A body was uncovered in the wreckage of a Minneapolis pawnshop that was burned during the protests that followed the death of George Floyd in May.
The charred remains were discovered nearly two months after the protests took place in the city. Minneapolis Police Department spokesman John Elder said his office received a tip that a body was in the rubble. The police, along with the city’s fire marshal and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, searched the wreckage of Max It Pawn, where they spotted the body on Monday.
“The body appears to have suffered thermal injury, and we do have somebody charged with setting fire to that place,” Elder said, according to the Star Tribune.
Elder said the city has referred the matter to the department’s homicide unit for further investigation. The victim will not be identified until an autopsy is completed and the cause of death is determined.
If the autopsy leads to a homicide ruling, it would be the 36th homicide to take place in Minneapolis this year. That would double the number of homicides that took place in the city in 2019 by this time of year. It would also be the second death to occur as a result of the protests in Minneapolis.
Montez Terrill Lee, a 25-year-old from Rochester, Minnesota, was charged with arson in connection to the Max It Pawn fire. A masked man identified as Lee was filmed pouring liquid throughout the store just before it was set ablaze.
“[Expletive] this place. We’re gonna burn this [expletive] down,” the man in the video said.
Max It Pawn was one of several buildings lit on fire during the protests in Minneapolis. It is located east of the Third Precinct police station, which was also burned during the riots.
The riots precipitated out of protests against police brutality and racial injustice after a bystander captured the final moments of Floyd’s life on video.
Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died on Memorial Day after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes despite his pleas for air. The officer who pressed a knee to Floyd’s neck, Derek Chauvin, was fired from the department and has been charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The three other officers who were involved in detaining Floyd, who was suspected of using a fake $20 bill, were also fired and charged with aiding and abetting murder.
