Floyd George was a man with a past whose future was stolen
Before he died after being pinned for minutes beneath a Minneapolis police officer’s knee, George Floyd was suffering the same fate as millions of Americans during the coronavirus pandemic: out of work and looking for a new job.
Floyd moved to Minneapolis from his native Houston several years ago in hopes of finding work and starting a new life, said Christopher Harris, Floyd’s lifelong friend. But he lost his job as a bouncer at a restaurant when Minnesota’s governor issued a stay-at-home order.
On Monday night, an employee at a Minneapolis grocery store called police after Floyd allegedly tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill.
Cellphone video of his arrest shows Floyd on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back while Officer Derek Chauvin presses him to the ground with his knee on Floyd’s neck. Floyd complains he can’t breathe.
Floyd, 46, grew up in Houston’s Third Ward, one of the city’s predominantly black neighbourhoods, where he and Harris met in middle school. At 1.98m, Floyd was a star tight end for Jack Yates High School and played in the 1992 state championship.
Donnell Cooper, one of Floyd’s former classmates, said Floyd towered over everyone and earned the nickname “gentle giant”.
“Quiet personality but a beautiful spirit,” Cooper said. His death “definitely caught me by surprise. It’s just so sad, the world we’re living in now.”
Floyd was charged in 2007 with armed robbery in a home invasion in
Houston and in 2009 was sentenced to five years in prison.
Harris and some of their mutual friends had moved to Minneapolis around 2014 and he talked Floyd into moving there as well after he got out of prison.
“He was looking to start over fresh, a new beginning,” Harris said. “He was happy with the change he was making.”
Floyd landed a security job at a Salvation Army store in downtown Minneapolis. He later drove trucks and worked as a bouncer at Conga Latin
Bistro, where he was known as “Big Floyd”.
“Always cheerful,” Jovanni Tunstrom, the bistro’s owner, said. “He had a good attitude. He would dance badly to make people laugh. I tried to teach him how to dance because he loved Latin music, but I couldn’t because he was too tall for me. He always called me ‘Bossman’. I said, ‘Floyd, don’t call me Bossman. I’m your friend’.”
Harris said Floyd was laid off when Minnesota shut down restaurants as part of a stay-at-home order. “He was doing whatever it takes to maintain going forward with his life,” Harris said.
Floyd leaves behind a 6-year-old daughter, the Houston Chronicle reported.
“The way he died was senseless,” Harris said. “He begged for his life. He pleaded for his life.”