Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said Tuesday that his state is launching a civil rights probe into the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), of which four police officers were involved in the brutal killing of unarmed black man George Floyd last week.
Walz said the Minnesota Department of Human Rights has filed the civil rights charge against the MPD and will investigate its "policies, procedures, and practices over the past 10 years to determine if they engaged in systemic discriminatory practices."
"My administration will use every tool at our disposal to deconstruct generations of systemic racism in Minnesota," the governor said on Twitter following a news conference. "This effort is one of many steps to come in our effort to restore trust with communities that have been unseen and unheard for far too long."
Floyd died on May 25 after being pinned to the ground by four MPD police officers, who arrested him for allegedly using a fake 20-dollar note to buy cigarettes. All of the officers have been fired, and Derek Chauvin, the one who kept his knee down on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes even as Floyd pleaded desperately for his life, has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.
"This is not about holding people personally criminally liable," said Minnesota Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero, who will lead the just-announced investigation. "This is about systems change."
Floyd's death instigated nationwide protests against police brutality and racism that have persisted for a week now.
As demonstrations escalated into violent unrests in some parts of the country, U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday threatened the use of the military to clamp down on the protesters, a response that drew immediate condemnation from his political opponents, including former Vice President Joe Biden, whom Trump is all but certain to face off in the general election later this year.
