GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS

Department officer, knelt on Floyd's neck for nearly eight minutes as three other officers looked on and prevented passers-by from intervening. ChauvinThe George Floyd protests are an ongoing series of police brutality protests that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. Civil unrest and protests began as part of international responses to the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man who was killed during an arrest after Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis Police Department officer, knelt on Floyd's neck for nearly eight minutes as three other officers looked on and prevented passers-by from intervening. Chauvin and the other three officers involved were later arrested.Local protests began in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area of Minnesota before quickly spreading nationwide and to over 2,000 cities and towns in over 60 countries in support of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Polls in summer 2020 estimated that between 15 million and 26 million people had participated at some point in the demonstrations in the United States, making the protests the largest in U.S. history.While the majority of protests have been peaceful, demonstrations in some cities escalated into riots, looting, and street skirmishes with police and counter-protesters. Some police responded to protests with instances of police violence, including against reporters. At least 200 cities in the U.S. had imposed curfews by early June, while more than 30 states and Washington, D.C. activated over 96,000 National Guard, State Guard, 82nd Airborne, and 3rd Infantry Regiment service members. The deployment constitutes the largest military operation other than war in U.S. history. By the end of June, at least 14,000 people had been arrested. It was later estimated that between May 26 and August 22, 93% of individual protests were "peaceful and nondestructive" and The Washington Post estimated that by the end of June, 96.3% of 7,305 demonstrations involved no injuries and no property damage. Nevertheless, arson, vandalism, and looting between May 26 and June 8 were tabulated to have caused $1–2 billion in insured damages nationally—the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in U.S. history, "eclipsing the record set in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of the police officers who brutalized Rodney King."The protests precipitated a cultural reckoning on racial injustice in the United States and have led to numerous legislative proposals on federal, state, and municipal levels intended to combat police misconduct, systemic racism, qualified immunity and police brutality in the United States, while the Trump administration has drawn widespread criticism for what critics called its hardline rhetoric and aggressive, militarized response. The protests led to a wave of monument removals and name changes throughout the world. The protests occurred during the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic and amidst the 2020 United States presidential election season. Local protests are ongoing as of late 2020, primarily at George Floyd Square.Local officials in Minneapolis–Saint Paul prepared for the possibility of continued unrest in 2021 with the trial of the four officers responsible for Floyd's death scheduled for March.