Photo: Brandon Bell / Getty Images
On the night of 22 May 2020, white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, killed George Floyd,
a black man, by kneeling on his neck for nearly 10 minutes.
The death, recorded by bystanders, sparked what may have been the largest protest movement in the history of the United States
and a nationwide reckoning on race and surveillance.
Floyd, of 46 years old, a Houston native and father of five, had purchased cigarettes at a Minneapolis convenience store.
After an employee suspected that Floyd had used a counterfeit $20 in the transaction, the store manager called the police. When officers arrived, they pointed a gun at Floyd, who was initially cooperative as they arrested him.
However, Floyd resisted being placed in the police car , saying that he had claustrophobia.
Officers eventually removed him from the car and Chauvin pinned him to the ground for nine minutes and 19 seconds. Floyd was unresponsive when an ambulance arrived and he was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
After a video of the incident was posted on Facebook, protests began almost immediately in Minneapolis and quickly spread across the country. Protesters chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “I Can’t Breathe” took to the streets from coast to coast,
and police departments across the country responded at times with riot control tactics.
Floyd’s murder came after the protests for the murders of Ahmaud Arbery in Atlanta in February and of Breonna Taylor in Louisville in March, and also came in the third month of nationwide shutdowns due to the COVID-pandemic 20.
In early June, the protests were so widespread that more than 200 American cities had imposed curfews and half of the United States had activated the National Guard.
The marches continued and spread throughout June, despite restrictions on gathering during the COVID pandemic-19 and the militarized resistance of federal and local law enforcement forces.
In total, more than 2000 cities and towns in the 29 states saw some kind of demonstration in the weeks after Floyd’s death, as well as in major cities around the world.
The protests triggered a local and national dialogue about the role and budgets of US police departments, as well as intense debates in schools and corporations on how to end racism and create inclusion, equality and equity.
Chauvin, who was presented with at least others 17 allegations of misconduct prior to killing Floyd, was arrested on 29 May 2020 and charged with second and third degree murder, as well as second degree manslaughter.
The 20 from April 2021, after a trial, which was broadcast live online and on television due to the pandemic, a jury found Chauvin guilty on all counts and he was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison.
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