Early on the morning of Friday, May 29, President Trump appeared to order National Guardsmen to shoot protestors in Minneapolis before the guard had even been deployed in response to unrest following the police killing of George Floyd.
Trump said on Twitter that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Minnesota abolished the death penalty in 1911. In no state is property destruction or theft punishable by death.
“We call on the National Guard and law enforcement in Minneapolis to comply with the law and not President Trump,” said Jeffery Robinson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality.
Robinson said Trump’s statement was “immoral and illegal” and that the president’s “actions consistently demonstrate a gross disregard for the racial terror and police violence that communities of color across the country experience on a regular basis.”
In July 2017, while speaking to police and crime victims on Long Island, Trump encouraged police to inflict pain on suspects being taken into custody.
“President Trump has told police officers in New York that they should feel free to use violence against ‘thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon.’ He did not hesitate to claim to a foreign leader that there is no racial problem in America,” Robinson said.
“The president’s latest suggestion that law enforcement or the military should literally murder protesters is, unfortunately, no longer shocking. President Trump’s response ignores the fact that the inherent problem is not the reaction to Mr. Floyd’s murder. The problem is Mr. Floyd’s murder.”
Like the Ethical Society of Police and the National Medical Association, Robinson called for a criminal prosecution of the officers responsible for Floy’s death, who have been fired but not charged with any crime.
“Prosecutors in Minnesota must hold accountable the officers responsible for George Floyd’s murder – the officer who knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck as he gasped ‘I can’t breathe,’ and those who, by failing to do anything to intervene, approved their colleague’s decision to murder Mr. Floyd,” Robinson said.
“Holding these officers accountable is the bare minimum needed to show that our legal system recognizes that Black lives actually matter. The next step must be bold changes that address the racism at the root of our policing institutions.”
