On May 25, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, died in Minneapolis being restrained by the police
He died shortly after Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for at least 8 minutes despite Floyd's gasping for breath and repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe”
Video footage of the incident broadcast by the media and went viral on social media platforms
4 policemen have since been fired, and the FBI has been called in to conduct a federal civil rights probe
The death has triggered violent unrest in Minneapolis, leading to a state of peacetime emergency being declared in Minnesota state
By May 31, protests were underway in more than 100 US cities, including New York City, Boston and Los Angeles
Protests are also happening in other countries including London, Germany, Berlin, Canada and Italy
Floyd’s repeated cry for help, “I can’t breathe”, prompted comparisons between the incident and the death of Eric Garner in 2014
Garner, an unarmed African American man, had uttered the same words 11 times as he was held in a chokehold by a police officer in New York City before he died.
The incident once again brought to the fore concerns over the law enforcement’s bias against the African American minority