With a Los Angeles Police Department investigation reportedly underway to ferret out the officers allegedly behind a Valentine’s Day card mocking George Floyd’s death, the family’s famed counsel sounded off the scandal rocking the City of Angels.
“This is beyond insult on top of injury – it’s injury on top of death,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump said in a statement on behalf of the family on Monday. “The type of callousness and cruelty within a person’s soul needed to do something like this evades comprehension—and is indicative of a much larger problem within the culture of the LAPD. We demand that everyone who was involved is held accountable for their revolting behavior and that an apology be issued to the family immediately.”
The reported investigation sprang from accusations that multiple officers circulated a Valentine’s Day-inspired image mocking the death of Floyd, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore on Saturday confirmed to the Times that at least one officer filed a personnel complaint about colleagues sharing a post depicting Floyd’s face along with the caption: “You take my breath away.”
“Our investigation is to determine the accuracy of the allegations while also reinforcing our zero tolerance for anything with racist views,” Chief Moore said.
He added that any officers found to have been involved in circulating the image would “find my wrath.”
Floyd, a Black man, was suspected of using a counterfeit $20 bill in May when a former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for several minutes while he repeatedly cried out, “I can’t breathe.” Video footage recorded by bystanders went viral, sparking racial equality and anti-police brutality protests across the globe and resulting in all four of the officers involved being fired and charged in a murder case.
The department’s official Twitter account said there had also been accusations that the post was not only shared within the department, but it was actually created by an employee.
“At this point the Department has not identified any actual postings in the workplace or identified that it was in fact our department employee who created the image. We have raised the apparent existence of the image and directed commands to survey the worksites for it,” the account tweeted. “If found any employee or supervisor is directed to take possession and identify those present. The Department will have zero tolerance for this type of behavior.”
According to the Times, Moore also confirmed that the department was investigating if any employees were behind two Instagram accounts, including one called “The Blue Line Mafia.”
[image via Ben Crump]