Mayor: Officer who put knee on man's neck should be charged
MINNEAPOLIS — The mayor of Minneapolis called Wednesday for criminal charges to be filed against the white police officer seen on video kneeling against the neck of a handcuffed black man who complained that he could not breathe and died in police custody.
Based on the video, Mayor Jacob Frey said officer Derek Chauvin should be charged in the death of George Floyd. The footage recorded by a bystander shows Chauvin with his knee on Floyd's neck for several minutes as Floyd is gasping for breath on the ground with his face against the pavement.
“I've wrestled with, more than anything else over the last 36 hours, one fundamental question: Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?” said Frey, who is white.
He later added: “I saw no threat. I saw nothing that would signal that this kind of force was necessary.”
The day after Floyd died, Chauvin and three other officers were fired — an act that did not stem the flood of anger that followed the widely seen video shot on Memorial Day outside a Minneapolis convenience store.
Protesters marched more than 2 miles Tuesday to the police precinct in that part of the city, with some damaging property and skirmishing with officers in riot gear who fired tear gas. A smaller protest was underway Wednesday at the same precinct, and another demonstration was planned for later in the day in the suburban neighborhood where Chauvin was believed to live.
Many activists, citizens and celebrities called for criminal charges before Frey did. But Floyd's family and the community may have to wait months, if not years, before investigations are complete.
Floyd family attorney Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights lawyer, called for peaceful protests.
“We cannot sink to the level of our oppressors, and we must not endanger others during this pandemic,” he said in a statement. “We will demand and ultimately force lasting change by shining a light on treatment that is horrific and unacceptable and by winning justice.”
Floyd' s death and the recent uproar over the death of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia have reopened the divide between minority communities and police that grew to a national uproar following the 2014 killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, the 2015 killing of Freddie Gray and others.
Speaking to reporters at Cape Canaveral, Florida, President Donald Trump called the arrest in Minneapolis “a very, very sad event” and said his administration was going to “look at it.” The president was in Florida for the scheduled launch of a SpaceX rocket, which was later canceled because of threatening weather.
Democratic pres id ential nominee Joe Biden said the arrest was “part of an ingrained, systemic cycle of injustice that still exists in this country” and “cuts at the very heart of our sacred belief that all Americans are equal in rights.”
It also “sends a very clear message to the black community and black lives that are under threat every single day,” Biden added, saying he was glad the mayor and the police department fired the officers, “but I don't think that's enough.”