Minneapolis pledges to dismantle and rebuild their police department following George Floyd’s death

Minneapolis counsellors were put under pressure to dismantle their police department following a series of anti-racism protests

Counsellors for the city of Minneapolis in the U.S have pledged to dismantle their police department and build a new, community-led protection system, after the death of unarmed black man George Floyd sparked international protests against racism in law enforcement.

George Floyd was killed on May 25, after a white police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes. The medical examiner’s final findings classified Floyd’s death as a homicide caused by “a cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained” by officers. The officer has been charged with second-degree murder and is due to appear in court today.

Videos of Floyd’s death taken by bystanders, where he can be heard calling for his mother and telling officers that he can’t breathe, caused outrage, both in the U.S and worldwide, and sparked almost two weeks of ongoing anti-racism protests across the world.

Here in Ireland, thousands took to the streets over the last two weekends to protest in solidarity with the U.S’s Black Lives Matter movement. Protestors marched towards the U.S Embassy in Dublin’s Ballsbridge to show support for the anti-racism movement.

Minneapolis Council President Lisa Bender, speaking to CNN, said “We committed to dismantling policing as we know it in the city of Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public safety that actually keeps our community safe.”

The announcement comes after Minneapolis’s mayor Jacob Frey was booed at a protest this week when he said he would not support defunding the city’s police department.

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