State Sen. Royce West today issued the following statement calling for the arrest of the officers involved in George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, Minnesota:

“Earlier this month, heavily-armed protestors encircled the Minnesota state house to demand their state be ‘liberated’ from stay-at-home orders related to COVID-19. The police handled the situation in a peaceful manner.

This week, protestors armed with nothing but their voices and signs protested the senseless killing of George Floyd. This somehow managed to descend into a street-war, with police in full riot gear.

It appears a few protesters, believed to have been outside instigators, threw some rocks or vandalized a police car, causing an originally peaceful protest to escalate.

Today, I applaud the mayor of Minneapolis, who called for charges against the arresting officer, Derek Chauvin, an officer with multiple police brutality complaints, in the death of Mr. Floyd.

I also call on the Department of Justice to expedite its criminal investigation in to this matter, and call for the arrest of the officers responsible for this homicide.

As a former prosecutor and attorney for 40 years, I believe there is ample evidence for those officers involved in this incident to be charged and for the case to proceed through the justice system.

Policing in America today has its challenges. We cannot continue to bring harm to innocent people, continue to exercise biased behavior, or continue to encounter incidents of excessive use of force resulting in the killing of unarmed and non-threatening human beings.

There is no reason violent and incendiary tactics should be used by any police department in the United States."