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The Minneapolis police officer who pressed his knee into George Floyd’s neck this week during an arrest that ended with the black man’s death has been taken into custody.
Derek Chauvin was one of four cops fired over Floyd’s death Tuesday, which was captured in a viral bystander video that roiled the nation. In several videos of the encounter, Chauvin is shown holding Floyd to the ground while he pleaded, “I can’t breathe, man. Please. Please let me stand.”
The other three officers present for Floyd’s arrest have not been charged or arrested. Two appeared to have helped hold Floyd down with his hands cuffed behind his back. The other officer stood by as bystanders pleaded with them to let Floyd breathe.
It’s unclear where Chauvin was taken into custody — protesters have been standing outside his Minneapolis home for days — or on what charges he was arrested. Floyd’s family members have demanded the officers be charged with murder.
Chauvin’s attorney, Tom Kelly, did not immediately return a VICE News request for comment.
The three other officers involved in the arrest have been identified as Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J Alexander Kueng.
According to the initial Minneapolis Police Department statement about Floyd’s death, they were responding to an alleged “forgery in progress” near a local grocery store Monday when they encountered Floyd, who they claimed resisted arrest, although bystander videos don’t show any such struggle.
The owner of the store had called the police because they believed Floyd had used a counterfeit $20 bill to make a purchase.
Chauvin was seen on a nine-minute video pinning Floyd’s neck to the ground as the 46-year-old cried out that he couldn’t breathe, pleading for his mother and water. Later in the video, Floyd grew quiet, and then unresponsive.
First responders have since said that he didn’t have a pulse by the time they arrived. The video ends with them dragging Floyd’s limp body onto a stretcher.
That video stoked nationwide protests, as legislators, activists, and even the mayor of Minneapolis begged for arrests to be made.
“I’ve wrestled with, more than anything else over the last 36 hours, one fundamental question: Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said earlier this week. “If you had done it, or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now. And I cannot come up with a good answer to that.”
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