4 Minneapolis officers fired after death of black man

• UPDATE: Minneapolis mayor calls for charges against officer who put knee to George Floyd’s neck
• UPDATE: George Floyd’s family says four officers involved in his death should be charged with murder

MINNEAPOLIS
(AP) — Four Minneapolis officers involved in the arrest of a black man
who died in police custody were fired Tuesday, hours after a bystander’s video showed an officer kneeling on the handcuffed man’s neck, even after he pleaded that he could not breathe and stopped moving.

Mayor Jacob Frey announced the firings on Twitter, saying “This is the right call.”

The
man’s death Monday night was under investigation by the FBI and state
law enforcement authorities. It immediately drew comparisons to the case
of Eric Garner, an unarmed
black man who died in 2014 in New York after he was placed in a
chokehold by police and pleaded for his life, saying he could not
breathe.

In a post on his Facebook page,
Frey apologized Tuesday to the black community for the officer’s
treatment of the man, who was later identified as 46-year-old George
Floyd, who worked security at a restaurant.

“Being Black in
America should not be a death sentence. For five minutes, we watched a
white officer press his knee into a Black man’s neck. Five minutes. When
you hear someone calling for help, you’re supposed to help. This
officer failed in the most basic, human sense,” Frey posted.

Police said the man matched the description of a suspect in a forgery case at a grocery store, and that he resisted arrest.

The
video starts with the shirtless man on the ground, and does not show
what happened in the moments prior. The unidentified officer is kneeling
on his neck, ignoring his pleas. “Please, please, please, I can’t
breathe. Please, man,” said Floyd, who has his face against the
pavement.

Floyd also moans. One of the officers tells him to
“relax.” The man calls for his mother and says: “My stomach hurts, my
neck hurts, everything hurts … I can’t breathe.” As bystanders shout
their concern, one officer says, “He’s talking, so he’s breathing.”

But
Floyd stops talking and slowly becomes motionless under the officer’s
restraint. The officer does not remove his knee until the man is loaded
onto a gurney by paramedics.

Several witnesses had gathered on a
nearby sidewalk, some recording the scene on their phones. The
bystanders become increasingly agitated. One man yells repeatedly. “He’s
not responsive right now!” Two witnesses, including one woman who said
she was a Minneapolis firefighter, yell at the officers to check the
man’s pulse. “Check his pulse right now and tell me what it is!” she
said.

At one point, an officer says: “Don’t do drugs, guys.” And
one man yells, “Don’t do drugs, bro? What is that? What do you think
this is?”

The Hennepin County medical examiner identified Floyd but said the cause of death was pending.

Floyd
had worked security for five years at a restaurant called Conga Latin
Bistro and rented a home from the restaurant owner, Jovanni Thunstrom.

He
was “a good friend, person and a good tenant,” the restaurateur told
the Star Tribune. “He was family. His co-workers and friends loved him.”

Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights and personal injury attorney, said he had been hired by Floyd’s family.

“We
all watched the horrific death of George Floyd on video as witnesses
begged the police officer to take him into the police car and get off
his neck,” Crump said in a statement. “This abusive, excessive and
inhumane use of force cost the life of a man who was being detained by
the police for questioning about a non-violent charge.”

Minneapolis
Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said the department would conduct a full
internal investigation. Police did not identify the officers, but
attorney Tom Kelly confirmed he is representing Derek Chauvin, the
officer seen with his knee on Floyd’s neck. Kelly declined to comment
further.

Police did not immediately respond to a request for
Chauvin’s service record. News accounts show he was one of six officers
who fired their weapons in the 2006 death of Wayne Reyes, whom police
said pointed a sawed-off shotgun at officers after stabbing two people.
Chauvin also shot and wounded a man in 2008 in a struggle after Chauvin
and his partner responded to a reported domestic assault.

Several hundred protesters gathered Tuesday evening in the street where Floyd died, chanting and carrying banners that read, “I can’t breathe” and “Jail killer KKKops.” They eventually marched about 2-1/2 miles to a city police precinct, with some protesters damaging windows, a squad car and spraying graffiti on the building. A line of police in riot gear eventually confronted the protesters, firing tear gas.

Experts on
police use of force told The Associated Press that the officer clearly
restrained the man too long. They noted the man was under control and no
longer fighting. Andrew Scott, a former Boca Raton, Florida, police
chief who now testifies as an expert witness in use-of-force cases,
called Floyd’s death “a combination of not being trained properly or
disregarding their training.”

“He couldn’t move. He was telling
them he couldn’t breathe, and they ignored him,” Scott said. “I can’t
even describe it. It was difficult to watch.”

The New York City
officer in the Garner case said he was using a legal maneuver called
“the seatbelt” to bring down Garner, whom police said had been resisting
arrest. But the medical examiner referred to it as a chokehold in the
autopsy report and said it contributed to his death. Chokehold maneuvers
are banned under New York police policy.

A grand jury later
decided against indicting the officers involved in Garner’s death,
sparking protests around the country. The New York Police Department
ultimately fired the officer who restrained Garner, but it was five
years later, after a federal investigation, a city prosecutor’s
investigation and an internal misconduct trial.

In Minneapolis,
kneeling on a suspect’s neck is allowed under the department’s
use-of-force policy for officers who have received training in how to
compress a neck without applying direct pressure to the airway. It is
considered a “non-deadly force option,” according to the department’s
policy handbook.

A chokehold is considered a deadly force option
and involves someone obstructing the airway. According to the
department’s use-of-force policy, officers are to use only an amount of
force necessary that would be objectively reasonable.

Before the
officers were fired, the police union asked the public to wait for the
investigation to take its course and not to “rush to judgment and
immediately condemn our officers.” Messages left with the union after
the firings were not returned.

The Hennepin County Attorney’s
Office, which would handle any prosecution of police on state criminal
charges, said in a statement that it was “shocked and saddened” by the
video and pledged to handle the case fairly. The FBI is investigating
whether the officers willfully deprived Floyd of his rights. If those
federal civil rights charges are brought, they would be handled by the
U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, which declined comment.

The death came amid outrage over the death of Ahmaud Arbery, who was fatally shot Feb. 23 in Georgia after a white father and son pursued the 25-year-old black man they had spotted running in their subdivision. More than two months passed before charges were brought. Crump also represents Arbery’s father.

Associated Press writers Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee and Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.