Autopsy finds cop suffocated black man as US braces for more fury
MINNEAPOLIS, United States — An autopsy found Monday that an African-American man whose death has set off nationwide unrest was suffocated by a police officer, contradicting a preliminary ruling, as cities including New York imposed or toughened curfews in expectation of fresh fury.
Violence has erupted for three straight nights outside the White House, where a holed-up Donald Trump has brushed aside the traditional unifying role of a president, and one person was shot dead in Louisville, Kentucky, whose mayor fired the police chief.
One week after George Floyd died in Minneapolis, an autopsy blamed his videotaped death squarely on a white police officer who pinned him down with his knee for nearly nine minutes as Floyd pleaded, "I can't breathe!"
"The evidence is consistent with mechanical asphyxia as the cause of death, and homicide as the manner of death," Aleccia Wilson, a University of Michigan expert who examined his body at the family's request, told a news conference.
An initial finding cited in a criminal complaint pointed to pre-existing conditions, outraging the family.
Shortly after the independent report, Hennepin County's medical examiner released its official autopsy that called his death a homicide caused by "neck compression," although it also said he was intoxicated and pointed to heart disease.
A memorial for Floyd will take place on Thursday in Minneapolis before a service in North Carolina and a funeral on June 9 in Houston, where he grew up, family lawyer Ben Crump said.
Week of memorials
Floyd, 46, had been accused of trying to buy cigarettes with a counterfeit bill and his aggressive arrest was caught on a cellphone camera.
The autopsy revived demands for the arrest of three other police officers who stood guard for Chauvin as Floyd pleaded for his life.
"We are tired of this happening. This generation is not having it. We are tired of oppression," said Muna Abdi, a 31-year-old African-American woman at a peaceful demonstration at the Minnesota capitol in St. Paul.
Pointing to her three-year-old son, she said: "I want to make sure he stays alive."
Officer Derek Chauvin, who had remained in the police force despite persistent complaints about his behavior, had been due to appear in court on Monday but the judiciary said the initial hearing had been postponed to June 8.
The delay outraged many activists, although Minnesota has made clear that it seeks to punish Chauvin and has tasked the prosecution personally with the state's attorney general, Keith Ellison, a prominent former US congressman.
Curfew in New York, death in Louisville
New York, the famed "City that Never Sleeps," became the latest city to impose a nighttime curfew after consecutive nights of tension that included looting and the trashing of parked cars.
In the upscale SoHo district, Elliot Kurland, owner of the Leica photography store, said his entire shop was emptied by looters including clients' property. He estimated his loss at $1 million.
"I hope I have insurance," he said.
"My brother heard about it. He called me. I had been about to come here at three o'clock in the morning. My brother warned me, 'Don't go down. You'll get killed.'"
New York, like other cities, had just been emerging from weeks under lockdown from the coronavirus pandemic. Kurland said he was still paying employees who were not reporting to work.
More than 40 cities have imposed curfews. Washington's mayor, Muriel Browser, said a curfew will start Monday at an unusually early 7.00 pm in hopes of preventing a repeat of the destruction in the US capital — which included a fire at St. John's, the two-century-old "church of the presidents" across from the White House.
Apple, along with several other major retailers, temporarily closed most US stores, and California shut government offices in crowded areas as a precaution.
It was the most widespread unrest in the United States since 1968, when cities went up in flames over the slaying of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., and rekindled memories of 1992 riots in Los Angeles after police were acquitted in the brutal beating of black motorist Rodney King.
But unlike in Los Angeles, the latest unrest has primarily targeted property, although both protesters and police have reported non-life-threatening injuries.
One person was killed, however, in Kentucky's largest city Louisville.
Police chief Steve Conrad said officers and the National Guard "returned fire" just after midnight after being shot at as they dispersed a crowd in a parking lot.
The dead man was David McAtee, the owner of a popular barbecue business, according to the Louisville Courier Journal, which quoted his nephew.
Louisville, the home of Muhammad Ali and Kentucky Fried Chicken, has seen especially passionate protests due to the police killing in March of an African American woman, Breonna Taylor, in her own apartment.
The 26-year-old emergency room technician was shot dead after police barged into her home, alleging that drug dealers had used the apartment to receive packages.
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said Monday he had fired the police chief, Steve Conrad, because officers did not record body-camera of the episode.
Trump combative
While presidents traditionally seek to bridge national divides during tumult, Trump was again holed up at the White House tweeting attacks on his political rivals and the media.
In a conference call with governors that was quickly leaked to several media outlets, Trump told state leaders to "dominate" and said they were "going to look like a bunch of jerks" if they are too soft.
The governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, is heard reprimanding Trump directly, saying he was "extraordinarily concerned" by the president's "inflammatory" rhetoric.
Trump has blamed the violence on Antifa, the loosely organized collective of far-left activists who advocate aggressive action to stop what they see as the rise of fascism and white supremacists.
