George Floyd and the "Reckoning"
The Associated Press | Published May 2020 — June 2021
Minneapolis overwhelmed again by protests over Floyd death
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Fires burned unchecked and thousands protesting the police killing of George Floyd ignored a curfew as unrest overwhelmed authorities for another night in Minneapolis, and the governor acknowledged Saturday that he didn’t have enough manpower to contain the chaos.
The new round of tumult — which has also spread to other cities — came despite Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz vowing Friday to show a more forceful response than city leaders had the day before. But by early Saturday morning, Walz said he didn’t have enough troops, even with some 500 National Guardsmen.
“We do not have the numbers,” Walz said. “We cannot arrest people when we are trying to hold ground.”
Walz said he was moving quickly to mobilize more than 1,000 more Guard members, for a total of 1,700, and was considering the potential offer of federal military police. But he warned that even that might not be enough, saying he expected another difficult night Saturday.
The Pentagon on Saturday ordered the Army to put military police units on alert to head to the city on short notice at President Donald Trump’s request, according to three people with direct knowledge of the orders who did not want their names used because they were not authorized to discuss the preparations. The rare step came as the violence spread to other cities: A man shot dead in Detroit, police cars battered in Atlanta and skirmishes with police in New York City.
Criminal charges filed Friday morning against the white officer who held his knee for nearly nine minutes on the neck of Floyd, a black man who was handcuffed at the time, did nothing to stem the anger. Derek Chauvin, 44, was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Minneapolis police said shots had been fired at law enforcement officers during the protests but no one was injured.
As the night dragged on, fires erupted across the city’s south side, including at a Japanese restaurant, a Wells Fargo bank and an Office Depot. Many burned for hours, with firefighters again delayed in reaching them because areas weren’t secure.
Shortly before midnight, scores of officers on foot and in vehicles moved in to curb the violence, one day after city and state leaders faced blowback for their handling of the crisis. On Thursday, protesters had torched a police station soon after it was abandoned by police and went on to burn or vandalize dozens of businesses.
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On the spot where George Floyd died, his brother urges calm
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — George Floyd’s brother pleaded for peace in the streets Monday, saying destruction is “not going to bring my brother back at all.”
Terrence Floyd’s emotional plea came as the United States braced for another night of violence in response to Floyd’s killing a week ago.
Chants of “What’s his name? George Floyd!” filled the air as a large crowd gathered at the spot where the black man who became the latest symbol of racial injustice in America lay handcuffed and dying as a white police officer pressed his knee into his neck.
Wearing a face mask with Floyd’s image on it, his brother dropped to his knees at the storefront that has been turned into a memorial covered with flowers and signs. As he kneeled silently, many who were around him joined him on the ground.
The memorial site was a space of calm compared to the devastation left in the wake of fires and violence that paralyzed the city for days last week before it spread nationwide.
“I understand y’all are upset. I doubt y’all are half as upset as I am,” said Terrence Floyd, who lives in New York. “So if I’m not over here blowing up stuff, if I’m not over here messing up my community, then what are y’all doing? What are y’all doing? Y’all doing nothing. Because that’s not going to bring my brother back at all.”
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`Get your knee off our necks!’: Floyd mourned in Minneapolis
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Celebrities, musicians and political leaders gathered in front of George Floyd’s golden casket Thursday for a fiery memorial service for the man whose death at the hands of police sparked global protests, with a civil rights leader declaring it is time for black people to demand, “Get your knee off our necks!”
The service — the first in a series of memorials set for three cities over six days — unfolded in Minneapolis at a sanctuary at North Central University as a judge a few blocks away set bail at $750,000 each for the three fired police officers charged with aiding and abetting murder in Floyd’s death.
“George Floyd’s story has been the story of black folks. Because ever since 401 years ago, the reason we could never be who we wanted and dreamed to be is you kept your knee on our neck,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said in a fierce eulogy. “It’s time for us to stand up in George’s name and say, ‘Get your knee off our necks!’”
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From coast to coast, and from Paris and London to Sydney and Rio de Janeiro, the chilling cellphone video of Floyd’s slow death has set off turbulent and sometimes violent demonstrations against police brutality, racism and inequality. Some protests continued Thursday.
Those gathered at the Minneapolis tribute stood in silence for 8 minutes, 46 seconds, the amount of time Floyd was alleged to be on the ground under the control of police.
Sharpton vowed that this will become a movement to “change the whole system of justice.”
“Time is out for not holding you accountable! Time is out for you making excuses! Time is out for you trying to stall! Time is out for empty words and empty promises! Time is out for you filibustering and trying to stall the arm of justice!” he said.
The service drew the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and other members of Congress, including Reps. Ilhan Omar, Sheila Jackson Lee and Ayanna Pressley. Among the celebrities in attendance were T.I., Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish and Marsai Martin.
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Floyd’s death spurs question: What is a black life worth?
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — For 12-year-old Tamir Rice, it was simply carrying a toy handgun. For Eric Garner, it was allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. For Michael Brown, Sandra Bland and Ahmaud Arbery, it was the minor offenses of jaywalking, failing to signal a lane change and trespassing on a residential construction site.
