His Last Breath: A year after George Floyd's murder, nation
reckons with history of racism, police brutality
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Liz Vinson | Read the full piece here
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Friend,
He died in less than nine minutes, gasping for air before lying
motionless on the concrete without a pulse.
People across the country, especially in the Black community, recoiled
in horror as video evidence of the police brutality careened across
the internet and TV screens. Thousands of protesters would soon surge
into the streets, powering up a movement that had been brewing for
years.
The murder of George Floyd was nothing new; this one had simply been
laid bare for the world to see. And the nation cried out for
justice.
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Around 8 p.m. on May 25, 2020, the 46-year-old Black man was arrested
for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes from Cup
Foods in Minneapolis.
After the arrest, Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, shoved Floyd
to the street and knelt on his neck. Pinned to the pavement, Floyd
pleaded for his "mama." He told Chauvin and three other
officers, "I'm about to die. Please don't kill
me." Chauvin, 45, simply told Floyd to "relax."
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"I can't breathe," Floyd replied. "Please, the
knee in my neck, I can't breathe." He would repeat that he
couldn't breathe no fewer than 20 times before he eventually
took his last breath, lost consciousness and died.
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It wasn't the first time the phrase was uttered by a Black man
during an encounter with police. Printed on thousands of
T-shirts and banners, it had already become a well-known rallying cry
in the movement to fundamentally transform policing and end police
violence against the Black community.
In 2013, Eric Garner voiced 11 times that he, too, couldn't
breathe after he was wrestled to the ground and put in a chokehold by
a New York City police officer on suspicion of illegally selling
cigarettes.
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Garner's death came a year after George Zimmerman, who fatally
shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, on Feb. 26, 2012,
was acquitted after claiming self-defense against the unarmed Black
teen.
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Outraged, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi founded the
Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Few thought the movement had
staying power.
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But in 2020, tens of thousands of people would march in
solidarity for Floyd and BLM in demonstrations that spanned the globe,
making it one of the largest movements in history.
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The movement inspired the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which
passed the U.S. House in early March and is being negotiated in
the Senate. The legislation would ban chokeholds and end qualified
immunity - the legal protection that limits victims'
ability to sue police officers for misconduct. The law would also ban
no-knock warrants in federal drug cases while mandating data
collection on police encounters.
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READ MORE
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