The Los Angeles Police Division has opened an inside investigation after an inappropriate picture of George Floyd, the person killed in police custody in Minneapolis final 12 months, was reported to have been circulated within the division, officers mentioned.
The picture was styled in an unspecified Valentine-like format with the phrases “You are taking my breath away,” in response to an internal memo posted on Twitter and what Chief Michel Moore instructed The Los Angeles Occasions on Saturday.
“The division is conscious of the inappropriate publish and a grievance has been initiated, and, resulting from personnel issues, we’re unable to remark additional,” mentioned Officer Rosario Cervantes, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Division. One other spokeswoman, Stacy D. Spell, confirmed that “an administrative personnel investigation has been initiated” however that she couldn’t touch upon its particular particulars.
George Floyd, a Black man, died in Could after being handcuffed and pinned to the bottom below the knee of Derek Chauvin, who was then a police officer in Minneapolis, for greater than 9 minutes. In video footage, Mr. Floyd might be heard uttering the phrases “I can’t breathe” greater than 20 occasions. Mr. Chauvin, 44, has been charged with second-degree homicide and second-degree manslaughter.
Mr. Floyd’s killing incited a social justice motion nationwide as individuals marched for weeks in cities — together with Los Angeles — throughout the nation, protesting police brutality and systemic racism. The marches had been largely peaceable, although at occasions the protests descended into chaos and violence, with looting and the burning of buildings.
In Los Angeles, the protests referred to as to thoughts the riots that had occurred almost 30 years earlier after 4 law enforcement officials had been acquitted of assault for the beating of Rodney King. The beating, which occurred in 1991, was captured on movie and was one of many first viral movies of a Black man being abused by the police.
The Police Department said on Twitter on Saturday that it was conscious of ideas that the picture of Mr. Floyd “was being handed across the division and this picture was within the office” and that it may need been “authored by a division worker.”
The worker who introduced the picture to the eye of officers can be interviewed, the division mentioned.
It added that the division had not recognized “any precise postings within the office or recognized that it was actually our division worker who created the picture,” but it surely had directed instructions to “survey the worksites for it.”
If the picture is discovered, “any worker or supervisor is directed to take possession and establish these current,” the Police Division mentioned. “The Division can have zero tolerance for such a habits.”
Chief Moore got here below fireplace after he referred to looters and mentioned throughout a virtual briefing in June that the loss of life of Mr. Floyd “is on their arms as a lot as it’s on these officers.”
“And that could be a robust assertion,” Chief Moore added.
He later apologized on Twitter: “Whereas I did instantly right myself, I acknowledge that my preliminary phrases had been terribly offensive. Looting is flawed, however it’s not the equal of homicide and I didn’t imply to equate the 2. I deeply remorse and humbly apologize for my characterization.”
He added, “Let me be clear: The law enforcement officials concerned had been chargeable for the loss of life of George Floyd.”
The Los Angeles mayor, Eric Garcetti, introduced in June that his administration would search to chop $100 million to $150 million from the Police Division’s finances and search for methods to spend it on different neighborhood packages.
Michael Levenson contributed reporting.