POLICE BRUTALITY: Outrage in US over racially charged killing

28 May 2020

UPDATED 29 May 2020

REUTERS, Minneapolis

Police use pepper spray as protesters demonstrate against the killing of a African-American man in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Wednesday; Photo: AFP

A still image from a video shows a police officer on Monday arresting George Floyd, whose death sparked the protests. Photo: AFP

Protesters clashed with riot police firing tear gas for a second night in Minneapolis on Wednesday in an outpouring of rage over the death of a black man seen in a widely circulated video gasping for breath as a white officer knelt on his neck.

The video, taken by an onlooker to Monday night's fatal encounter between police and George Floyd, 46, showed him lying face down and handcuffed, groaning for help and repeatedly saying, "please, I can't breathe," before growing motionless.

The second day of protests accompanied by looting and vandalism, began hours after Mayor Jacob Frey urged prosecutors to file criminal charges against the white policeman shown pinning Floyd to the street.

Floyd, who was unarmed and reportedly suspected of trying to pass counterfeit bills at a corner eatery, was taken by ambulance from the scene of his arrest and pronounced dead the same night at a hospital.

The policeman shown kneeling on Floyd's neck and three fellow officers involved were dismissed from the police department on Tuesday as the FBI opened an investigation.

Hundreds of protesters thronged streets around the Third Precinct police station late on Wednesday, about half a mile from where Floyd had been arrested. Police used tear gas, plastic bullets and concussion grenades to keep the crowds at bay.

Outrage at Floyd's death also triggered a rally in downtown Los Angeles.

The case was reminiscent of the 2014 killing of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man in New York City who died after being put in a banned police chokehold. Garner's dying words, "I can't breathe," became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement calling attention to a wave of killings of African-Americans by police using unjustified lethal force.