The Los Angeles Police Department announced it will conduct an internal investigation following accusations that officers within its ranks circulated a Valentine’s Day mockery of George Floyd.
An officer within the department made the complaint and said fellow law enforcement “passed around” an image with Floyd’s face on it that read, “You take my breath away,” LAPD Chief Michel Moore said on Saturday. The police officer who reported the incident is set to be interviewed on Monday.
“Our investigation is to determine the accuracy of the allegations while also reinforcing our zero tolerance for anything with racist views,” Moore said, adding that if the accusations are correct, “people will find my wrath.”
The internal investigation will focus on Instagram accounts purportedly linked to department personnel, including one called “Blue Line Mafia.”
The department echoed the chief’s sentiment and added that the post mocking Floyd may have been authored by an employee within the law enforcement agency.
“The Department has become aware of allegations that an image was being passed around the department and this image was in the workplace. There are also allegations that the post with the image was authored by a department employee,” LAPD tweeted on Saturday. “A personnel complaint has been initiated and we are pursuing each allegation including interviewing the department member who brought it to our attention.”
It continued: “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. 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.”
Ben Crump, an attorney for Floyd’s relatives, said the family is “outraged” by the alleged conduct of the police force.
“The Floyd family is understandably outraged. This is beyond insult on top of injury — it’s injury on top of death. 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,” he said.
Floyd, a black man, died in May 2020 after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. His death drew widespread condemnation and monthslong racial justice protests and riots calling for police reform throughout the United States.
