A good three years ago, a US police officer in Minneapolis squeezed the black George Floyd’s air for almost ten minutes. Floyd died. Now, a Justice Department report finds excessive police violence is routine in the city.
Around three years after the death of African American George Floyd in a brutal police operation in Minneapolis, the US Department of Justice has issued a devastating testimony to the city police. Police officers “routinely use excessive force,” including in some cases “unjustified deadly force,” according to a ministry report. The police also “unlawfully discriminate against blacks and indigenous people”.
Many Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officers do their “difficult work with professionalism, courage and respect,” the report said. “Nonetheless, our investigation found that the systemic issues in the MPD made what happened to George Floyd possible.”
“Dangerous Techniques and Weapons”
As an example, the report cites that the city’s police department has for years used “dangerous techniques and weapons” against people who committed only minor crimes or no crimes at all. Police officers have also used violence “to punish people who have made officers angry or who have criticized the police”.
The police also control different parts of the city differently depending on the skin color of the population and also discriminate on the basis of skin color when searching, handcuffing or using violence, the report said. The use of police officers against people with mental health problems is also denounced, “sometimes with tragic consequences”.
Chokeholds are already banned
The Justice Department launched its investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department in April 2021, almost a year after Floyd’s death. The ministry is now calling for reforms by the city and the police to eliminate the abuses. In its report, it also acknowledges that the first reforms have been decided. Minneapolis police have banned chokeholds.
Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, captured on cellphone video, caused international outrage and sparked nationwide protests against racism and police violence in the United States. White police officer Derek Chauvin had kneed the black man arrested for a suspected counterfeit $20 bill for around nine and a half minutes, although Floyd repeatedly complained that he could not breathe.
Police officer sentenced to more than 22 years in prison
Floyd’s complaint “I can’t breathe” – “I can’t breathe” or “I can’t breathe” – went around the world and became a motto of the anti-racism movement Black Lives Matter. In June 2021, Chauvin was sentenced to 22 years and six months in prison for second-degree murder – in German law this roughly corresponds to manslaughter in a serious case. The other three police officers involved in Floyd’s arrest were later sentenced to significantly shorter prison terms on different charges.
In April 2022, the Minnesota human rights agency accused the Minneapolis police department of a culture of racism in a report. There is “a pattern or practice of discriminatory, race-based policing” in the city police force. There have been shocking cases of police violence against blacks and members of other minorities in the United States.