Body found in Minneapolis building burned during George Floyd protests

“We are treating this death as a homicide,” police spokesman John Elder told CNN.

On Monday morning, officials from the Minneapolis Police and Fire Departments along with agents from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives went to a building on East Lake Street based on an anonymous complaint, Elder said.

Authorities searched the burned rubble where Max It Pawn once stood and found a “deceased individual,” Elder said.

The body “appears to have suffered thermal injuries” and was taken to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office, Elder said. The identity of the victim will be revealed along with the nature and cause of death, he said.

On June 8, the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis filed a arson charge against a 25-year-old man after an investigation into the Max It Pawn fire where the body was found, Elder said.

Protests against racial injustice and police brutality erupted across the country following Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody in May.

Last month, federal officials arrested a man and accused him of aiding and abetting the arson of the badly damaged Third Precinct police station in Minneapolis on May 28. Police put up a fence around the compound during the protests, but thousands of protesters beat him. about, crowding around the compound and setting it on fire.

“The compound is on fire. We don’t know where the police are,” said CNN national correspondent Sara Sidner at the time. “The fire alarm is ringing inside … People are cheering and more fireworks are fired as the police compound is burning.”