George Floyd, a 46-year-old man was arrested outside of a shop in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25th, 2020. Soon after being led out of his car for his arrest, he was fell to the ground after claiming to be claustrophobic. Derek Chauvin, the officer in charge of his arrest, then began suffocating Floyd by pressing his knee onto his neck. Floyd begged for mercy by repeating “I can’t breathe”, however, despite that there were many people that surrounded them shouted that they agreed Chauvin was killing him, he did not stop pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck. After exactly 8 minutes and 46 seconds, George Floyd was pronounced dead. 
      Although George Floyd had allegedly committed a crime, it was very minor. He was reported to have used a fake $20 bill when paying for a pack of cigarettes, so a store employee made a 9-1-1 phone call to the police. Unfortunately, the events after the call were nothing short of horrifying. Luckily, Chauvin was arrested for the charge of George Floyd’s murder-steps have been taken.
      George Floyd is just one of numerous POC that have experienced police brutality and racism. After this incident, hundreds of thousands of people became so fed up with this terrible police behavior that protests began to erupt. Unfortunately, the government was not kind in the least to these individuals that decided to protest shouting “Black lives matter”. These innocent protests have turned to riots in a matter of days, due to the fact that many individuals took the situation as an advantage to steal and ruin property. Additionally, policemen and other officials have intervened and tried to stop the protests by using excessive force and shooting rubber bullets; several innocent protesters have been found dead. 
      Incidents similar to these need to be put to rest for good. Man was created to be equal. The amount of melanin in your skin should not be the determining factor as to what rights you are entitled to. Black lives matter; all lives will not matter until black lives matter as well.