Protests broke out in several major American cities Friday evening after the death of a black American at the start of the week during his arrest in Minneapolis, despite the charge of manslaughter of the police officer arrested after several days of riots. A curfew has been in effect since Friday in this city of Minnesota.
The family of 46-year-old George Floyd, whom President Donald Trump announced he had spoken to, hailed the police officer's arrest as a first step on "the road to justice" , but deemed it "late" and insufficient . "We want a charge of intentional homicide with premeditation. And we want to see the other (implicated) agents arrested, " she said in a statement. So far, only police officer Derek Chauvin "has been detained," said Commissioner John Harrington of the Minnesota Department of Civil Protection.
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The face of this agent has been around the world, since a video that went viral shows him violently calling on Monday for a minor crime George Floyd, and placing his knee on his neck. George Floyd begs and complains: "I can't breathe anymore" , we hear him say. Derek Chauvin and the three other agents involved in the tragedy were dismissed and federal and local investigations were opened to establish their responsibilities. Dereck Chauvin is accused of having committed a cruel and dangerous act causing death and manslaughter, said the prosecutor of the county of Hennepin, where Minneapolis is located.
This development follows a third night of riots in this big city in Minnesota, in the north of the country, where protesters are demanding justice. Some 500 National Guard soldiers were deployed to try to restore calm and a curfew was declared from Friday evening, from 8 p.m. local until 6 a.m. the next day, while a police station was set on fire. at night and several shops looted.
"We've been crashing for far too long. We die, brother, with someone's knee on our neck when we have done nothing (...). So it's over, we're fed up. I mean, we're already dead, so we might as well die for a good cause, right? ” , a Minneapolis protester, who only wanted to be identified by his first name, Chicago, told AFP.
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Anger has spread to several other American cities, and hundreds of people have demonstrated in front of the White House in Washington, waving signs crossed with slogans like "Stop killing us" . In New York, nearly a thousand demonstrators gathered to castigate the police, while in Denver, a highway was blocked. In Louisville, Kentucky, clashes took place as residents sought justice for Breonna Taylor, a black woman killed by police in her apartment in March.
The emotion crossed the American borders, and calls to make justice to George Floyd multiplied on the social networks in several countries. The case recalls the death of Eric Garner, a black man who died in 2014 in New York after being asphyxiated during his arrest by white police. He too had said "I can't breathe" , a phrase that has become a rallying cry of the Black Lives Matter movement ("The life of blacks counts").
"Too much is too much," said her mother, Gwen Carr, in New York on Friday. "They have to stop coming to our neighborhoods and terrorizing and killing our young people . "