Update: May 26th, 3:42 p.m EST
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo stated the four unnamed officers are no longer employed, following the Monday night death of George Floyd.
Earlier:
The FBI and Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension have been called in to investigate the May 25 death of a Black man who was in police custody. The incident, which was caught on a now-viral video, shows a police officer kneeling on top of George Floyd’s neck while Floyd’s letting them know he couldn’t breathe.
According to the police, officers arrived at the 3700 block of Chicago Avenue South on a report of a forgery in progress Monday evening around 8 p.m. George Floyd was asked to exit a car and allegedly resisted the officers. A passersby recorded the officer as he used his knee to pin Floyd down by his neck.
Darnella Frazier captured the video and immediately posted it on Facebook.
“When I walked up, he was already on the ground,” Frazier said in the video. “The cops, they was pinning him down by his neck and he was crying. They wasn’t trying to take him serious.”
After several minutes of being pinned down, the man ceased movement. The onlookers yelled at the officers, who stood around and did nothing.
“You’re going to just sit there with your knee on his neck?” one bystander said on the video.
As the ambulance arrived on the scene, you could tell it was too late.
Early Tuesday morning, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey appeared at a press conference, visibly emotional about what he had witnessed on the video.
“He should not have died,” Frey said. “For five minutes we watched as a White officer pressed his knee to 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. What happened on Chicago and 38th this last night was simply awful.”