Former police officer Thomas Lane, who pleaded guilty to a state charge of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd, was sentenced on Wednesday.
After the murder of George Floyd, Minneapolis leaders pledged to dismantle the city's police department. Residents disagree on what that should look like.
Demonstrators were gathered to protest the June 3 shooting death of Winston Boogie Smith Jr., a Black man, by U.S. marshals in Minneapolis when a man plowed into a crowd Sunday night.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey says his city is taking more steps to change policing following the murder conviction of Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd.
"It would have been unimaginable just even a month ago that something like that was possible," activist and civil rights lawyer Nekima Levy Armstrong says following Derek Chauvin's murder conviction.
"No reasonable officer would have believed that that was an appropriate, acceptable or reasonable use of force," Seth Stoughton, a former police officer and use of force expert, told jurors.
"He's breathing. He's talking. He's not snoring. He's saying, 'Please, please get off of me, I can't breathe.' That is not a fentanyl overdose. That's someone begging to breathe," an expert testified.
Forensics specialists testified that a handful of pills recovered from the SUV that Floyd was in and the police squad car had very low levels of the controlled substances.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and activist, says it's "amazing" the Minneapolis police chief and others testified against Chauvin. But she's unsure if the trial will bring reforms.
"When Mr. Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers, they could have ended the restraint," retired Sgt. David Ploeger told the court on Thursday.
Paramedics who treated George Floyd as he lay motionless in the street, testified at then-officer Derek Chauvin's trial on Thursday. They said Floyd was in cardiac arrest and "limp" when they arrived.
Video footage played in court on Tuesday shows Genevieve Hansen pleading with officers on top of George Floyd for a chance to help him. She asked them to check his pulse.
The 17-year-old described then-Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin as "kind of angry," adding that "he was digging his knee into George Floyd's neck" and he threatened bystanders with a can of Mace.
