Minneapolis Mayor Calls For Charges Against Officer Who Knelt On George Floyd’s Neck
by Carlie PorterfieldTOPLINE
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has called for the county attorney to charge the police officer involved in the arrest of George Floyd, a black man who died after the officer pinned him to the ground by a knee to Floyd’s neck.
KEY FACTS
Frey publicly asked Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to press charges against the Minneapolis police officer at a Wednesday afternoon press conference.
The officer in question was recorded kneeling on Floyd’s neck during an arrest in a video that went global online Monday evening, almost immediately after the incident.
However, Frey declined to specify any particular charges he would like to see filed against the officer.
Four police officers were fired Tuesday in connection with the arrest, which Frey said was “the right call.”
CRUCIAL QUOTE
"I've wrestled with, more than anything else over the last 36 hours, one fundamental question,” Frey told reporters at the press conference Wednesday. “Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail? If you had done it, or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now."
KEY BACKGROUND
A video of Floyd’s run-in with police went viral on social media Monday evening. The clip, recorded by a bystander, shows a white police officer pressing a knee to Floy’s neck for about eight minutes while he lies handcuffed on the ground as horrified onlookers plead with the officer to stop. In the video, Floyd appears to become unresponsive and is wheeled away on a stretcher by paramedics to a hospital, where he was declared dead shortly after. A witness on the scene told NBC News that Floyd was “clearly trying to tell them he couldn’t breathe,” while he was being restrained, adding that “[the police] ignored him.” Floyd’s family have retained the services of Benjamin Crump, a well-known civil rights attorney who previously represented the family of Michael Brown, a black teenager whose 2014 killing by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, helped propel the Black Lives Matter movement into national prominence. The case is being investigated by both the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the FBI.