On May 25, 2020, a Cup Foods convenience store employee called 911 on George Floyd (46 years old) stating that he was using a counterfeit $20 bill. When Floyd was arrested, he was dragged to the ground in handcuffs. On top of that, the knee of arresting officer, Derek Chauvin, was on his neck. Floyd had said to the police officer “I can’t breathe” many times. Floyd was also calling out for his mom and a bystander was telling Officer Chauvin that Floyd’s nose was bleeding. After hearing this, Officer Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for many more minutes. Floyd was ultimately pronounced dead at the scene.

Protests soon started advocating for justice for Floyd since the officers involved were not initially held accountable. Peaceful protests continued all over the world demanding change since
many people saw this as an act of racism. All of the police officers that were involved were eventually fired. Ex-officers Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thau were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter. An appeal is currently in place to rescind a third-degree murder charge for Chauvin.

The case will most likely be a jury trial, but this is difficult because this is a highly seen case and it will be hard to find jurors who are unbiased. The court is set to meet about Chauvin’s third-degree murder charge on March 29th.

Floyd’s family sued the city of Minneapolis for not training their police officers correctly and the city has given them $27 million.