News — George Floyd

Most Americans especially Black people and those of other ethnic minorities have lost faith in the police system due to police brutality. After the George Floyd incident, many protests erupted around the world to defund the police, but an HBCU has set up a police academy to recruit more minorities and to help restore the people’s faith in the force.

Lincoln University in Missouri, founded in 1866, is now the first Historically Black College and University (HBCU) to develop a police academy that will train police recruits to change the narrative surrounding policing.

The Lincoln University Law Enforcement Training Academy (LULET) was created by Police Chief Gary Hill and the Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to entice more minorities from low-income backgrounds to make a difference both in their lives and the society by joining law enforcement.

“I thought what better way to recruit minorities by outing an academy right in the center of where we have a large minority community,” Hill said to CNBC.

Lincoln professors will train the recruits while police officers teach part-time at the institution. All it takes to be eligible for the 16-credit hour program is to be 20 years of age prior to the start date and a U.S. citizen. Applicants must also have a high school diploma or its equivalent certificate, a valid driver’s license, a vision of 20/40 with or without corrective lenses, an arrest record that is conviction free and ultimately, they must pass physical fitness requirements and have proof of health, per the Quintessential Gentleman.

The program includes a course on minority policing, which examines the history of police relations with Black communities. Hill said they are not in this to create soldiers but render community service. He said the police are not detached from the people they are policing; they are a part of the community thus their mission is to create community policing.

A licensing ceremony was held by Missouri Governor Mike Parson and the Missouri Department of Public Safety to approve the training academy last year. “As a former sheriff, I was honored to help establish the nation’s first law enforcement training academy at our very own Lincoln University, Missouri,” Parson wrote in a Facebook post. 

He added that he hopes this venture will inspire more HBCUs in the state and the nation to follow their lead, especially at a time when law enforcement agencies are seriously looking to diversify the force through their recruitments.

The licensing makes LULET the 20thth licensed police academy in Missouri and the 665th in the country. However, the police academy in its first year of operation will be under probation subject to an audit of the program by POST.

If the Peace officers are impressed by the training standards, then the program’s license will be extended for a standard three-year term, the College Post reported.

Upon completing the training program, the trainees can work in any police station across Missouri.

The U.S. Justice Department is exploring the possibility of bringing charges against former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin after videos from a 2017 incident showed him brutally hitting a Black teenager in the head and kneeling on him for almost 17 minutes during a violent arrest, ABC News reported.

Just like Floyd, the teenager allegedly told Chauvin he could not breathe while the former cop had him pinned to the ground with his knee. But Chauvin did not budge. The incident also reportedly left the teenager with a head injury and in need of stitches as the impact with which Chauvin struck him was severe.

The videos in question were reportedly shown to Minnesota state prosecutors last year while they were getting ready for Chauvin’s trial over the May 25 death of Floyd. The former disgraced cop was found guilty of murder and manslaughter in the death of the African-American father on April 20.

“Those videos show a far more violent and forceful treatment of this child than Chauvin describes in his report [of the incident],” Matthew Frank, a state prosecutor who looked into the incident involving the teen, wrote in a court filing. And though state prosecutors did not bring charges against Chauvin at the time, the DOJ could reopen the case.

Witnesses who saw the September 2017 incident testified before a federal grand jury two months ago, ABC News reported. A source also told the news outlet authorities are still investigating the incident and the Justice Department is looking at filing federal charges against Chauvin over the death of Floyd as well as the incident involving the teen.

Prior to the commencement of Chauvin’s trial for Floyd’s death, state prosecutors had reportedly wanted to cite the 2017 incident to the jury to make a case for their argument about the former cop’s attitude while on the job. The judge turned the request down.

Before the judge’s ruling, however, Frank, in court documents, said body-cam footage of the incident “show Chauvin’s use of unreasonable force towards this child and complete disdain for his well-being.”

What happened?

The September 2017 incident occurred when Chauvin and other colleague officers responded to a 911 call about a woman who alleged her 14-year-old son and daughter had attacked her at her home, Frank said, according to ABC News. Following a conversation with the woman after the officers got to the scene of the incident, the teenage boy was instructed to get on the ground but he declined those orders.

