George Floyd, 46, is killed while being arrested by four Minneapolis police officers on Monday, May 25. Bystander footage of the incident later shows Officer Derek Chauvin pin his knee to Floyd’s neck for more than eight excruciating minutes.
ANDREA JENKINS
member, Minneapolis City Council
I’m sitting up watching Netflix, and the message was, “Have you talked to the mayor yet?” That’s all it said. I looked at it but I didn’t answer. Then I take the call from the mayor, and he goes, “There’s been a police-involved death, but there were no guns involved.” As if to say, “The police didn’t shoot anybody.” He explained that he thought that it had to do with some kind of forgery.
STEPHEN JACKSON
former NBA player, Houston-area native, longtime close friend of Floyd’s
I was taking a nap on the couch with my six-year-old daughter that Tuesday. When I woke up, I saw that my girlfriend had sent me a video. She and I talk about police brutality all the time. I looked at it briefly and thought, Damn, they killed another brother. Then I saw I had about 50 messages. I opened one from my friend Bun B, and it said, “You see what they did to your twin in Minnesota?” That’s when I realized it was Floyd. I lost it. Started screaming, throwing stuff around. Scared the mess out of my daughter.
KEITH ELLISON
Minnesota attorney general
I usually get up around 5:30 and look at my phone. And I started getting emails and texts containing the video from people I knew. I’m sitting there with my legs dangling over my bed in my boxers and my T-shirt, and I’m reading this stuff and I’m like, Oh, my goodness. Here we go again.
MURIEL BOWSER
mayor, Washington, D.C.
I was struck by not just the officer who choked Mr. Floyd, but the other officers watching. You have an officer that is applying deadly force and other officers watching. All of it is so hard to fathom, that all of those people were watching this as he was begging for his life. And I was thinking how scary that must be for this child who was doing the recording.
SHERRILYN IFILL
president, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
You’re listening to the residents, who are saying what they’re saying, “Stop it. You’re killing him. Are you going to just allow this to happen? Take his pulse,” and so forth. So, you’re hearing all of that. There is another video where there’s just engagement with one of the officers on the scene and basically the crowd kind of exhorting him to find his humanity. So there are lots of ways to view this, and each one of them is actually very, very important to understand the sickness that we have allowed to pervade our system of law enforcement in this country.
JAEL KERANDI
former student body president, University of Minnesota
I saw the video, but I didn’t want to watch it right away. You could see the captions. I knew what I was waiting to see.