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Police Brutality Won’t End If Cops Are Trained to Kill

Ezinne Ukoha

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“Four responding MPD officers involved in the death of George Floyd have been terminated. This is the right call.”

Minnesota Mayor Jacob Frey posted that tweet after the information was confirmed by Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo on Tuesday, after the death video depicting the fatal last minutes of the Black man, struggling to breathe due to the knee on his neck went viral.

Not so long ago, in the same state of Minnesota, a young Black man, Philando Castile was shot five times in his own car as he sat in the driver’s seat, while his fiancee, Diamond Reynolds, and her four-year-old daughter watched in horror as he bled out.

Officer Yanez claimed that he feared for his life because of the assumption that Castile was reaching for a firearm that was never there.

Back in 2016, I was an avid viewer and sharer of viral death videos, and I most certainly did watch the white cop still brandishing the gun he used to kill Philando Castile in the tear-stained faces of the two frightened witnesses, including the Black toddler who was begging her mother not to cry.

Castile’s murderer was charged with one count of second degree manslaughter including two other felonies, and it’s no shocker that he was eventually acquitted.

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