MINNEAPOLIS – For 12-year-old Tamir Rice, it was simply carrying a toy handgun. For Eric Garner, it was allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes.
For Michael Brown, Sandra Bland and Ahmaud Arbery, it was the minor offenses of jaywalking, failing to signal a lane change and trespassing on a residential construction site.And for George Floyd, it was an accusation he used a fake $20 bill at a grocery store.
While in police custody on May 25, Floyd repeatedly pleaded “I can't breathe,” as a white officer in Minneapolis pressed his knee into the black man’s neck for what prosecutors say was nearly nine minutes.“George wasn’t hurting anyone that day,” his brother, Philonise Floyd, said Wednesday in testimony to a House Judiciary Committee hearing on.