Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) on Wednesday called on the Hennepin County Attorney General’s office to charge a dismissed police officer in the killing of George Floyd, a black man who died shortly after the officer knelt on his neck while arresting him.
“Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?” Frey said during a press conference Wednesday. “If you had done it or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now.”
“We are not talking about a split-second decision that was made incorrectly,” Frey added. “There’s somewhere around 300 seconds in those five minutes, every one of which the officer could have turned back … and removed his knee from George Floyd’s neck.”
Floyd repeatedly protests that he cannot breathe in a video clip of the incident.
Four officers involved in Floyd’s arrest in Minneapolis Monday have since been fired. Thousands of protesters took to the streets Tuesday, marching from the intersection where Floyd was arrested to a nearby police precinct. Police responded aggressively to the demonstration, firing tear gas and rubber bullets, according to those on the ground.
Floyd’s sister, Bridgett Floyd, called for the four officers to be charged with murder in a Wednesday interview on NBC’s “Today.”
“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,” Bridgett Floyd said. “I don’t need them to be suspended and able to work in another state or another county. Their licenses should be taken away, their jobs should be taken away, and they should be put in jail for murder.”