Four Officers Fired After Fatal Incident Shows Officer Kneeling On Black Man's Neck
BLITZER: We will have more coronavirus pandemic coverage coming up in a few moments. But there's breaking news out of Minneapolis right now, where four police officers have been fired in the wake of an African- American man's death after a police encounter. Part of the arrest was captured on video and it shows one officer kneeling on George Floyd's neck, on his neck. Floyd repeatedly said, and you can hear him, he repeatedly said he could not breathe. A warning to our viewers, this video you're about to see is very disturbing.</s>GEORGE FLOYD: I can't breathe.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boy, you got him down, man. Let him breathe at least, man.</s>FLOYD: I can't breathe.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He can't breathe</s>FLOYD: I'm about to die.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Relax.</s>FLOYD: Man, I can't breathe, my face --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you want?</s>FLOYD: I can't breathe. Please, the knee on my neck, I can't breathe.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get up and get in the car, man.</s>FLOYD: I will.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, get up and get in the car.</s>FLOYD: I can't move.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been waiting the whole time, man. Just get up and get in the car.</s>FLOYD: No more, no more.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get up and get in the car.</s>FLOYD: I can't.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't get up,</s>FLOYD: My neck, my neck.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't win, man.</s>FLOYD: I'm through.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know you have, man, but you never listen.</s>BLITZER: CNNs Omar Jimenez, is joining us now live from Minneapolis. Omar, so disturbing, what are police saying now about the arrest and the disturbing video?</s>OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the police department acted pretty quickly here, Wolf, firing these four officers. We learned that from an announcement from the police chief earlier today. And even before that, there were protests organized against what had happened to George Floyd and, sadly, what we hey saw played out in that video. And also in support of the life that Floyd lived. You can see some of the people that have gathered here over shoulder here, again, this is in Minneapolis. And it's not just -- these people that we're looking at particularly are more toward where this actually happened. It actually happened in this street that people are gathered in right now. And you can see the number of people here. I can just turn you along down this way, that this is a mass of people that stretches for blocks. They are in protest of what happened and in support of Floyd's life. Now, what led to this is basically police have gotten a call about either a counterfeit or forgery situation happening at a nearby restaurant or store here. And from there, the police were given a description of the man they eventually encountered inside a car at that time. And according to police, this man physically resisted and that's what sort to began the entanglement. Again, that's the account coming from police. We do know that there was body camera rolling throughout this encounter though we haven't seen that just yet. What we have seen is part of that video that was taken by a bystander that we saw play out and posted as part of a Facebook live, where we saw, again, in part, these officers, one, having a knee on the neck of George Floyd's, he repeatedly said I can't breathe, eerily similar to what we heard in 2014 with Eric Garner. And then, eventually, he begins to seemingly lose consciousness, where his word began to trail off. There are many people on the sidewalk that are asking to check the pulse, though that never happened. And by the time paramedics did get there and his body began to move, it was seemingly limp. And how it was, again, handled by the paramedics. Moving forward, I mentioned the four officers that were fired, the FBI is now investigating as well, along with state and local officials, but a very dynamic situation, Wolf, and a harrowing video.</s>BLITZER: Yes, very disturbing, indeed. Omar, thank you very much. Let's get some more on the breaking news right now. Joining us, the criminal defense attorney, CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson. Joey, the video, it's hard to watch, it's hard to hear. You can see George Floyd becoming motionless. What stands out to you from this video.</s>JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Everything does, Wolf. What stands out is the lack of inhumanity that you see that's involved. It's disturbing, it's perturbing. And more importantly, from a legal prospective, it looks like everything was under control. Why is that relevant? If you want to use force and you're an officer, there are those instances in which you can. Number one, you ask yourself, is there an immediate threat to you. When I look at the video, I don't see an immediate threat to anyone, much less the officer who has his knee on his neck. I don't see that. Moving over to the other issue, which is, okay, well if there's no immediate force, is any force that you used proportionate to any threat that was posed to you. I don't see a threat being posed. I see a person detained and not in a position to move. And then, finally, Wolf, you ask yourself the reasonability question. Well, did the officer act reasonably? And I don't see that. And, you know, we're always talking about these issues on many times rather in the context of split second decisions. I don't see even a split second decision. There is a person there, he's detained. There are bystanders who are pleading with the officer to stop. You have the person who's being detained saying, stop, I can't breathe, but yet the officers persist in their action. And so everything about this video is just really quite disturbing, to say the least, and I think certainly the federal government, we know, is involved, the state government is involved, they should be and there should be accountability on all fronts. And that' exceeds, Wolf, the firing of the officers, that's just step one.</s>BLITZER: Yes. It's bad enough that that one officer was choking him, had his knee on his neck, but the other three police officers were just standing there, they could have said something, could have stopped him, right?</s>JACKSON: There's no question. And so the issue then becomes if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. And so you see what's happening. You see a person that's in distress, you see a person that is really fighting for their life, not fighting in the technical sense, but saying they can't breathe. You see bystanders who are pleading with not only the officer who has the knee on the neck, but the officer who's confronting and facing the bystanders. And he does nothing. And then the other ones don't as well. And so they are complicit in what occurred in here, and at the end of the day, everybody needs to be held accountable.</s>BLITZER: All right. Joey Jackson, as usual, thank you very much. Very, very disturbing development in the Minneapolis, we'll stay on top of that story. Just ahead, will San Francisco businesses suffer as other part of California are opening up faster? I speak to the mayor, London Breed, when we come back.