By AFP

The police officer implicated in the death of George Floyd, this American black whose death revived the racial wounds of the United States, was arrested and charged with manslaughter Friday as demanded for several days by the demonstrators, whose anger took the form of riots in Minneapolis.

"The police officer involved in the death of Mr. Floyd, who was identified as Derek Chauvin, has been detained" by the criminal police, said Commissioner John Harrington, of the Minnesota Department of Civil Defense.

A violent video, which has gone viral, showed this police officer violently arresting Monday for a minor crime George Floyd, 46, placing his knee on his neck.

"I can no longer breathe," we hear him say in the recording of the scene.

The results of the autopsy are not yet known, but the police officer is accused of asphyxiating George Floyd.

The four agents involved in the tragedy were dismissed and federal and local investigations were opened to establish their responsibilities. But only Derek Chauvin has been arrested so far. In the process, the Hennepin County prosecutor, where the city of Minneapolis is located, announced that his services charged him with cruel and dangerous acts causing death and manslaughter.

This judicial development follows a third night of riots in this big city of Minnesota, in the north of the country, where the demonstrators demand that justice be done.

The National Guard was deployed on Friday to try to restore calm, while a police station was burnt down overnight and several businesses looted.

President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly denounced a "tragic" crime, this time attacked "thugs". "The looting will be immediately greeted by bullets," he added in a tweet, which the social network decided to report as an "apology for violence".

In a diametrically opposite tone, his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama said he shared "the distress" of millions of black Americans, for whom "to be treated differently on the basis of race is tragically, painfully and infuriatingly + normal +".

"It shouldn't be" normal "in America in 2020," added the first black president of the United States.

"People are angry because this is not the first time the police have killed in this country," said Reverend Al Sharpton on MSNBC on Friday.

- "Upset" -

During the night of Thursday to Friday, for the third time, the demonstrations turned into a riot near the police station where the four men worked.

Confronted with the advance of the demonstrators, the security forces had abandoned the premises around 10 p.m. Some demonstrators then managed to break through the security barriers, break the windows and set the building on fire.

Several shops in the surrounding area have suffered a similar fate and the violence has also spread to certain districts of the neighboring town of Saint-Paul, with sporadic clashes between police officers and residents.

In the early morning, smoke continued to rise in several parts of the city, where heavily armed soldiers and police patrolled in a tense climate.

A team of CNN journalists covering the scene was arrested live by police, and released after two hours. "These people are on edge," commented journalist Omar Jimenez simply.

"Ashes are a symbol of decades of suffering," said Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz at a press conference. "Generations of pain are expressed in front of the world, and the world is watching," he added.

While insisting on the need to provide substantive responses to racial inequalities, he stressed that his immediate priority was to "restore order".

- "Amazement and horror" -

Anger is beginning to spread to other American cities. Protesters blocked a highway in Denver, others defied containment orders in New York or Phoenix.

In Louisville, Kentucky, clashes took place as residents sought justice for Breonna Taylor, a black woman killed by police in her apartment in March. Seven people were shot, two of whom remain hospitalized, the mayor said.

The emotion goes beyond American borders. Many Canadians are following the situation with their neighbor in "amazement and horror", Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday.

The case recalls in particular the death of Eric Garner, a black man who died in 2014 in New York after being asphyxiated during his arrest by white police. He too had said "I can't breathe", a phrase that has become a rallying cry of the Black Lives Matter movement ("The life of blacks counts").

In this article: