Four Minneapolis police officers who were allegedly involved in the death of a man in custody Monday night have been fired.
The man, identified by prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump as George Floyd, died after appearing to be placed in a chokehold by police. Officers were responding to reports of a forgery in progress on Memorial Day evening and described Floyd as resisting arrest.
Floyd, according to police, also “appeared to be suffering medical distress.”
At a news conference Tuesday morning, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the incident is “wrong on every level” and “does not reflect the values of MPD,” according to reporter Christiane Cordero.
Police responding to the call, around 8 p.m., were advised the suspect was sitting on top of a blue car and appeared to be under the influence.
Police said two officers arrived and located Floyd, who they said ordered to get out of his car.
Officers eventually handcuffed Floyd, and police said he “appeared to be suffering medical distress.
“Officers called for an ambulance. He was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center by ambulance where he died a short time later,” the Minneapolis Police Department said, adding “at no time were weapons of any type used by anyone involved in this incident.”
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No officers were injured, and police said body cameras were on.
A video of the incident, captured by Darnella Frazier and uploaded to Facebook but no longer available, begins with the man groaning and saying repeatedly, “I can’t breathe” to an officer with his knee on the man’s neck.
Several witnesses had gathered on a nearby sidewalk, with some recording on their phones. Bystanders became increasingly agitated as the man pleaded with police. One bystander tells officers that they need to let him breathe. Another yells at them to check the man's pulse.
Asked by reporters about the use of the knee on the man's neck, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said the department has “policies in place regarding placing someone under control” that “will be part of the full investigation we’ll do internally.”
Two of the officers involved have been put on paid administrative leave, the department said.
Also on Tuesday morning, the Twitter hashtags, #JusticeForFloyd and #icantbreathe were trending.
Floyd’s death has drawn 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.
The New York City officer in the Garner case said he was using a legal maneuver called “the seatbelt” to bring down Garner, whom police said had been resisting arrest. But the medical examiner referred to it as a chokehold in the autopsy report and said it contributed to his death. Chokehold maneuvers are banned under New York police policy.
In Minneapolis, kneeling on a suspect's neck is allowed under the department’s use-of-force policy for officers who have received training in how to compress a neck without applying direct pressure to the airway. It is considered a “non-deadly force option,” according to the department’s policy handbook.
A chokehold is considered a deadly force option and involves someone obstructing the airway. According to the department’s use-of-force policy, officers are to use only an amount of force necessary that would be objectively reasonable.
The police union asked the public to wait for the investigation to take its course and not to “rush to judgment and immediately condemn our officers." The Hennepin County Attorney's Office, which would handle any prosecution of police on state charges, said in a statement that it was “shocked and saddened” by the video and pledged to handle the case fairly. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota declined comment.
Nekima Levy-Armstrong, a prominent local activist, told the Star Tribune that watching the footage that was shared on social media made her “sick to her stomach” and reminded her of the Garner case. A grand jury later decided against indicting the officers involved in Garner's death, sparking protests around the country.
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