78% Of Americans Polled Believe Officer Should Be Arrested For George Floyd Death

TOPLINE

A new poll found that an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that police should arrest the officer who kneeled on George Floyd’s neck for minutes before he died, an incident captured on video, which has kicked off several days of violent protests across the country.

KEY FACTS

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman on Thursday declined to arrest Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on Floyd’s neck for several minutes while Floyd shouted “I can’t breathe,” according to video of the incident.

A YouGov poll released Friday found that most Americans disagree with Freeman’s decision, however, with 78% saying that Chauvin should be arrested and just 6% saying he should not.

The poll was conducted on May 29 and surveyed 5674 US adults.

Chauvin’s arrest has near-unanimous support from Democrats, 90% of whom say he should be arrested, as well as support from three quarters of independents.

Republicans are more split on the issue, with 68% saying he should be arrested, 9% saying he should not and 24% saying they don’t know.

The incident kicked off a wave of violent protests across the country, particularly in Minneapolis, where protestors burned down a police precinct and several other buildings.

Key Quote

“That video is graphic and horrific and terrible and no person should do that. But my job, in the end, is to prove he violated a criminal statute, and there is other evidence that does not support a criminal charge. We need to wade through all of that evidence and come to a meaningful interpretation, and we are doing that to the best of our ability,” Freeman said of his decision not to immediately bring charges against the officers on Thursday. “We have to do this right, we have to do this in a court of law.”

Chief Critic

Congressman Conor Lamb, a lawyer and former marine, took to Twitter to advocate for the expedited arrest of Chauvin. “Police officers are speaking up & saying there is no excuse for what was done to George Floyd. Prosecutors should too. We are more than capable of meeting the demand to see justice done more fairly & more quickly,” he tweeted, calling on Freeman to “make an arrest.”

Big Number

5 million. That’s the number of people signed a Change.org petition demanding justice for Floyd through the arrest of Chauvin, while a GoFundMe page set up to support Floyd’s family has raised $1.8 million from over 78,000 donors.