George Floyd

George Perry Floyd Jr. was killed by a Minneapolis police officer on 25 May 2020. His death produced the largest wave of protest in recent American history, a state murder conviction, and federal civil rights convictions.

25 May 2020

The Minnesota Court of Appeals opinion, drawing on body-camera video, witness and expert testimony and the autopsy report, records how the evening began. At about 8:02 p.m., Minneapolis 911 received a report about a customer at Cup Foods attempting to use a counterfeit $20 bill; the caller added that the man appeared to be under the influence of something. Officers Kueng and Lane arrived at 8:08 p.m. and found Floyd sitting in the driver’s seat of a parked car with two passengers.

The gap between that call and what followed is the whole of the matter.

Accountability

Derek Chauvin was charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. A jury found him guilty on all counts; the district court entered conviction on second-degree unintentional murder, based on third-degree assault, and sentenced him to 270 months. The Court of Appeals affirmed in April 2023.

Separately, on 15 December 2021 Chauvin pleaded guilty in federal court to willfully depriving Floyd of his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable force by a police officer, resulting in bodily injury and death. In the plea documents he agreed that sentencing should proceed on the basis of second-degree murder, “because he acted willfully and in callous and wanton disregard of the consequences to Mr. Floyd’s life.” He was sentenced to 252 months on 7 July 2022.

Digital Political Impact

• The case is the reference point for the role of bystander video in American political life: the court’s own factual findings rest in part on video, and the public response preceded any official account
• The state and federal proceedings produced an unusually complete public record — a jury verdict on all counts, a written appellate opinion, and a defendant’s own agreed statement of his mental state
• The protests that followed were the largest in recent American history and are treated across this site as the point at which platform-organized mobilization reached its widest scale

What Is Not Established Here

Removed in the citation audit: his birth date and birthplace, his upbringing in Houston’s Third Ward, and the biographical detail that preceded the account of his death. That material is not in dispute, but none of it was sourced in this pass, and this project does not restate biography about a named individual on the strength of general knowledge. The court record establishes who he was in the case that bears his name; the rest belongs on the page only with sources.