A bystander video has come out showing a Minneapolis police officer with his knee on the neck of a man who was complaining about not being able to breathe:
NY POST – Disturbing video shows a Minneapolis police officer with his knee pinned on the neck of a moaning black man, who later died.
The footage, which was shared by a bystander Darnella Frazier, showed the man appearing to be in distress on the ground at the foot of a squad car.
“I cannot breathe! I cannot breathe!” the man yells in the video posted to Facebook. “Don’t kill me!”
In the clip, onlookers repeatedly plead with the officer, who is white, to take his knee off the man’s neck. At one point, the man becomes unresponsive.
“Bro, he’s not even f–king moving!” one says to police. “Get off of his neck!”
Another bystander asks the cop, “Did you kill him?”
The Minneapolis Police Department said they had been responding to a report of a “forgery in progress” Monday night and were advised that the man, believed to be in his 40s, appeared to be under the influence.
Police said they ordered him to get out of his car, which he complied with but then “physically resisted officers.”
“Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress,” police said.
The man, who was not identified, was brought to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he “died a short time later,” authorities said.
“At no time were weapons of any type used by anyone involved in this incident,” police said.
The NY Post posted a short, clipped video up of the altercation. I found a much longer video on Youtube, but as always, be warned it contains distressing content:
I admit at face value the video does look disturbing to me. Not only does the officer have his knee on the neck of the man while he’s complaining about not being able to breathe, but the officer keeps his knee there for several minutes after the man appears to go unconscious. When the rescue squad comes and they load him onto the cart, he looks to be completely unconscious.
Now clearly we don’t have all of the information including what the man did to resist, whether he was truly intoxicated and why he actually died. But if he died from lack of oxygen, people will be pointing the finger directly at the officer who refused to listen to bystanders screaming at him to remove his knee from the man’s neck to let him breathe. And they’ll turn this into a racial thing because the officer is white and the victim is black.