Concept Paper
Introduction In May 2020 George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was pronounced dead after Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, despite Floyd’s repeated protests that he could not breathe. Wide circulation of a bystander’s video of Floyd’s last minutes triggered massive demonstrations in cities throughout the United States and across the globe. The tragedy also brought to national attention the earlier deaths of two other African Americans: Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. In February 2020 Arbery was jogging in Glynn county, Georgia, when two white men, believing he might have committed a series of break-ins, began following him in a truck. The men, who had guns, confronted Arbery, and a struggle ensued, which resulted in the fatal shooting of Arbery. The following month in Louisville, Kentucky, Taylor, an emergency medical technician, was killed during a botched police raid at her apartment. Although A...