George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African American man murdered by police during an arrest after a store clerk alleged he had passed a counterfeit $20 bill in Minneapolis. Derek Chauvin, one of four police officers who arrived on the scene, knelt on Floyd's neck and back for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. After his death, protests against police brutality, especially towards black people, quickly spread across the United States and globally. As he was dying he said "I can't breathe" which was used as a rallying cry during subsequent protests.