And for George Floyd, it was an accusation he used a fake $20 bill at a grocery store. While in police custody on May 25, Floyd repeatedly pleaded “I can’t breathe,” as a white officer in Minneapolis pressed his knee into the black man’s neck for what prosecutors say was nearly nine minutes.
“George wasn’t hurting anyone that day,” his brother, Philonise Floyd, said Wednesday in testimony to a House Judiciary Committee hearing on policing practices and law enforcement accountability.
“He didn’t deserve to die over $20. I am asking you, is that what a black man’s life is worth?”
Twenty dollars: To some, that’s chump change. But George Floyd was not a chump, family and friends in Houston, where he grew up, asserted when they laid him to rest this week in a golden coffin. Those who mourned him at memorials held across three states said the value of the 46-year-old’s life far surpassed that.
In death, Floyd has created an invaluable and, some say, unprecedented moment for the national struggle against institutional racism and inequality.
In Minnesota, across the nation and around the world, outrage turned into action as protests grew, propelled by the reality that African Americans become martyrs of the Black Lives Matter movement over such trivial activities — in circumstances where their rights are discarded, their liberty deprived, their lives devalued. And where they’re far more likely than whites to die at the hands of police.
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Floyd verdict gives hope, if only fleeting, to Black America
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Relief, even if fleeting and momentary, is a feeling that Black Americans have rarely known in America: From slavery to Jim Crow segregation to enduring punishments for living while Black, a breath of fresh air untainted by oppression has long been hard to come by.
Nonetheless, the conviction of ex-cop Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd nearly a year ago allowed many across this city and the nation to exhale pent-up anxiety — and to inhale a sense of hope.
But what might they feel hope for?
The fate of Chauvin — found guilty of murder and manslaughter for holding a knee to Floyd’s neck, choking off his breathing until he went limp last May — showed Black Americans and their compatriots once again that the legal system is capable of valuing Black lives.
Or at least it can hold one white police officer in Minnesota accountable for what many declared an unambiguous act of murder months ago.
“This may be the beginning of the restoration of believing that a justice system can work,” said civil rights leader Martin Luther King III, echoing a sentiment that many expressed Tuesday.
“But we have to constantly stay on the battlefield in a peaceful and nonviolent way and make demands,” he said. “This has been going on for years and one case, one verdict, does not change how systematic racism has worked in our system.”
Alexandria De La Cruz, a Minneapolis mother, brought her 7-year-old daughter to the intersection near where Floyd was murdered, now dubbed George Floyd Square. Along with the hundreds who gathered there — Black, white and otherwise — De La Cruz erupted in cheers after it was announced Chauvin was guilty on all three counts.
“I feel relief that the justice system is working — it’s working today,” De La Cruz said.
Her daughter, Jazelle, sported a hooded sweatshirt that read, “Stop killing Black people.” Perhaps that’s a reminder, her mom said, that there’s still work to do to ensure the feeling of relief isn’t so fleeting this time.
“It’s important to bring her (to the square), so she can see what’s happening to our people, so that she can see what this country really is,” De La Cruz said.
Black Americans have seen similar moments before. In recent years, they followed the convictions of the officers who killed Oscar Grant, Laquan McDonald and Walter Scott. Still, some of these victims’ families continue to press for broader accountability from a policing culture they say has never proved it is meaningfully changed or reformed after the convictions of police officers.
And even as the Chauvin trial moved into its final days, the Twin Cities region and the nation were rocked by yet another police killing of an unarmed Black man. This time it was 20-year-old Daunte Wright, in Brooklyn Center, roughly 10 miles north of Minneapolis.
Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s first Black attorney general, said the jury’s decision was a reminder of how difficult it has been to enact enduring change and prevent the kind of upheaval and civil unrest that ignited the nation and the world last summer.
Furthermore, Ellison pointed out, America has known about and largely ignored the root causes of the upheaval and uneasiness in Black communities. More than a half-century ago, the Kerner and McComb commissions empaneled to study racial unrest warned of the dangers of doing just that.
“Here we are in 2021 still addressing the same problem,” Ellison said. “This has to end. We need true justice. That’s not one case. That is a social transformation that says that nobody’s beneath the law, and no one is above it.”
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Floyd legislation reveals divide in police-reform movement
NEW YORK (AP) — Monifa Bandele became a community organizer in the late 1990s, after New York City police fatally shot a young, unarmed Black immigrant named Amadou Diallo in the Bronx.
In the two decades since, she repeatedly witnessed police reforms that failed to stop Black people from dying at the hands of officers. Some of those reforms are now part of federal legislation being negotiated in the name of George Floyd, the Black man whose murder under the knee of a white Minneapolis officer last year sparked worldwide protests.
For instance, the legislation calls for banning chokeholds, a step already taken by New York City prior to the 2014 death of Eric Garner, who in an encounter with the NYPD uttered the same last words as Floyd: “I can’t breathe.”
As the anniversary of Floyd’s death approaches, some reform supporters say the best way to honor him would be for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. But many activists warn that some of the proposed reforms have not been enough to stop past police abuses, reflecting a divide within the movement over what would constitute real progress.
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