[2] Derek Chauvin, one of four police officers who arrived on the scene, knelt on Floyd's neck and back for over nine minutes, fatally asphyxiating him.

Born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Floyd grew up in Houston, Texas, playing football and basketball throughout high school and college.

The family settled in the Cuney Homes public housing complex,[5][17][18] known as the Bricks, in Houston's Third Ward, a historically African-American neighborhood.

[22][23][24] Floyd became a friend of future National Basketball Association (NBA) player Stephen Jackson, who was referred to as his twin because of their strong resemblance to one another, after being introduced in the mid-1990s.

[31][32][33][34] The New York Times described his deep-voiced rhymes as "purposeful", delivered in a slow-motion clip about "'choppin' blades' – driving cars with oversize rims – and his Third Ward pride.

[5][15] In one of these cases, Floyd was convicted of possessing half a gram of crack cocaine in 2004 based on the sole testimony of police officer Gerald Goines.

As a result, in April 2021, the district attorney of Harris County, Texas, requested a posthumous pardon for this particular conviction of Floyd's because of Goines' lack of credibility.

[38] In 2007, Floyd faced charges for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon; according to investigators, he entered an apartment by impersonating a water department worker and barging in with five other men, held a pistol to a woman's stomach, and searched for items to steal.

[22] After his release, Floyd became more involved with Resurrection Houston, a Christian church and ministry, where he mentored young men and posted anti-violence videos to social media.

[5][6][7][8] He delivered meals to senior citizens and volunteered with other projects, such as the Angel By Nature Foundation, a charity founded by rapper Trae tha Truth.

[43] Later, Floyd became involved with a ministry that brought men from the Third Ward to Minnesota in a church-work program with drug rehabilitation and job placement services.

He expressed the need for a job and took up security work at Harbor Light Center, a Salvation Army homeless shelter.

But he dropped out because his job at a nightclub made it difficult to attend morning classes, and he felt pressure to earn money.

[40] An influential member of his community, Floyd was respected for his ability to relate with others in his environment based on a shared experience of hardships and setbacks, having served time in prison and living in a poverty-stricken project in Houston.

He also expressed his disdain for violence taking place in the community, advising his neighbors to put down their weapons and remember that they were loved by him and God.

When he appeared agitated, officers encouraged him to relax and helped calm him down, and they later called an ambulance as they grew worried about his condition.

[45] In 2020, Floyd was working part-time as a security guard at the Conga Latin Bistro club and began another job as a delivery driver.

He lost the delivery driver job in January after being cited for driving without a valid commercial license and for being involved in a minor crash.

[69] On March 12, 2021, the Minneapolis city council approved a settlement of $27 million to the Floyd family after a wrongful death lawsuit.

[54] On May 12, Hennepin county district judge Peter Cahill allowed the prosecution to seek a greater prison sentence for Chauvin after finding that he treated Floyd "with particular cruelty".

[78][79] The New York Times described the events in the wake of Floyd's murder and the video that circulated of it as "the largest protests in the United States since the Civil Rights era.

[102][103] Other viral social-media-based tributes to Floyd were made by Nikkolas Smith, Stormy Nesbit, Dani Coke, Robin Hilkey, and Miriam Mosqueda.

[106][107][108] One Houston mural is on the side of Scott Food Mart in the Third Ward,[109][110] while the other is on the property of The Breakfast Klub restaurant in Midtown.

"[5] A GoFundMe account to support Floyd's funeral costs and benefit his family broke the site's record for number of individual donations.

[112] By June 6, murals had been created in many cities, including Manchester, Dallas, Miami, Idlib, Los Angeles, Nairobi, Oakland, Strombeek-Bever, Berlin, Pensacola, and La Mesa.

Researcher Temitope Oriola, author of 'How police departments can identify and oust killer cops', wrote the piece intending to prevent more deaths mirroring Floyd's.

[130] On October 6, 2020, Amnesty International delivered a letter with one million signatures from around the world to the US Attorney General William Barr to demand justice for George Floyd.

The human rights advocacy group demanded that the police officers involved in the murder of George Floyd be held accountable.