‘No Defense’ For Cop Who Killed George Floyd: Aurora Police Chief

AURORA, IL — Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman on Friday condemned the four Minneapolis police officers involved in the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died Monday after an officer knelt on Floyd’s neck while trying to arrest him.

“When I first watched the video of the Minneapolis officer, I didn’t need to wait for more information to come in. I didn’t need to wait for the investigation to conclude before I made an assessment,” Ziman wrote on Facebook. “When you place your knee on the neck of a human being for over eight minutes – a human being who is handcuffed and pleading that he can’t breathe – there is no defense.”

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In her post, Ziman challenged those who have said Floyd was resisting arrest.

“Resisting suffocation is not resisting arrest,” she said, calling for any police officer who isn’t “outraged” by Floyd’s death to “get out of our profession.”

The Aurora Police Department has worked to create a “culture … where we stand with our officers when they are right and we part with them when they are wrong,” Ziman wrote, adding Aurora officers “police each other at every rank” and “swiftly and thoroughly investigate any allegations of wrong-doing with transparency.”

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The department trains its officers to de-escalate situations they respond to, and to understand their implicit biases “because we understand that what makes Aurora beautiful is our diversity,” Ziman wrote.

“The men and women in blue who serve our community are the best in the nation and I am saddened that they will be painted with a broad brush,” Ziman said. “But they understand that they represent all police officers and they shoulder that responsibility.”

Ziman thanked Aurora residents for their support of the police department and vowed “that even in these trying times, we will remain loyal to you and our fellow man,”

After learning Friday morning that someone smashed a window of an Aurora Police Department vehicle, Ziman called on residents to stand with the city’s police officers.

“Please stand with your Aurora Police Department because there is no us. There is no them. There is only we,” Ziman wrote.

Read Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman’s full Facebook post here: