‘We should all be angry,’ SC governor says about killing of George Floyd
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said Friday night there is “no excuse” for the killing of George Floyd, a black man whose death incited protests, some violent, across the United States Friday. A Minneapolis police officer has been charged with murder.
“South Carolinians are well within their rights to publicly and peacefully express anger over the inexcusable taking of George Floyd’s life,” McMaster said in a social media post Friday night. “We should all be angry. There is no excuse for this.”
Floyd died after a police officer with the Minneapolis Police Department put a knee on the back of Floyd’s neck for eight minutes, the Associated Press reported. Floyd was handcuffed and placed stomach-down on the road as the officer had his knee on Floyd’s neck. Floyd was hospitalized after being in police custody and died in the hospital.
Police initially stopped Floyd after an accusation that he tried to use a counterfeit bill at a business, according to media reports.
Friday, peaceful rallies occurred across the United States by people protesting Floyd’s death and police actions which have killed black men in the past decade.
Violence and destruction also broke out, including in Charlotte and Atlanta, where the Georgia governor deployed the National Guard, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In Minneapolis, a crowd set fire to a police station, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
A protest of Floyd’s killing is planned for Columbia on Saturday.
“We are demanding that lawmakers ... create stricter hate crime laws and laws that will hold law enforcement accountable,” Lawrence Nathaniel, the founder of People Demand Action, said in a news release announcing the protest.
This story was originally published May 30, 2020 at 10:01 AM.