A Minneapolis police officer shot dead a man during a stop, the first murder by a department member since George Floyd’s death in May, a police spokesman said Wednesday night.
At least one officer shot the man during a gunfire after police found the man about a mile from where Mr. Floyd was killed, pulled down, spokesman John Elder said.
The death of mr. Floyd has led to charges against four officers – including one facing a second-degree murder charge – and large, sustained protests across the United States after a video showed an officer kneeling longer than nine on Mr. Floyd’s neck held. minute.
Many details about the shooting Wednesday were not immediately clear. Mr Elder said police had pulled over a driver because he was wanted for a crime, although Mr Elder said he did not know what the crime was. The driver, who was not immediately identified, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Mr Elder said at least one officer was wearing a body camera and that it was activated during the shooting.
According to him, no officers were injured, and an adult woman in the passenger seat of the man’s car was also not injured. He did not know how many officers were at the scene and whether more than one had fired their weapons, nor the race of any person involved.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a state agency, is leading the investigation into the police shooting.
Videos mailed online by a reporter from The Star Tribune showed people rushing to the scene, some of whom shouted at police.
In the wake of mr. Floyd’s death on May 25 outside the Cup Foods convenience store ripped protesters through the city, demanding that officers be charged. Some people burned down a police station after officers withdrew, and several businesses were set on fire; weeks later, the body of one man was found in a charred pawn shop.
The three Minneapolis officers who arrested Mr. Floyd pinned to the sidewalk was soon fired and a fourth on the scene. Derek Chauvin, the former officer who gave his knee to Mr. Floyd’s neck was charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, and the other three were charged with aiding him. Everyone pleaded not guilty; a trial is set to take place in March, but a motion by lawyers for the trial of some of the officers is pending.
In response to the murder of the police of Mr. Floyd and other black people this year, including Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., And Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, have spread protest marches across the country, reaching coastal cities familiar with demonstrations, such as Portland, Ore. , and New York, but also small towns in the Midwest and South Africa.
Several cities responded by pursuing police reform and budget cuts. The Minneapolis City Council voted this month to divert $ 8 million from the Department of Police to other city services, about 4.5 percent of the department’s proposed budget, but many councilors’ earlier promises to end “policing as we know it,” collapsed.