‘Justice 4 Floyd’ gathered after a disturbing video of 46-year-old George Floyd begging an officer to loosen his hold was shared online. He is heard saying: ‘I can’t breathe.’
The four members of the Minneapolis Police Department involved in the arrest have been fired, and the FBI and state authorities have begun an investigation. The victim’s family have called for the officers to be charged with murder and their lawyer said one, Derek Chauvin, knelt on Mr Floyd’s neck for eight minutes during an arrest for forgery on Monday.
Mayor Jacob Frey tweeted: ‘This is the right call. Being black in America should not be a death sentence.’ Protests began in the afternoon on Tuesday, when thousands gathered at the intersection where the arrest took place.
A crowd later marched to the 3rd Precinct, where the officers involved in the case are thought to have worked, and began hurling rocks and vandalising cars. A protester told CBS: ‘It’s real ugly. The police have to understand this is the climate they have created.’
Mr Floyd worked as a security guard at Conga Latin Bistro. The bar’s owners described him as a ‘very calm, nice guy’.
Police had been called to reports of a fraud and found Mr Floyd sitting in his car. They said he fitted the description of the suspect but had resisted arrest.
Claims of police brutality triggered the Black Lives Matter movement. The deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York in 2014 sparked huge protests.