US remembers George Floyd

One year ago Tuesday, the Minneapolis Police Department issued a short statement headlined, "Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction".

A bystander's cellphone video of that incident on May 25 showed George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, struggling to breathe on a street corner while under the knee of a white police officer for more than nine minutes. The video galvanized a movement for racial justice across the United States.

And on Tuesday, just blocks from the courthouse where on April 20 a jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of Floyd's murder, to cities and towns across the United States and the White House, the nation honored and mourned Floyd.

Marches, memorials and prayer gatherings took place from morning to evening, from Los Angeles to New York.

Hours before people gathered at the spot in Minneapolis where Floyd died — informally known as George Floyd Square — gunshots rang out in the morning.

Video from The Associated Press showed people running for cover. Police said a man who they believe was injured in the shooting went to a nearby hospital with a gunshot wound. Police said he was in critical condition but was expected to survive. There were no immediate arrests. Activists and bystanders returned to the square, but in a smaller number than before.

In New York City, elected officials, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, joined the Reverend Al Sharpton in kneeling for 9 minutes, 29 seconds. "As we took a knee, imagine how long that was on a human being's neck," Sharpton said. "Never switched knees, just dug in. It's time we correct policing in this country."

A small group of demonstrators marched through the city's downtown streets on Tuesday morning, stopping traffic near the Holland Tunnel before some were taken into custody by police officers. The group decried police misconduct and brutality, called for further investment in black communities, and said that the push for change spurred by Floyd's killing needed to continue.

Several Floyd family members, including his young daughter Gianna, met privately with President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris in the Oval Office for more than an hour.

Family members said the president was still committed to Congress passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a police reform bill, even as he missed his own self-imposed deadline of getting it signed on the one-year anniversary of Floyd's death.

"He said of the deadline, he's not happy about it not being met, but all in all, he just wants the bill to be right," Brandon Williams, the nephew of Floyd, told reporters after the meeting ended.

Biden has pledged to continue fighting for racial justice, and in the last few weeks, the Justice Department under Biden has announced sweeping investigations into the police in Minneapolis and Louisville and brought federal civil rights charges against the officers involved in Floyd's death.

The Senate on Tuesday narrowly confirmed Biden's nominee – a black woman -- to lead a division of the Justice Department that is in charge of investigating police abuses and enforcing voting rights laws and federal statutes prohibiting discrimination based on race, sex, religion and other factors.

The Senate voted 51-48 to confirm Kristen Clarke, a longtime civil rights attorney, to be the Justice Department's civil rights chief, making her the first black woman to fill the high-profile role.

Maine Senator Susan Collins was the lone Republican to support Biden's nominee. Senate Republicans said previous statements by Clarke made on issues such as voting rights, religious liberty and policing made them question whether she can be a nonpartisan enforcer of civil rights.

Members of Floyd's family announced on Tuesday the creation of a $500,000 fund named after Floyd to support the community in the predominantly black Minneapolis neighborhood where he was killed.

The George Floyd Community Benevolence Fund will be made from the family's legal settlement with the city of Minneapolis, which in March reached an agreement to pay $27 million to Floyd's family.

"The George Floyd Community Benevolence Fund will be an instrumental, long-term partner to the Black-owned businesses in the neighborhood where he died, where we all have seen the continued negative impact of systemic racism," said Ben Crump, the civil rights lawyer who is among those representing George Floyd's family.