(AllHipHop News) The cries of the public have been heard and the police officers who involved in the death of rapper George Floyd are on their way to jail.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison held a press conference to announce that all four police officers connected in the death of George Floyd will be charged.
Derek Chauvin, the ex-cop who pressed his knee into George Floyd’s neck during the altercation that ended his life, will be charged with second-degree murder.
The three other officers on-site during his killing have been charged with aiding and abetting. The city is in the process of bringing them all in as of publishing.
According to Ellison, the shift to bring each officer in was not connected to the hundreds of protests across the country or the fact that Floyd’s memorial would occur on Thursday.
The AG firmly stated, “I did not allow public pressure to impact our decision-making process.”
“I was prepared to withstand whatever calls came. We made these decisions based on the facts that we gathered since this matter occurred and made the charges based on the law that we think is applied,” Keith Ellison said.
The new second-degree murder charge says Chauvin killed Floyd “without intent to effect the death of any person while committing or attempting to commit a felony offense … namely assault in the third degree,” according to an amended complaint.
Officers Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, who helped restrain Floyd, and Tou Thao, who stood by and kept watch, were not charged at first. Now, Lane, 37, Kueng, 26, and Thao, 34, will be culpable through their active conduct.
When asked if he understands why people believe that even with the charge and arrests, that nothing might happen. Ellison, a Black man, got it.
Ellison also said, “Let me be honest. Our country has under-prosecuted these matters in Minnesota and across the country … so I think that trust is from historically not holding people who are public guardians accountable for their behavior in situations where they should have. That I think is the origin of the trust problem.”
