Genesee News

The Flint Police Department has plans to create a Black Lives Matter advisory council. Flint leaders hope the council will help in the city’s efforts to stop police brutality.

It is one of six actions Mayor Sheldon Neeley announced during a June 1 protest for George Floyd on the City Hall grounds. Floyd was the 46-year-old black man who died while in Minneapolis police custody on Memorial Day.

MLive reported that Neeley is also forming a coalition of black mayors to discuss statewide systemic racism, while Flint Chief of Police Phil Hart is implementing Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation training for the agency.

The chief said that what happened to Floyd angered him, emphasizing that the department has a responsibility to protect and defend.

“It breaks my heart. I got into this to help people. I don’t know how you can turn your back on people who need help,” Hart told MLive.

He expressed his confusion as to why only one officer was apprehended, as of June 1. Officer Derek Chauvin is alleged to have knelt on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, with three other officers looking on, after police responded to a forgery call at a convenience store.

As of June 4, all four officers have been arrested and charged. Chauvin was originally charged with third-degree murder, until Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison upgraded the charge to second-degree murder.

The three other officers -- Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane -- are charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder while committing a felony, and with aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter with culpable negligence, the Star Tribune reported.

“I don’t know if under any circumstance that it’s okay to put your knee on someone’s neck like that,” Hart told MLive. “It’s not acceptable to treat a person that way.”