Things quickly escalated from there and Chauvin allegedly struck the teenager’s head with his flashlight, grabbed his throat and struck him with the flashlight again. Frank said Chauvin subsequently “applied a neck restraint, causing the child to lose consciousness and go to the ground.”

“Chauvin and [the other officer] placed [the teenager] in the prone position and handcuffed him behind his back while the teenager’s mother pleaded with them not to kill her son and told her son to stop resisting,” Frank wrote, adding that the teenager started bleeding from the ear. “About a minute after going to the ground, the child began repeatedly telling the officers that he could not breathe, and his mother told Chauvin to take his knee off her son.”

Chauvin allegedly knelt on the teenager for almost 17 minutes. The injured boy was arrested and charged with domestic assault and obstruction with force. Paramedics who attended to the boy had to transport him to a hospital for his head to be stitched.

Frank likened Chauvin’s use of force on the teen to that of Floyd’s. The 46-year-old African-American passed away after Chauvin knelt on his neck for over nine minutes despite repeatedly telling him he couldn’t breathe.

“As was true with the conduct with George Floyd, Chauvin rapidly escalated his use of force for a relatively minor offense,” Frank added. “Just like with Floyd, Chauvin used an unreasonable amount of force without regard for the need for that level of force or the victim’s well-being. Just like with Floyd, when the child was slow to comply with Chauvin and [the other officer’s] instructions, Chauvin grabbed the child by the throat, forced him to the ground in the prone position, and placed his knee on the child’s neck with so much force that the child began to cry out in pain and tell Chauvin he could not breathe.”

Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, however, dismissed the alleged similarities, arguing that “his client’s action that day was “was reasonable and authorized under the law as well as MPD policy,” ABC News reported. Nelson also argued the teen was “actively resisting” arrest and cited the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Retired NFL player Brett Favre recently weighed in on the circumstances surrounding the death of George Floyd, saying he finds it “hard to believe” former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin meant to kill Floyd.

Floyd, 46, passed away after Chauvin knelt on his neck for over nine minutes despite repeatedly telling him he couldn’t breathe. The incident also happened in the full glare of bystanders who could be heard pleading with Chauvin to remove his knee from Floyd’s neck and also offer him some medical assistance. However, Chauvin and his other colleague officers did not budge.

“I find it hard to believe, and I’m not defending Derek Chauvin in any way, I find it hard to believe, first of all, that he intentionally meant to kill George Floyd,” Favre said on the Bolling with Favre podcast on Wednesday, according to New York Post.

“That being said, his actions were uncalled for. I don’t care what color the person is on the street. I don’t know what led to that video that we saw where his knee is on his neck, but the man had thrown in the towel.”

On Tuesday, a jury found Chauvin guilty of murder and manslaughter in the May 25 death of the African-American father. Favre’s recent comment comes after he was criticized last week for saying athletes who kneel during the national anthem to protest against racial injustice have “created more turmoil than good.”

“It’s really a shame that we’ve come to this,” the retired quarterback said on The Andrew Klavan Show on April 11, USA Today reported. “Something has to unify us, and I felt like the flag, standing patriotically — because Blacks and whites and Hispanics have fought for this country and died for this country. It’s too bad.”

The 51-year-old doubled down on his sentiments and responded to the criticism on Wednesday’s podcast, saying: “I just gave my opinion. I’m certainly not a racist in spite of what some people might think, and you know, I’m for unity and I just feel like there’s a better way to unify our country. That being said, there’s a lot of things that need to stop.”

A jury in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has found the 45-year-old guilty on all three counts of murder and manslaughter charges. The counts were second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter of African-American man Geoge Floyd.

Chauvin now faces up to 75 years in prison but will await his sentencing per the adjournment of the court.

Earlier in the day, President Joe Biden revealed that he had called Floyd’s family to express his support and wish for “the right verdict”.

“I have come to know George’s family not just in passing. I have spent time with them, I have spent time with his little daughter, Gianna…So I can only imagine the pressure and anxiety they are feeling…I called them.”

Meanwhile, Minnesota declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the verdict.

Earlier civil suit victory

In another conclusion in another lawsuit related to Floyd’s killing, his family will now be paid $27 million in compensation by the city as was settled on Friday, March 12.

