George Floyd: A timeline

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/05/2021 (1214 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

May 25, 2020: George Floyd is arrested on a Minneapolis street after he allegedly passes a fake $20 bill at a grocery store. Video recorded by a bystander shows him lying facedown, handcuffed on the street as police officer Derek Chauvin kneels on his neck for more than nine minutes as Floyd cries out “I can’t breathe” and asks for his mother before losing consciousness and dying.

May 26, 2020: Thousands of protesters show up in Minneapolis at the police precinct where Chauvin works. They are greeted with pepper spray and rubber bullets. Chauvin and the other officers involved in Floyd’s arrest are fired.

May 27, 2020: Protests in Minneapolis lead to rioting, and protests begin to spring up in other cities, including Los Angeles and St. Louis.

May 28, 2020: Chavin is arrested on charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

May 29-31, 2020: Protests spread throughout major cities across the United States, some marked by vandalism and looting. Protesters are met with gas and brutality in videos that go viral.

June 1, 2020: President Donald Trump gives a speech comparing protesters to terrorists, and announcing he is deploying National Guard troops to put down protests. As he’s speaking, authorities use tear gas and beat a large peaceful crowd of protesters near the White House to make way for a photo-op in which Trump displays a bible in front of a church.

June 4, 2020: Two Buffalo police officers are suspended after shoving and injuring 75-year-old protester Martin Gugino.

June 6, 2020: In the week after Trump’s photo-op, protests grow larger and more consistently peaceful in apparent response to the authoritarian official reaction. On the weekend, 200,000 marchers protest in Washington, and hundreds of thousands of others march in cities across the country in one of the largest single days of protest in American history.

June 8, 2020: Democratic congressional leaders introduce the Justice in Policing Act, which would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants in addition to other moves to overhaul policing of racial communities. The House would later pass the bill, but the Republican-controlled Senate would vote against it.

June 14, 2020: Rayshard Brooks, a Black man in Atlanta, is shot to death in a parking lot after he fled from police who found him sleeping in his car. The officer who shot him is fired the same day, and would be charged with felony murder days later.

June 16, 2020: Trump signs an executive order offering some police reform measures, while at the same time demanding “law and order” and pledging support for police.

July 23, 2020: The mayor of Portland, Oregon is tear-gassed by federal troops at Black Lives Matter protest. The city has become a focal point for protests, and for use of federal force by the Trump administration to crack down on protesters. As protesters have occupied blocks of downtown for weeks, federal troops have been snatching people off the street in unmarked vans and engaging in nightly clashes with demonstrators.

Aug. 21, 2020: At the Democratic National Convention, presidential candidate Joe Biden calls for the country to finally remove the “stain” of racism, and relates a conversation he had with Floyd’s six-year-old daughter, Gianna, in which she said, “Daddy changed the world.” Biden said, “Maybe George Floyd’s murder was the breaking point.”

Aug. 22, 2020: A Black man named Jacob Blake is shot in the back seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, leading to protests that see buildings set on fire and windows smashed.

Aug. 23, 2020: The Republican National Convention to nominate Donald Trump for re-election opens with speeches characterizing Black Lives Matter protesters as a “vengeful mob” bent on “rioting, looting and vandalism.”

Aug. 24, 2020: A 17-year-old armed with a semi-automatic rifle is among dozens of armed counterprotesters who show up in Kenosha to oppose the Black Lives Matter crowds. He shoots three protesters, killing two.

Aug. 27, 2020: The NBA and WNBA shut down their playoff games to protest racial injustice and police violence.

Aug. 28, 2020: Rev. Al Sharpton leads a “Get Your Knee of Our Necks” march on Washington in Floyd’s memory on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Sept. 18, 2020: The city of Minneapolis renames the intersection where Floyd was killed as “George Floyd Square.”

March 3, 2021: The House of Representatives passes the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, similar to the previous legislation it had passed in 2020. The Senate has not passed it yet, but reports say negotiations towards its passage show encouraging signs — though the details of what would be required for a compromise are still being discussed.

April 11, 2021: While the Chauvin trial is underway, a police officer in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center shoots and kills Daunte Wright. The officer resigns two days later, and is arrested and charged with manslaughter on April 14.

April 20, 2021: Chauvin is found guilty of all three charges in Floyd’s death, including second-degree murder which carries a sentence of up to 40 years. Sentencing is scheduled for June.

Edward Keenan is the Star’s Washington Bureau chief. He covers U.S. politics and current affairs. Reach him via email: ekeenan@thestar.ca