Demonstrators on Wednesday clashed with police and set a store alight during a second night of protests in the US city of Minneapolis after the killing of a man by a police officer who held him to the ground with a knee on his neck.
Police fired tear gas and formed a human barricade to keep protesters from climbing a fence surrounding the Third Precinct, where the officers accused of killing George Floyd worked before they were fired on Tuesday.
They pushed protesters back as the crowd grew.
Photo: AFP
Outrage has grown across the country at Floyd’s death on Monday, fueled in part by bystander cellphone video that shows him, handcuffed and in the custody of four police officers, on the ground while one presses his knee into his neck.
US President Donald Trump in a tweet called Floyd’s death “sad and tragic,” and all four officers have been fired.
Prosecutors said they had called in the FBI to help investigate the case, which could involve a federal felony civil rights violation.
Photo: AFP
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo on Wednesday urged protesters to remain peaceful, but by 10pm, an auto parts store across from the precinct had been set alight and a nearby Target was being looted, US media reported.
Police continued to hold the crowds back from scaling a fence into the precinct’s parking lot.
At the place where Floyd was first taken into custody, people chanted and barbecued, carried placards and spoke out. Bouquets were set out as tributes to Floyd.
Calls for justice came from across the US.
“I would like those officers to be charged with murder, because that’s exactly what they did,” Bridgett Floyd, the victim’s sister, said on NBC television.
“They murdered my brother... They should be in jail for murder,” she said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he could not understand why the officer who held his knee to Floyd’s neck on a Minneapolis street until the 46-year-old restaurant worker went limp had not been arrested.
“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,” Frey said.
“Based on what I saw, the officer who had his knee on the neck of George Floyd should be charged,” he said.
Floyd had been detained on a minor charge of allegedly using a counterfeit US$20 bill to make a purchase at a convenience store. In the video, policemen hold him to the ground while one presses his knee to Floyd’s neck.
“Your knee in my neck. I can’t breathe... Mama. Mama,” Floyd said.
He grew silent and motionless, unable to move even as the officers told him to “get up and get in the car.”
He was taken to hospital where he was later declared dead.
Former US vice president Joe Biden said that the FBI needs to thoroughly investigate the case.
“It’s a tragic reminder that this was not an isolated incident, but part of an engrained systemic cycle of injustice that still exists in this country,” Biden said. “We have to ensure that the Floyd family receive the justice they are entitled to.”
“How many more of these senseless excessive-force killings from the people who are supposed to protect us can we take in America?” said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who was retained by Floyd’s family.
Crump said that the arrest involved a minor, non-violent crime, and there was no sign, as police initially claimed, that Floyd resisted arrest.
“There is no reason to apply this excessive fatal force,” Crump said. “That has to be the tipping point. Everybody deserves justice... We can’t have two justice systems, one for blacks and one for whites.”
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