The settlement is different from the criminal proceedings that are ongoing against former officer Derek Chauvin and others charged with the eventual demise of the man they accosted for allegedly trying to use counterfeit money. For eight minutes and forty-six seconds that have since been immortalized by the Black Lives Matter movement, Chauvin pinned a knee to the back of Floyd’s head while Floyd pleaded for his life.

Announcing the settlement in March between Floyd’s family and the city of Minneapolis, family attorney Ben Crump said the settlement “sends a powerful message that Black lives do matter and police brutality against people of color must end.” The lawyer who also represents the families of Jacob Blake and Breonna Taylor, victims of police brutality, said the payment to Floyd’s family is the biggest pre-trial settlement ever in a case of wrongful death.

Brighter days

Floyd’s death, which was mourned across the world and sparked a global campaign against anti-Black racism, has also yielded a few positive outcomes for those involved with the man.

For instance, actress and singer, Barbara Streisand revealed at the end of last year that she had gifted some of her shares in the multibillion entertainment conglomerate Disney to Floyd’s 6-year-old daughter, Gianna. The Grammy award-winning singer was quoted as saying: “I sent Gianna videos where I played a little girl in my first television special singing kid songs and my second special a sequence with lots of baby animals”.

Brooklyn Nets star guard Kyrie Irving also bought a house for Floyd’s family in January of this year.

Irving, 28, reportedly gave the Floyd family the funds to purchase the home around five or six months before the new year, sources told Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated, according to ESPN. This gesture added to a string of other philanthropic efforts the NBA champion has earmarked.

Last December too, the global literary and human rights organization PEN gave its Beneson Courage Award to then 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, the young woman who filmed the harrowing last few seconds of the life of Floyd.

PEN America said that Frazier received the award for her “sheer guts” that “changed the course of history in this country”.

The family of George Floyd, the African-American man who was slain by police on a street in Minneapolis in May 2020, will now be paid $27 million in compensation by the city after a civil lawsuit was settled on Friday, March 12.

The settlement is different from the criminal proceedings that are ongoing against former officer Derek Chauvin and others charged with the eventual demise of the man they accosted for allegedly trying to use counterfeit money. For eight minutes and forty-six seconds that have since been immortalized by the Black Lives Matter movement, Chauvin pinned a knee to the back of Floyd’s head while Floyd pleaded for his life.

Announcing the settlement between Floyd’s family and the city of Minneapolis, family attorney Ben Crump said the settlement “sends a powerful message that Black lives do matter and police brutality against people of color must end.” The lawyer who also represents the families of Jacob Blake and Breonna Taylor, victims of police brutality, said the payment to Floyd’s family is the biggest pre-trial settlement ever in a case of wrongful death.

On his part, the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Fray, tweeted “Our settlement with George Floyd’s family reflects a shared commitment to advancing racial justice and a sustained push for progress”. The community where Floyd met his fate will be given $500,000 from the settlement.

Meanwhile, jury selection is ongoing in the trial of Chauvin as well as the other officers. At the announcement of the settlement with Floyd’s family, some seven jurors, including one Black man, had already been confirmed. It is expected that the trial will begin on March 29.

Chauvin has been charged with second-degree unintentional murder, second-degree manslaughter, and third-degree murder. But he has pled not guilty on all counts. If convicted, his sentence could range between 25 and 40 years.

The Minneapolis City Council, which tried and failed to dismantle the police department in the wake of George Floyd's death, voted early Thursday to shift nearly $8 million from next year's police budget to other city services as part of an effort to "transform" public safety in the city.

The controversial plan was approved unanimously as part of the city's 2021 budget.

Mayor Jacob Frey had earlier threatened a veto to the budget, calling the police cuts "irresponsible" as the city confronts an unprecedented wave of violence and scores of police officer departures since Floyd's death that have left the department struggling to respond to emergencies.

But in a statement early Thursday, Frey praised the council for removing language that would have permanently shrunk the size of the force by about 130 officers in what he described as a "defining moment for our city."

Council members who supported the "Safety for All" plan argued the city could no longer tolerate what they described as a broken system of policing and a department that has been resistant to reform.

“Believe me, this is not an easy vote to take, but I believe it is right,” said Andrea Jenkins, a council member who represents an area of South Minneapolis adjacent to the street corner where Floyd was killed.

