Minneapolis Seeks Reckoning in George Floyd Death Trial

A group of protesters in Minneapolis last May against police brutality towards blacks following the death of George Floyd.John Minchillo / AP

George Floyd's grave is 2,000 kilometers from the Texas cemetery where he was buried, in Pearland.

Since last May 25, the corner of Minneapolis (Minnesota), where the African American lost consciousness - and later died in hospital - in police custody, is a pilgrimage area guarded by a tombstone and dozens of altars with flowers and stuffed animals .

Activists have blocked access to cars to what they call George Floyd Square under the slogan

in a neighborhood where graffiti screams the event that set off the largest wave of anti-racism protests in half a century and set the city on fire.

The impudence of the memorial collides with the image of the court, turned into a strong fence awaiting the start of the trial this Monday against Derek Chauvin, the ex-policeman who suffocated Floyd for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.

"You breathe chaos," warns Kenneth, 30, a resident of the area.

As the black community prepares for justice to be done for the death of someone who has become a martyr for the racial movement, the authorities are preparing the city for possible confrontations.

Minneapolis has invested more than $ 600,000 in concrete barriers interspersed with barbed wire to protect federal buildings and police stations in the event of a disturbance, according to

magazine

In addition, more than 2,000 members of the National Guard will be deployed during the trial and another 3,000 police officers from across the state will be prepared for possible disturbances.

Some military personnel are already seen outside the Hennepin County Town Hall or court, where Chauvin's trial will take place.

In a makeshift stove this Saturday in the middle of what was a gas station in the neighborhood where the event occurred, Julia Johnson, spokesperson for Black Vision, an organization that fights for "black liberation" in Minnesota, considers that the "hyper-militarization ”Of the city is a slap in the face for yours.

"It shows that the intention of the authorities is to escalate the violence in our communities that right now are in mourning," he says.

The criminal trial of Chauvin, charged with murder in the second degree, murder in the third degree and murder in the second degree, opens the wounds of the movement for racial justice in a city praised for its progressiveness, but home to some of the worst racial disparities in United States: An average African-American family in Minneapolis earns less than half that of a white family, according to 2018 Census Bureau data. About a quarter of black families own their home, compared to 76% of white ones.

In addition, the trial comes after a year of pandemic, which has preyed on the African-American population beyond the dead.

Last year, nearly one in two black workers was unemployed, compared to one in four whites.

This breeding ground for social discontent erupted with the death of Floyd, 46, a father of five, whose agony under the knee of a white policeman went around the world thanks to a citizen video.

Activist Sara Kettering, 32, argues by phone that the wave of protests unleashed in Minneapolis was "a settling of accounts for a systematic racism that has been experienced since slavery."

He regrets "the feeling of fear" transmitted by the high police presence in the streets and understands that so many businesses have decided to shield themselves against possible protests.

"I don't feel safer than a year ago," she says.

Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has witnessed an increase in violence in the streets.

In Minneapolis, violent crime skyrocketed by 21%, according to the Minneapolis Police Department, and there were 553 shooting victims in 2020, double the number in 2019 and the highest record in the past 15 years, recalling figures from the mid of the nineties when they spoke of "Murderapolis".

Last December, the city council approved a $ 7.7 million cut to the $ 179 million budget for the police department.

The money cut off will go to work teams focused on mental health and to hire more staff in the violence prevention office, among other initiatives.

The Minneapolis Police Union declined to comment on its discredit since Floyd's death.

Its headquarters, completely boarded up, seems abandoned.

On the back wall, George Floyd's face is stamped in black ink.

The figure of the symbol of the social movement is everywhere.

Sometimes, it is not his face that appears in a lost street, it simply reads "I can't breathe", the phrase he repeated 20 times before he died.

Corenia Smith, director of the Yes 4 Minneapolis campaign, which seeks to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety, criticized this Saturday at the Floyd memorial that the police "are not dedicated to preventing violence."

"They arrive after the facts are consummated and escalate the violence instead of reversing it," she laments, hopeful that her community will vote to change the system.

For this Sunday a vigil is planned in George Floyd Square led by the family of the deceased.

In the middle of this month, the Minneapolis municipal corporation unanimously voted to pay $ 27 million (about 22.6 million euros), the highest amount ever reached in a preliminary ruling in a case of police violence.

The Reverend and African American rights activist Al Sharpton will also attend the pre-trial memorial event.

"We must continue to support the Floyd family in the search for justice and accountability," the reverend published this Friday, "and as always," he continued, "demonstrating against the repeated violence against blacks by agents of policeman".