Cop Charged With Third-Degree Murder, Manslaughter for Death of George Floyd

Derrick Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer at the center of George Floyd’s fatal arrest, has been arrested following nationwide outcry.

On Friday, John Harrington, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, announced that Chauvin has been taken into police custody. Chauvin, who is white, was filmed pressing his knee into the neck of George Floyd, a black man, during an arrest on Monday. Chauvin stayed in that position for over nine minutes, all while Floyd insisted that he could not breathe. The video shows Floyd eventually going limp. He was pronounced dead shortly after.

Chauvin has been reportedly charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis police force, was fired on Tuesday, along with three other officers—Tou Thao, Thomas Lane, and J. Alexander Kueng—who were on the scene. What followed were three straight days of peaceful protest throughout Minneapolis and across the country, as well as a series of uprisings that left businesses like Target and Autozone ransacked and Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd precinct burned.

Chauvin’s arrest is not enough for Floyd’s family and local black leaders. They’re demanding the arrests of Thao, Lane, and Kueng as well.

“Fannie Lou Hamer once said, we are sick and tired of being sick and tired,” said Leslie Redman, head of the National Advancement of Colored People in Minneapolis. “And I stand here, exhausted.”

Redman called the response from the black community an uprising that has been a long time coming. She added that President Trump was quick to advocate for the “liberation” of states like Minnesota when it comes to the economy, but has nothing to say about the liberation of black people in America.

“Black Minnesota is done dying,” Redman said. “And White Minnesota is done hiding.”