The vote came after days of contentious public hearings and deeply emotional debate among council members, who have openly struggled to balance concern about historically high crime across Minneapolis against public calls to reform a police department that has long been accused of racism and excessive force, especially against residents of color.

The budget fight unfolded six months after Floyd’s death, which sparked worldwide protests and a national reckoning on issues of race, social justice and policing.

The 46-year-old Black man died after being handcuffed and restrained face down on a South Minneapolis street by police responding to a 911 call about a counterfeit $20 bill that had been passed at a local convenience store. Following a struggle, then-Officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as the man repeatedly complained of struggling to breathe.

Chauvin, who was with the department for 19 years, has been charged with murder, and three other officers at the scene — J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas K. Lane and Tou Thao — have been charged with aiding and abetting. All four were fired from the police department and are scheduled to go on trial in March.

In June, days after Floyd’s killing, a majority of the city council promised to defund and dismantle the department and replace it with a new agency focused on a mix of public safety and violence prevention. But some elected leaders have backed off those promises in recent months.

“If we’re considering taking everything out of MPD that’s not an officer with a gun, I don’t believe in that,” Alondra Cano, a council member whose district includes the South Minneapolis intersection where Floyd was killed, said during a hearing Monday.

Frey had proposed a $179 million police budget for 2021, a cut of approximately $14 million from the approved 2020 budget because of declining city revenue related to the coronavirus pandemic. But under the budget approved Thursday, the council would divert $7.7 million from law enforcement to fund alternatives to policing, including mental health crisis teams and additional staffers in the city’s office of violence prevention.

About $5 million of that money came from cuts to a budget for police overtime — a move that Police Chief Medaria Arradondo had strongly discouraged, calling overtime a “necessity” for the department as it copes with staffing shortages and prepares for the trial of the four former police officers charged in Floyd’s death.

The department had been funded for about 880 officers in 2020. But Arradondo told council members Monday that, as of Dec. 1, the agency was down 166 officers — some of whom have permanently left the force and others who have been out on long-term medical leave, many citing post-traumatic stress disorder from the civil unrest that erupted after Floyd’s death.

In a last-minute debate, council members rejected a motion that would have reduced the number of full-time officers to 750 — essentially not replacing the officers who have left. Supporters argued that the amendment would simply take the open positions off the books, as the staffing shortage is unlikely to be solved in the coming year.

“It’s not possible to magically recruit more officers,” said Steve Fletcher, a council member who represents part of downtown Minneapolis. “Open positions do not solve crimes. Open positions do not write tickets. Open positions do not prevent anything. They do not deter anything. They do not create a sense of safety.”

Under the budget plan approved early Thursday, the council set up an $11.4 million reserve fund that would include about $6 million Frey had budgeted for two future recruiting classes, as well as an additional $5 million for police overtime. The police department would have to get city council approval to access the funds — an effort to increase accountability for the department, council members said.

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, council members, meeting in a virtual hearing because of the pandemic, heard hours of testimony from hundreds of Minneapolis residents who phoned in their comments about the proposed cuts.

Many invoked Floyd’s police custody death to argue for reduced funding for an agency they said cannot be reformed. Many callers who identified themselves as residents of the South Minneapolis neighborhoods that were burned and destroyed during the civil unrest that erupted after Floyd’s killing blamed police for inflaming the protests and doing little to stop the looting and burning of businesses.

“The actions of the MPD after George Floyd just showed to me how the MPD is irredeemable,” a South Minneapolis resident named Paul, who gave no last name, told the council. “They don’t care about us. They all live in the suburbs, and they don’t prevent any crime. All they do is escalate the situation.”

Others accused the council of acting rashly by reducing funding for the department at a crucial moment in the city and without proof that the alternative policing methods it is embracing will work quickly enough to contain the surging crime and violence.

Doug Tanner, a resident of South Minneapolis, told council members his wife had been carjacked, robbed and assaulted.

“The fact that this council does not even acknowledge there is a problem is irresponsible,” he said. “The crime rate is at an all-time high, and you want less cops on the street. Where does common sense come into the equation?”

Homicides in Minneapolis are up more than 50 percent, with nearly 80 people killed across the city so far this year. Nearly 530 people have been shot, the highest number in more than a decade and twice as many as in 2019. And there have been more than 4,600 violent crimes — including hundreds of carjackings and robberies — a five-year high.