FLOYD IMAGE WITH “YOU TAKE MY BREATH AWAY” PROMPTS INQUIRY

The Los Angeles Police Department has opened an internal investigation after an inappropriate image of George Floyd, the man killed in police custody in Minneapolis last year, was reported to have been circulated in the department, officials said.

The image was styled in an unspecified Valentine-like format with the words “You take my breath away,” according to an internal memo posted on Twitter and what Chief Michel Moore told The Los Angeles Times on Saturday.

“The department is aware of the inappropriate post and a complaint has been initiated, and, due to personnel matters, we are unable to comment further,” said Officer Rosario Cervantes, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department. Another spokeswoman, Stacy D. Spell, confirmed that “an administrative personnel investigation has been initiated” but that she could not comment on its specific details.

Floyd, a Black man, died in May after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground under the knee of Derek Chauvin, who was then a police officer in Minneapolis, for more than nine minutes. In video footage, Floyd can be heard uttering the words “I can’t breathe” more than 20 times.

The Police Department said on Twitter on Saturday that it was aware of suggestions that the image of Floyd “was being passed around the department and this image was in the workplace” and that it might have been “authored by a department employee.”