George Floyd Square

Author: Jewls Krueger

The intersection of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of South Minneapolis, is an ordinary commercial corner with a convenience store, a gas station, and rows of houses. On the evening of May 25, 2020, it became the site of one of the most consequential events in recent American history. George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed there by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin during an arrest. A bystander's cellphone video of the killing spread worldwide within hours and set off months of protests across the United States and beyond. The corner is now known as George Floyd Square, a memorial and gathering place that draws visitors from around the world.

George Floyd

George Perry Floyd Jr. was born on October 14, 1973, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. When he was a toddler, his mother moved the family to Houston, Texas, where he grew up in the Cuney Homes public housing project in the Third Ward. Friends knew him as a "gentle giant." He was a standout athlete at Jack Yates High School, playing on the football team that reached the 1992 Texas state championship game, and he later became an early figure in Houston's hip-hop scene under the name Big Floyd.

Floyd's adult life held both hardship and hope. He spent time in and out of the criminal justice system in Texas before deciding to make a change. In 2017 he moved to Minnesota for a fresh start, settling in the Minneapolis area and working as a truck driver and a nightclub security guard. He was the father of five children. By the spring of 2020, the pandemic had cost him work, and he was trying to rebuild his stability when he encountered police outside a neighborhood store.

Derek Chauvin

Derek Chauvin was a veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department, with 19 years on the force at the time of Floyd's death. Over his career he accumulated at least 17 misconduct complaints and had been involved in several on-duty shootings and other serious encounters, according to reporting on his personnel record. Despite that history, he continued to serve as a field training officer, a role that involved mentoring newer officers. One of the rookie officers present during Floyd's arrest had been trained by him.

The Murder

At about 8 p.m. on May 25, 2020, a store employee at Cup Foods called police to report that Floyd had used a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. Officers responded, removed Floyd from a vehicle, handcuffed him, and tried to place him in a squad car. Floyd ended up face down on the pavement, and Chauvin knelt on his neck and back.

Chauvin kept his knee pressed against Floyd for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds. Floyd repeatedly said that he could not breathe and called out for his mother. Three other officers, Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thao, were present and did not intervene. Bystanders pleaded with the officers to check on him. Among them was Darnella Frazier, a 17-year-old on her way to the store with her younger cousin, who recorded the encounter on her phone. Floyd lost consciousness and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. An autopsy attributed his death to cardiopulmonary arrest resulting from the neck compression.

The Investigation and Trial

Frazier posted her video to Facebook within hours, and it quickly went viral. The footage contradicted the initial police account and became a central piece of evidence in the case. It also helped trigger a wave of demonstrations that spread from Minneapolis across the country and around the world. In 2021 the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded Frazier a special citation for recording the event.

Chauvin's trial ran from March 8 to April 20, 2021, in Hennepin County District Court before Judge Peter Cahill. On April 20, 2021, the jury found him guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced on June 25, 2021, to 22.5 years in state prison. In December 2021 he pleaded guilty to federal charges of violating Floyd's civil rights, and in July 2022 he received a concurrent federal sentence of 21 years. The three other officers were later convicted of federal civil rights violations and faced state charges as well. The City of Minneapolis settled a wrongful death lawsuit with Floyd's family for 27 million dollars.

Recent Developments

Chauvin remains in custody. In November 2023 he was stabbed by another inmate at a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona, and survived. He was later transferred to a federal facility in Big Spring, Texas. In November 2025 he filed a petition for postconviction relief in Hennepin County seeking to vacate his murder conviction, and that request was under review as of early 2026. The intersection has remained a subject of debate as well. In December 2025 the Minneapolis City Council approved a concept design for the site that would reopen the streets to two-way traffic while preserving a central memorial space and the raised-fist sculpture at the corner.

George Floyd Square Today

George Floyd Square sits at the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of South Minneapolis. Since 2020 the corner has functioned as a living memorial, marked by flowers, murals, protest signs, and a steel raised-fist sculpture at the center of the intersection. The convenience store where the arrest began, formerly Cup Foods, has reopened under the name Unity Foods. A community organization called Rise and Remember tends the memorial and organizes annual commemorations.

The square is an open public space, and visitors are welcome, but it is also an active neighborhood and a place of ongoing grief for many who live nearby. Anyone who visits should treat it as the memorial it is. Follow any guidance posted by the caretakers, support the local businesses that remain, and be respectful of the residents and mourners who gather there.