A Louisiana police officer has been put on administrative leave after he wrote in a Facebook post that the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died in police custody, was a “mistake or misstep not an act of murder.” Shreveport Police Chief Ben Raymond has reportedly ordered an investigation into Sgt. Brent Mason to determine whether he violated the department’s social media policy. Floyd, 46, lost consciousness after saying repeatedly that he could not breathe while an officer held him down by kneeling on his neck.
Mason said in the since-deleted post that he had been training officers for 12 years and had been with the department for 25 years. He wrote that Derek Chauvin, the officer who kneeled on Floyd’s neck, had “poor technique,” which is a “common mistake” made by police officers. “Normally this mistake does not result in death,” he wrote, adding, “where is the innocent until proven guilty!?” Shreveport PD said the “views expressed by individual officers on their personal social media accounts do not reflect” the department’s views or values.
Read it at ArkLaTex