Joe Biden, Trump's likely Democratic opponent in November elections, met Monday with black leaders at a church in his home of Wilmington, Delaware and promised to form a police oversight commission in his first 100 days as president.
"Hate just hides. Doesn't go away. And when you have somebody in power who breathes oxygen into the hate under the rocks, it comes out from under the rocks," Biden said. — with Shaun Tandon in Washington
Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Atlanta were among several US cities to announce curfews Saturday in a bid to stem violent anti-police protests breaking out across America.
A nighttime curfew was also implemented in Louisville, Kentucky as the United States continues to be rocked by demonstrators angry at the death of a black man during an arrest in Minneapolis on Monday.
George Floyd was handcuffed and died after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, sparking the widespread protests against police brutality. — AFP
Photo: Demonstrators confront secret service police officers outside of the White House on May 30, 2020 in Washington DC, during a protest over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, who died after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes. Demonstrations are being held across the US after George Floyd died in police custody on May 25. Jose Luis Magana / AFP
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd, was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison on Thursday on federal charges.
Chauvin, who is white, pleaded guilty in December 2021 to violating the civil rights of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, during his May 2020 arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy a pack of cigarettes.
Chauvin is already serving a 22-and-a-half-year sentence after being convicted of state murder charges for Floyd's death, which sparked protests against racial injustice and police brutality across the United States. — AFP
Several hundred protesters marched Sunday in Akron, Ohio after the release of body camera footage that showed police fatally shooting a Black man with several dozen rounds of bullets.
As anger rose over the latest police killing of a Black man in the United States, and authorities appealed for calm, a crowd marched to City Hall carrying banners with slogans such as "Justice for Jayland."
The slogan refers to Jayland Walker, 25, who was killed Monday after officers tried to stop his car over a traffic violation, police said.
Sunday marked the fourth straight day of protests. Demonstrations were peaceful but for a tense moment in which some protesters got close to a line of police and shouted at them.
After the first rally, a crowd of people remained in the street protesting.
Fearing potential unrest, authorities in the city of 190,000 people moved snowplows and other heavy equipment near the police department to serve as a barrier.
After initially providing few details of the shooting, Akron authorities released two videos Sunday: one that was a compilation of body-camera footage, body-cam still frames and voiceover, and another of the complete body-cam footage of the entire chase and shooting.
The voiceover explained that Walker did not stop and drove off. Police engaged in a car chase and said a shot had been fired from Walker's vehicle.
After being chased for several minutes, Walker got out of his car while it was still moving and fled on foot. Officers tried to subdue him with their tasers, but he kept running.
Several officers finally chased Walker to a parking lot. The body-cam footage is too blurry to see clearly what happens, but an initial police statement released after the shooting says he behaved in a way that caused officers to believe he posed a "deadly threat."
All of the officers at the scene opened fire on Walker, shooting multiple times in rapid succession.
He was pronounced dead at the scene. — AFP
A Minnesota jury begins deliberating the fate of three former police officers charged with violating the civil rights of George Floyd, the African American man whose murder sparked nationwide protests.
Tou Thao, 36, J. Alexander Kueng, 28, and Thomas Lane, 38, are on trial in federal court in Saint Paul for their roles in Floyd's May 2020 death in the sister city of Minneapolis.
"It's your duty to find the facts," Judge Paul Magnuson tells the jury of eight women and four men, "and then apply the law."
"Don't allow sympathy or prejudice to influence you," the judge says before sending the jurors off to begin their deliberations. — AFP
Sculptures of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, two Black Americans whose deaths at the hands of police in 2020 rocked the United States, are to be auctioned for charity after being exhibited in New York, Sotheby's said Thursday.
The pieces will be on sale online until December 17 and the profits will go to associations founded by the families of the two victims, "We are Floyd" and "The Breonna Taylor Foundation," Sotheby's said.
The two statues are the work of artist Chris Carnabuci, while the statue of Taylor has been decorated by Brooklyn-based Nigerian artist Laolu Senbanjo, also known as Laolu NYC, who has worked with Beyonce in the past.
The golden statue of George Floyd, who was killed last May at age 46 when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for some nine minutes, had been vandalized with spray paint while on display in Union Square in Manhattan.
It has since been cleaned up, and the 1.8 meter (six foot) sculpture is expected go for between $100,000 and $150,000. — AFP
A US court has handed down a four-year sentence to a former police officer charged with illegally beating a Black undercover colleague posing as a protester at a 2017 demonstration.
A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced Randy Hays, 34, to more than four years in jail after the former cop pleaded guilty in 2019 to using excessive and unreasonable force, according to court documents.
Hays, along with former officers Dustin Boone and Christopher Myers were accused of knocking to the ground an undercover officer who was monitoring protesters, and then kicking and striking the officer with a police baton.
On Thursday, another former officer, Bailey Colletta, was given a three-year suspended sentence for lying to a federal grand jury during its investigation of the incident.
Boone was found guilty by a jury in June and is due to be sentenced on September 15, exactly four years after the incident. — AFP
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