Sunday, May 25, 2025

ON THIS DAY


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May 25, 2020

George Floyd killed


George Floyd (1973 – 2020) was an African-American man who was murdered on May 25, 2020 by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd had used a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill.

Derek Chauvin, one of four police officers who arrived on the scene, knelt on Floyd's neck and back for over nine minutes, fatally asphyxiating him. After his murder, a series of protests against police brutality, especially towards black people, quickly spread globally and across the United States. His dying words, "I can't breathe", became a rallying slogan.

Born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Floyd grew up in Houston, Texas, playing football and basketball throughout high school and college. Between 1997 and 2005, he was convicted of eight crimes. He served four years in prison after accepting a plea bargain for a 2007 aggravated robbery in a home invasion. After he was paroled in 2013, he served as a mentor in his religious community and posted anti-violence videos to social media. In 2014, he moved to the Minneapolis area, residing in the nearby suburb of St. Louis Park, and worked as a truck driver and bouncer. In 2020, he lost both jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After his death, the City of Minneapolis settled a wrongful death lawsuit with Floyd's family for $27 million. Chauvin was convicted on two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter on April 20, 2021, and on June 25, 2021, was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison. The other three officers at the scene were also later convicted of violating Floyd's civil rights.

After Floyd's murder, there were global protests and riots against the use of excessive force by police officers against black suspects and a lack of police accountability. Protests began in Minneapolis the day after Floyd’s murder and developed in cities throughout all 50 U.S. states and internationally. The New York Times described the events in the wake of Floyd's murder and the video that circulated of it as "the largest protests in the United States since the Civil Rights era." Calls to defund and abolish the police were widespread. The protests became the first civil disorder event to exceed $1 billion in losses to the insurance industry. In some cities, protests were so violent that curfews were put in place.

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