In the United States, which has been rocked by the killing of an African-American citizen, George Floyd, by a policeman, writer Jean-Baptiste Francois said in a report in the French newspaper, "La Croix", in the spotlight.
He is Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat known to be the first federal deputy to swear an oath to the Qur’an, and he has condemned police officer Derek Chauvin involved in the murder of African-American George Floyd.
Keith Ellison, 56, bears the brunt of the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the police officer accused of choking the victim to death. Democratic state governor Tim Falls assigned him this responsibility after consulting the George Floyd family.
The author mentioned that Keith Ellison accepted this task with "great humility and seriousness". He commented on Twitter, saying, "We will employ all the resources necessary to achieve justice in this case."
For reference, in the United States, a public prosecutor is appointed in each of the 50 states, where the holder of this position is the government's chief legal advisor, and he is also a law enforcement agency.
Some of them are appointed directly, while others are elected like Keith Ellison, who held this position after several federal mandates. When he entered the House of Representatives in 2003, conservative Republicans considered this a special "scandal" when he became the first member to swear to the Qur’an instead of the Bible. On the other hand, this never prevented him from being re-elected in 2007 in a rural state with a large majority of whites.
The writer emphasized that state governor Tim Wallace's decision that Ellison be at the top of this case is evidence that he took into account the opinion of demonstrators who took to the streets to denounce police violence driven by racism. Speaking of distrust in the judicial system, Ellison explained that "we must start by making sure that confidence is restored." In fact, this is also related to the loss of Minnesota, in the Great Lakes region that was the scene of Hillary Clinton's defeat by Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
Raising morale
Prosecutor Ellison's biography can reassure some protesters. He was born into a Catholic family, converted to Islam at the age of nineteen when he was studying law, and spent his youth among the "Black Muslim" group, a religious political group that advocates African-American nationalism.
Elson is also a left-wing figure in the Democratic Party, and has supported Bill Sanders during the Democratic nomination. In 2018, Keith Ellison ran for the attorney general and pledged to seek to counter some of the measures the Trump administration has taken, including a "travel ban," in January 2017 decree banning the refugee reception program.
The Floyd family, for its part, welcomed the police arrest as a first step toward "achieving justice", but said it was "late" and not enough. "We want to be charged with premeditated murder, we want the other agents involved to be arrested," she said in a statement.
To date, a criminal complaint has been filed by the District Attorney of Hennepin against a police officer accused of "third-degree murder" and "manslaughter", and it will be up to Keith Ellison, if necessary after the investigation, to realign the facts.