Ok so I'm not sure if we are allowed to talk about stuff like this on the forum, but I like that people want to be informed about stuff like this. So here is a rundown on what happened based on what I have seen on the news and a bit of my own analysis as a college student majoring in a criminal justice based field:
In Minneapolis, Minnesota on Monday (5/25) a man named George Floyd was accused of trying to buy cigarettes at a local convenience store with a fake $20 bill. At this point Floyd was already back in his car with two other acquaintances, and here is where the story gets a little weird. Basically the two arresting officers (this does not include the one that killed him) claimed he was resisted arrest by refusing to get out of his car. They then said they had to forcefully pull him out of his car and arrest him before setting him on the sidewalk. However, there is security footage, from outside that convenience store that proves this wrong. Floyd was not resisting arrest in anyway, all bystanders said so, and even the man who called the police in the first place said he was not resisting.
After a period of time the two initial officers brought Floyd over to where there squad car was parked. At this point an additional squad car had arrived, due to claims of resisting arrest. During this process Floyd was seen to be looking very uncomfortable and he ended up tripping, or was pushed, I'm not entirely sure.
Now Floyd was lying stomach down on the ground, with his hands cuffed behind his back, head turned to the side. One of the officers who had just arrived on the scene, Derek Chauvin, pinned him further on the ground, with his knee pressing directly into Floyd's neck, severely restricting his airway.
Based on the video of the incident, which I will not post here as it is very graphic, Floyd was pinned like that for around 10 minutes. He can be audibly heard saying things like 'I can't breathe', 'You're hurting me', 'Stop', 'I am in pain'. Still the officers did nothing while bystanders filmed the whole thing and were yelling at the officer to stop as well.
After a couple of minutes Floyd ended up passing out due to him being deprived of oxygen. At this point in the video the bystanders are yelling at the officer to check his pulse and saying that he had killed him.
EMS got to the scene and he was brought to the hospital, but Floyd was pronounced dead very soon afterwards.
The officer who actually pinned the Floyd, Derek Chauvin, along with the 3 other officers present had been fired sometime between Monday and Wednesday. It was also revealed that officer Chauvin had either 17 or 18 previous complaints of committing actions of police brutality.
Because none of the officers had been charged with anything at this time, a huge protest movement began in not just Minneapolis, but other locations like NYC. They were not just protesting this one event, they were fighting against the injustice present in other cases, such as the Eric Garner case, which is extremely similar to this one.
The protests got very extreme in Minneapolis yesterday (5/28) with many protesters looting stores and setting various buildings on fire, including a police station.
This is when Trump, ew, made his very controversial tweet of "When the looting starts, the shooting start". This was glorifying the violence already occurring, and even worse it was basically a direct threat to these protesters that they would be shot if they continued.
Today (5/29) Officer Chauvin was initial charged with Murder in the 3nd degree and Manslaughter in the second degree. Basically he was charged with:
3nd degree murder: When an individual unlawfully kills another individual, but they had not set out to do so, so no premeditation. This is often given in cases where there is a homicide in robbery.
Manslaughter: When an individual kills another, but it was in a reckless manner, and was not linked to any other crime being committed. There are two forms, voluntary and involuntary, but they really haven't given any details as to which one they will use, probably involuntary. An example of this charge would be a drunk driver who kills another person would be given this sentence.
None of the other 3 officers have been charged of anything as of yet. They could be charged with the same thing, but probably not, most likely just Manslaughter or Accessory to Murder, but I do not know the Minnesota legal code.
People are still protesting because of this and a variety of other reasons.
As for the protesting, there have been several people arrested, which is a violation of basic amendment rights, if they weren't doing anything else illegal, such as in sighting violence etc.
I believe that the police have also began shooting the protesters with rubber bullets in order to try a control the situation.
I hope this was helpful!
