According to information gathered by the American newspaper, since the beginning of the trial of the police officer who killed “George Floyd”, 64 people have been killed by the American police, more than half of whom are black and Latino.
During three weeks of testimony in the murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin in connection with George Floyd’s death, at least 64 other people were killed at the hands of law enforcement, according to a new analysis.
The total was compiled by The New York Times, which based its analysis on news media reports, law enforcement news releases, and gun violence databases.
Some of those cases are now well-known. Just outside Minneapolis, where closing arguments in Chauvin’s trial began Monday, 20-year-old Daunte Wright was fatally shot March 11 at a traffic stop by an officer, Kim Potter, now charged with manslaughter. And on Thursday, police-worn body camera video was made public of a Chicago officer shooting Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old, who is seen fleeing with a gun but then raising his hands before he was shot early on March 29, hours before attorneys prosecuting Floyd’s murder opened their case.
Other fatal shootings — more than a dozen — involved persons suffering from mental illness or experiencing a breakdown. Jeffrey Ely, 40, of Claremont, N.H., claimed on his Facebook page that he was subject to “mind control” and being harassed by voices before he barricaded himself and died March 31 in a shootout with New Hampshire State Police, reports the Concord Monitor.
At least 42 of those killed by police in the past three weeks were accused of wielding firearms. Anthony J. Thompson, Jr., 17, was shot dead in a high school bathroom by officers responding to a report of a student with a gun; during a scuffle with officers in the restroom, the student’s gun went off, and officers fired twice, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
