George Floyd, the African American killed by a white cop in Minneapolis, had gone to buy cigarettes on the day he died on the corner of 38th and Chicago Avenues.
46 years and a complicated life between ups and downs, drug problems, some time in prison and then also the desire to move on and start over.
But on May 25, the last day of his life, everything turned wrong. He had lost his job because of the pandemic and the police stopped him, called by an employee who said he was paid with a fake $ 20 bill.
And then the slow death, a good eight minutes, with the neck pressed by the knee of a violent policeman who is now accused of three very heavy charges. The video of his excruciating agony had gone viral, sparking the heaviest protests America hadn’t seen in some time.
In a few weeks, the largest mobilization against racism has started since the death of Martin Luther King, half a century ago.
Minneapolis County paid a gigantic sum to Floyd’s family (over $ 100 million) and police departments tried to change regulations and procedures.
Now we are on the one-year anniversary of Floyd’s brutal arrest and death at the hands of agent Derek Chauvin, the case that awakened the “Black Lives Matter” movement and laid the foundations for profound changes in police and justice.
In the historic trial last April, Chauvin was convicted of three counts of manslaughter in a hard and rare decision for the police officers on duty, highly protected by the law. A police reform bill is now being worked on and will need to be discussed in Congress with the backing of a White House president, Joe Biden, who speaks bluntly of “systemic racism” in the United States.
But street violence has not stopped growing in big cities in the 2020 pandemic, as have calls to take away funds and powers from police departments.
Under the pressure of the Black Lives Matter movement in Minneapolis, where it all began, a third of the officers (200 in uniform) resigned or tried to leave.
The head of the department, the African American Medaria Arredondo, denounced an 8 million dollar cut in the budget decided in December.
In Los Angeles, where local politicians had decided to cut the budget by 8% after the Floyd case, the hiring of 250 more officers has just been started to respond to the increase in violence, given the number of murders increased 36% in one year. New York suffered nearly 500 homicides in 2020, the highest in 10 years.
Street demonstrations in memory of Floyd are scheduled for this Tuesday. Biden, who will host his family in the White House, has asked Congress to speed up police reform. The new law includes creating a police misconduct registry and banning certain containment techniques such as the one that killed Floyd.
It passed in the House but in the Senate it needs the Republicans, and not everyone is convinced of it yet.