Note from the road
May 25: 5th anniversary of George Floyd’s death
Police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd for nine minutes until he suffocated. Since then, Floyd has been regarded by some as a martyr and by others as a drug-addicted criminal who left his five children to their mothers. My photo series around the "George Perry Floyd Square" in Minneapolis, US state Minnesota.
The police station in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which was devastated during the protests following George Floyd's death, is untouched when I visit in August 2024 and the adjacent road is still closed. A billboard announces the start of the clean-up work for spring/summer 2024.
According to ABC News, Derek Chauvin and George Floyd had worked overlapping shifts as security guards for the same Mexican nightclub before the fatal arrest. Whether they knew each other is unclear. In any case, the patrol of four police officers stopped the African-American man as he was leaving the Unity Foods supermarket. The intersection in front of the store is now called “George Perry Floyd Square”. The area is known as a hotspot for drug trafficking.
The Palestinian flag flies above the memorial to George Floyd at the scene of his death. And the slogan “From the sea to the river, Palestine forever” is written on the plinth. A sign of the ideological proximity of Black Lives Matter and the “Free Palestine” movement, which has become even more entrenched since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
Another scrawl pleads “Protect young black men!”
This text was first published in German on my website.