Share
May 26, 2020 "Leave me, I can't breathe ....". These are the last dramatic words of an African American killed by a police officer who suffocated the man by blocking him on the ground and pressing his neck with one knee. An episode reminiscent of another similar and sadly known case, that of New Yorker Eric Garner in 2014.This time the scene of the tragedy was Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the whole sequence was filmed by a passer-by in a video shock that is now shaking the USA.
According to the first reconstructions, some agents were alerted to the presence of a suspect man sitting in a car and who appeared to be under the influence of drugs. The policemen who arrived on the spot ordered him to get off but the man began to offer resistance. The agents then blocked him on the ground and, while trying to handcuff him, one of them held his neck down with one knee. "Please I can't breathe," he hears in the video. The man repeatedly begs the agents but in vain, even if visibly suffering. When the ambulance arrives, it is too late. The man will die shortly thereafter.
The police have launched an investigation and the agents have been suspended. They also wore body-cams. "What I saw is terrible. That man shouldn't have died. Being a black man in America shouldn't be a death sentence," was the anger of Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey.
The four policemen involved in the affair were subsequently fired. The mayor of Minneapolis has made it known. "This is the right decision," he said.