Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said changes to ensure police officers are held accountable aren’t made due to politicians fearing the “political power” of police. 

“I’ll just say it: a lot of politicians are scared of the political power of the police, and that’s why changes to hold them accountable for flagrant killings don’t happen. That in itself is a scary problem,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Wednesday. 

“We shouldn’t be intimidated out of holding people accountable for murder,” she said. 

I’ll just say it: a lot of politicians are scared of the political power of the police,and that’s why changes to hold them accountable for flagrant killings don’t happen. That in itself is a scary problem.

We shouldn’t be intimidated out of holding people accountable for murder.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 27, 2020

Her tweet was sent in light of the killing of George Floyd, a black man who died shortly after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck while arresting him. 

Four Minneapolis police officers were fired Tuesday after a video emerged of Floyd’s arrest showing an officer kneeling on his neck and pinning him to the pavement as Floyd repeated that he couldn’t breathe. Floyd died at a local hospital. 

On Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that Floyd “should be alive,” and said the “impunity of police violence is a systemic problem we must face to save lives.”

#GeorgeFloyd should be alive. Instead, he was killed as he begged police for his life.

The impunity of police violence is a systemic problem we must face to save lives.

Police brutality is now a leading cause of death for young Black men in the US. The status quo is killing us.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 26, 2020

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) on Wednesday called on the Hennepin County Attorney General’s office to charge the officer seen kneeling on Floyd. 

“Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?” Frey said during a press conference. “If you had done it or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now.”

Floyd’s sister, Bridgett Floyd, also called for the officers involved in her brother’s arrest to face murder charges. 

“They murdered my brother; he was crying for help,” she said on NBC’s “Today.”

“I don’t need them to be suspended and able to work in another state or another county,” she added. “Their license should be taken away, their jobs should be taken away, and they should be put in jail for murder.”

The local police chief said Tuesday that the FBI will lead an investigation into Floyd’s death.