Floyd, a Minnesota resident, was arrested after he was accused of using a counterfeit $20 note at a local deli. According to the Police, Floyd “physically resisted” the arrest after he was told to exit his car, a claim that was belied by mobile phone footage recorded by several passers-by. A white police officer then went on to restrain Floyd, and kneeled on his neck for at least seven minutes despite the 46-year-old gasping for breath and repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe”. The officer remained in that position even after Floyd became unconscious. His unresponsive body was then taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Floyd’s repeated cry for help, “I can’t breathe”, while being restrained prompted comparisons between the incident and the death of Eric Garner in 2014. Garner, an unarmed African American man, had uttered the same words 11 times as he was held in a chokehold by a police officer in New York City before he died. ‘I can’t breathe’ has now become a rallying cry among protesters. Other high profile deaths include the 2016 shooting of Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black man shot seven times at close range during a traffic stop, also in Minnesota, just after he had informed the police officer, Jeronimo Yanez, that he was carrying a gun. Yanez was acquitted of all charges in 2017. The incident became viral after Castile’s girlfriend streamed part of the incident on Facebook. Another incident from 2016 that caused a furore was when police pinned to the ground and shot 37-year-old Alton Sterling outside a convenience store in Louisiana where he was selling CDs.
The Minnesota Department of Human Rights opened an investigation into the practices of the Minneapolis Police Department on June 2. On June 5, the Minneapolis City Council authorized the mayor to enter into a restraining order with the State of Minnesota banning choke holds and neck restraints, requiring police officers to intervene against other officers' use of excessive force, and requiring authorization from the police chief or other designate before using crowd-control weapons such as chemical agents and rubber bullets. On June 8, a Hennepin County Court judge ordered the Minneapolis Police Department to cooperate with a civil rights investigation, and extended the restrictions on the department to require that the chief make discipline decisions in a timely and transparent manner, and that certain outside investigators be given authority to audit body-worn camera footage and to file or amend complaints on behalf of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department.
