MASS uprisings have broken out in Minneapolis as hectic protests over the police killing of an unarmed black man George Floyd escalated into violent clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement.
The city descended into riots for the last three days following the police killing of George Floyd. While the officers involved in the incident have since been fired, the protesters, as well as Floyd’s family, insist they be tried for murder.
When asked if he thinks it was murder, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said yesterday: ‘I do, I am not a prosecutor but let me be clear, the arresting officer killed someone. He would be alive today if he were white. The facts that I’ve seen, which are minimal, certainly lead me down the path that race was involved.’
George Floyd’s family attorney Benjamin Crump said that the Floyd family is waiting for the medical examiner’s office to complete their autopsy so they can “give him a proper funeral and also to have an independent autopsy because they do not trust … the city of Minneapolis.
‘Is it two justice systems in America? One for Black America and one for White America? We can’t have that. We have to have equal justice for the United States of America and that’s what I think the protesters are crying out for,’ Crump said.
Crump said the officers should have been arrested that same day Floyd died. ‘So every day that passes, it’s like another day of injustice.’
‘They executed my brother in broad daylight. People had to film that. People had to see that,’ George Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd said, wiping tears from his eyes. ‘People pleaded for his life.’
George Floyd’s sister Bridgette Floyd said: ‘I would like for those officers to be charged with murder. Because that’s exactly what they did. They murdered my brother. He was crying for help.’
A heated protest continued outside the Minnesota Police Department’s 3rd precinct headquarters, where demonstrators were seen breaking windows.
Tuesday’s action also saw protesters gather outside the building, facing thick clouds of police tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets.
On Wednesday, officers instead took up positions on the roof of the headquarters, where they fired projectiles into the crowd below.
Some protesters gathered near the home of Derek Chauvin, one of the officers implicated in Floyd’s killing, hoisting signs and scrawling anti-police slogans on the street.
Chaotic scenes unfolded elsewhere in the city as well, with protesters clashing with police in the middle of a major thoroughfare, which was barricaded off by officers clad in riot gear.
The three days of rage come after a viral video emerged on Monday showing Floyd’s last moments alive, in which an officer is seen pinning the man to the pavement with a knee to his neck as he said: ‘Please, I can’t breathe. Don’t kill me’.
And the protests are spreading. In California, on Wednesday hundreds of people protesting Floyd’s death marched from downtown Los Angeles, where demonstrations began calmly, but later ended with some blocking a freeway and damaging some California Highway Patrol vehicles.
By Thursday morning fires which had continued burning overnight in the midst of destruction during protests were still spreading in the Third Precinct in south Minneapolis.
