White police officer kills black man after holding him to the ground by his neck
A black man in Minneapolis has died at the hands of a white police officer, further contributing to the tragic pandemic of police brutality against black men in America. Just hours after a white woman went viral for calling the cops on a black man who asked her to leash her dog in Central Park, another story of racism against black men in America comes to light. A black man was arrested outside a grocery store in Minneapolis on Monday night and was pinned to the ground by the neck by a white police officer and held there under the officer’s knee until he became unresponsive and later died.
The incident was filmed and shared on social media and shows the man, identified as George Floyd, handcuffed on the ground, yelling for help, while the white arresting officer, who has been identified on social media as Derek Chauvin, forces his neck to the ground with his knee.
Floyd shouts “Please, please, I can’t breathe. Please, man, please,” and “I can’t move. Everything hurts. Give me some water or something, please. I can’t breathe, officer.” The video shows Chauvin holding his knee against the man’s neck for eight minutes.
Eventually, Floyd’s body goes slack as onlookers scream for help. Despite this and despite the fact that Floyd was completely unresponsive, Chauvin continues to hold Floyd down by his neck and insisted to the crowd that he was “fine.” Eventually, paramedics arrive and remove Floyd on a gurney.
If this wasn’t horrifying enough, the Minneapolis police’s description of the murder does not match what is clearly witnessed in the video, including their claim that Floyd died at the hospital.
“He was ordered to step from the car,” the police statement read. “After he got out he physically resisted officers… officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and the officers noticed the male was going into medical distress.”
Per KSTP, Lloyd’s family has retained civil-rights attorney Benjamin Crump and Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and the FBI are both currently investigating the situation as well. Minneapolis Police Department has terminated Chauvin, along with the three other officers who stood-by while the incident unfolded. What will happen after their termination remains to be seen and sadly, precedence has shown us that police officers who kill black men while on duty rarely face murder charges.
“What we saw was horrible, completely and utterly messed up. Being black in America should not be a death sentence,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a press conference on Tuesday. “For five minutes, we watched as a white officer pressed his knee into the neck of a black man. For five minutes. When you hear someone calling for help, you are supposed to help. This officer failed in the most basic human sense.”
The mayor’s sentiments were generally appreciated, but many on social media wrote in to express their dissatisfaction that his apology did not include any action. How many black men in this country have to die at the hands of the police before large-scale systemic action is taken to make it stop?
