On Monday 25th May evening, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officers responded to a call from a shopkeeper stating that a man who was identified as George Floyd was trying to pass a potentially counterfeit bill. The police intervened and arrested Floyd. Surveillance video surfaced showing a compliant man, Floyd, being led away in handcuffs, which did not match with the police statement. The latter said that George Floyd resisted arrest and that he appeared to be in “medical distress”. A cell phone video also surfaced showing a white police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes, despite protests from onlookers that his life is in jeopardy. The man was struggling to breathe, he repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe” and then “I am about to die”.
The officer kept the man pinned to the ground with his entire body weight compressing Floyd’s airway for 8 straight minutes. When the officer eventually removes his knee, Floyd’s body was limp and unresponsive. A person nearby can be heard saying, “They just killed him.” Floyd was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The four officers who were involved in this atrocious act were fired Tuesday. George Floyd's sister Bridgett Floyd told “Good Morning America”
The officers' firings are "definitely not enough justice for me and my family... I feel those guys need to be put in jail. They murdered my brother.”
After this incident protests erupted in Minneapolis on Tuesday. These protests started as peaceful but ended up turning violent with protesters clashing with police in the streets and officers firing tear gas, rubber bullets, and using other non-lethal equipment. The protesters chanted "I can't breathe" along with "no justice, no peace."
