US: Police Officers Fired After Lethal Race Killing

Four police officers involved in George Floyd's apprehension and later death, have been fired, Minneapolis city major Jacob Frey said on Tuesday.

Floyd, a black man who was pinned down while unarmed by white police on May 25, died in a hospital a short time after.

"He should not have died. What we saw was horrible, completely and utterly messed up," Frey said. About the decision to fire the four officers, the Major had no doubt. "This is the right call," he wrote on Twitter.

Allegedly, policemen were responding to a "report of a forgery in progress," as they stated in the deposition. At the moment they arrived, Floy was in a car, they said.

According to the statement, "after [the suspect] got out [of his car], he physically resisted officers. Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and note he appeared to be suffering medical distress."

Further, a video of the incident, filmed by a bystander, shows how a police officer pinned him down with his knee while Floyd yelled, "please, please, I cannot breathe." After several minutes of moaning, he appeared motionless.

"This abusive, excessive and inhumane use of force cost the life of a man who was being detained by the police for questioning about a non-violent charge," Floyd's lawyer Ben Crump denounced in a statement on Tuesday, after the video release. Crump is also a prominent civil rights lawyer.

This incident has raised anger among community members and leaders. In the past, movements such as Black Lives Matter has demanded measures to prevent the use of lethal force in minority communities.