ADAMS: The 5th anniversary of George Floyd’s death: a personal reflection on justice, riots, and truth.

George Floyd wasn’t a saint. But he was murdered, and that truth still demands justice.

Bronze statue of George Floyd seated on a bench in New Jersey, symbolizing reflection, remembrance, and the impact of racial injustice. Photo credit: Unknown

I was 14 when I watched a man die for the first time.

Not in a movie. Not in a war documentary. In real time. On my phone. In my room.

The world was already upside down—the pandemic had locked us all indoors, schools were closed, and my generation was left to rot inside our bedrooms. I was bouncing between Twitter, YouTube, and cable news, watching a sick world get sicker. It was late May. You know where this is going.

I opened Twitter and saw a video that stopped me cold.

George Floyd. Handcuffed. Face down. Begging for air. Derek Chauvin—knee on his neck—blank face, hands in pockets, like he was posing for a damn photo. Eight minutes. Forty-six seconds. That's how long it took for a man to be suffocated in broad daylight by a cop while people begged him to stop.

And that night, the country went up in flames.

I remember flipping between CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, even BBC, just trying to understand what was happening. Minneapolis was on fire. Cop cars torched. Stores smashed. Protesters chanting. Police in riot gear acting like they were in Fallujah. And I sat there—a kid, frozen in front of my screen—watching an American city burn itself to the ground. That moment didn’t just change the world. It changed me. It rewired something. That night, I realized the world isn’t run by good guys and bad guys—it’s run by people with power and people without it. And people with power, when left unchecked, will kill you in broad daylight and call it protocol.

But Floyd Was No Angel…

Let’s talk about George Floyd. And let’s tell the truth—the full truth.

No, he wasn’t a “good man.” He had a criminal past. He had done real harm to people in his life. But this urge to use that as some kind of retroactive justification for what happened to him? That’s coward talk.

What matters is what happened on May 25th, 2020: Floyd was arrested over a suspected counterfeit $20 bill. A crime that—let’s be honest—half of us wouldn’t even recognize if it happened to us. That’s not just a low-level offence, it’s one most people wouldn’t even think twice about. He didn’t rob a bank. He wasn’t brandishing a weapon. He was pinned to the ground, handcuffed, and unarmed.

And Derek Chauvin—a man with a history of excessive force complaints—chose to kneel on his neck. While Floyd pleaded. While bystanders begged him to stop. While paramedics were kept at bay.

He died. Right there. In front of everyone.

Don’t talk to me about fentanyl like it changes the outcome. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled Floyd’s death a homicide—caused by “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” Not an overdose. Chauvin’s actions—not Floyd’s blood toxicity—killed him. You can try to spin it, but facts don’t give a damn about your politics.

Even if Floyd was a drug addict—that doesn’t change a thing. Being an addict shouldn’t be a death sentence. Hell, I’d wager half the people reading this know someone struggling with opioids. You gonna kneel on their neck too?

Chauvin Was No Lone Wolf—He Was the Symptom

Derek Chauvin isn’t some one-off “bad apple.” He is exactly what happens when a broken system keeps promoting guys who should’ve been kicked off the force years ago. This goon had 18 prior complaints against him before Floyd. Eighteen. Most of them went unpunished. Because the system protected him. Because the badge covered for him.

I followed Chauvin’s trial (State of Minnesota v. Chauvin, 2021) like a hawk. It was the first time I ever got invested in a real legal case. And even with the video evidence, I wasn’t sure he’d be convicted. That’s how little faith we had in justice by that point. But the verdict came back: guilty on all counts.

Cue the online backlash. The right-wing pundits started crying about “cancel culture” and “mob justice.” Over the last year, I’ve even seen people say Chauvin is a “political prisoner.” Are you kidding me? A political prisoner doesn’t ignore a man begging for his life. A political prisoner doesn’t kneel on a guy’s neck until he dies. Chauvin is not some rogue anti-hero. He’s a convicted murderer.

The Timing Was Everything—And Everyone Knew It

Minnehaha Liquors in Minneapolis at night during the 2020 BLM protests, with broken windows, graffiti, scattered debris, and people gathered outside. Image credit: Chris Juhn

The riots didn’t start just because of George Floyd. They started because George Floyd was the last straw. Because the pressure had been building for years—for decades. And 2020 was the year the powder keg finally blew.

The U.S. government’s response to COVID-19 was a disaster. Trump and his supporters were too busy whining about masks and blaming China to take the pandemic seriously. People were losing their jobs, their homes, their families. Kids my age were killing themselves because their lives had been turned inside out.

So when that video of Floyd’s murder hit the internet & went viral, it was like lighting a match next to a gas leak. The riots didn’t come from nowhere. They were the inevitable consequence of a broken society. And the police made it worse—taunting protesters, rolling in with armoured vehicles and gas and riot shields before anyone had even thrown a rock. If you’re looking to defuse a bomb, you don’t bring a flamethrower.

George Floyd Wasn’t a Martyr. He Was a Reminder.

I’m not here to romanticize Floyd. Let’s be real—he wasn’t a “good man.” He did terrible things. But what happened to him was worse. He didn’t get a trial. He didn’t get a second chance. Derek Chauvin played judge, jury, and executioner, and a little girl lost her dad.

I remember when Floyd’s daughter said the thing she’ll miss most is that he won’t be there. That crushed me. That girl doesn’t deserve that pain. Floyd didn’t deserve that death. You can hate the man, but you better respect the truth.

Evil doesn’t always look like a villain in a movie. Sometimes it wears a uniform, keeps its hands in its pockets, and smiles while the light drains from your eyes.

Final Thought

George Floyd wasn’t a saint, but he was a man. A human being. A father. He made mistakes—some serious ones—but none of them justified what happened on that pavement. He deserved due process. He deserved a trial. He deserved to go home that night. Derek Chauvin took that away.

Chauvin didn’t just make a mistake. He made a decision. A cold, deliberate decision to press his knee into a man’s neck for nearly nine minutes, in front of witnesses, with no urgency, no remorse, and no regard for human life. That’s not poor training. That’s not stress. That’s intent. He had the badge. He had the power. And he used it to kill someone who posed no threat. That’s not law enforcement—it’s murder.

So if you're one of those people still trying to spin Chauvin into a victim, ask yourself: what kind of system are you defending when a man can suffocate another in broad daylight and still get apologists? Chauvin is not a hero. He’s not misunderstood. He’s not a scapegoat.

He’s a killer who wore a badge and thought it made him untouchable.