George Perry Floyd Jr. was an African American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd might have used a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, on May 25, 2020. Derek Chauvin, one of four police officers who arrived on the scene, knelt on Floyd's neck and back for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, fatally asphyxiating him. After his murder, a series of protests against police brutality, especially towards black people, quickly spread globally and across the United States. His dying words, "I can't breathe", became a rallying slogan.