'Many at MPD believe he was one of main reasons they had to watch one of their precincts burn in 2020.'

By Thursday, May 28, 2020, riots had plagued the city of Minneapolis for over three days. The Black Lives Matter rioters focused much of their attention on the Minneapolis Police Department's 3rd Precinct as officer Derek Chauvin, who was later convicted of killing George Floyd, had been assigned to that station.

The Minneapolis Police Department has been hemorrhaging officers ever since George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody, and the force’s staffing crisis recently hit a new low.

With just 585 sworn officers, the city’s police force last month dipped to its lowest staffing level in at least four decades, the Star Tribune reported.

The city now has one of the lowest ratios of police officers to city residents out of 22 cities the outlet analyzed, with 1.4 officers for every 1,000 residents.

Two former Minneapolis police officers who assisted in the fatal arrest of George Floyd have been sentenced on federal civil rights charges.

J Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao were convicted in February of violating the unarmed black man's civil rights by failing to provide care or intervene.

Kueng will spend three years behind bars, while Thao was sentenced to 42 months.

Mr Floyd's death, filmed by a bystander, led to global protests.

For nine minutes, while lead officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Mr Floyd's neck, Kueng held his feet while Thao held back bystanders.

A 17-year-old has been arrested in connection to the search warrant that led to the death of Amir Locke, a 22-year-old who was shot and killed by Minneapolis police officers executing a "no-knock" search warrant.

Locke, who was fatally shot last Wednesday, was not named in the "no-knock" warrant, according to civil rights attorney Ben Crump. The warrant was executed on behalf of Saint Paul Police, who were searching for a homicide suspect.

It was a weekend of anguish in Minneapolis as thousands of protesters marched through the city demanding justice for Amir Locke, a 22-year-old man who was shot and killed by a SWAT team during a no-knock raid last Wednesday.

A massive car caravan of protesters traveled through the city Sunday night, stopping outside what is believed to be the home of Interim Police Chief Amelia Huffman.

"We need to end police brutality, no-knock warrants. Stop the lying," demonstrator Butchy Austin told CBS News.

The huge difference between slogans and solutions is a key theme of this episode. While demands to “de-fund the police” or replace entire police departments with something new might sound good in theory, these ambitious experiments in public safety may backfire.

A member of the far-right Boogaloo Boys had admitted he traveled from Texas to Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd’s death and posed as a Black Lives Matter supporter while wreaking havoc on the city. Ivan Harrison Hunter, 24, pleaded guilty Thursday to a single count of rioting. He admitted to firing 13 rounds from an AK-47-style rifle into the 3rd Precinct police station as rioters set the building alight in May 2020.

It’s no secret that the Minneapolis Police Department—like many other police departments across the country—has disproportionately brutalized Black communities. The nation caught a glimpse of this brutality last year in the widely circulated video clip that showed George Floyd gasping for air under the knee of a uniformed white police officer.

The Minneapolis City Council on Friday endorsed ballot language that would allow residents in November to decide if they want to replace the police department.

The city has been under pressure to overhaul its policing system following George Floyd’s fatal encounter with former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin last year. Chauvin was sentenced to 22 and a half years for the murder of Floyd. A Justice Department probe into the department’s policing practices has compounded that pressure.

A US federal investigation has been launched into policing practices in the city of Minneapolis, a day after one of its former officers was convicted of the murder of George Floyd.

The justice department will look at whether there has been a pattern "of unconstitutional or unlawful policing", Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

It follows national outrage over the killing of Mr Floyd by Derek Chauvin.

The former officer was convicted of all charges against him on Tuesday.