US cops booted for kneeling death of black man

To the general public, the video of a white police officer pressing his knee into the neck of a black man prone on the street, crying out for help until he finally stopped moving, was horrifying.
Four officers were fired a day after George Floyd's death, a stunning and swift move by the Minneapolis chief with the mayor's full backing. Despite their dismissal, whether the incident will be considered criminal, or even excessive force, is a more complicated question that will likely take months to investigate.
The officers were dismissed soon after a bystander's video taken outside a south Minneapolis grocery store Monday night showed an officer kneeling on the handcuffed man's neck, even after he pleaded that he could not breathe and stopped moving. Floyd's death prompted protests Tuesday, with thousands taking to the streets at the intersection where he died.
Many protesters marched more than 2 miles to the police precinct station in that part of the city, with some damaging the building's windows and squad cars and spraying graffiti. Police in riot gear eventually confronted them with tear gas and projectiles, with tense skirmishes stretching late into the evening.
Bridgett Floyd told NBC's "Today'' show in an interview Wednesday morning that the officers involved in her brother's death should be charged with murder because "that's exactly what they did.'' She said she hadn't watched the bystander's video, but told ABC's "Good Morning America'' that ``I don't understand how someone could possibly let an individual go out like that.``
Mayor Jacob Frey announced the firings on Twitter, saying: "This is the right call.''
The FBI and state law enforcement were investigating Floyd's death, which immediately drew comparisons to the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died in 2014 in New York after he was placed in a chokehold by police and pleaded for his life, saying he could not breathe.-AP