[20][21][22][23] Within Minneapolis, widespread property destruction and looting occurred, including a police station being overrun by demonstrators and set on fire, causing the Minnesota National Guard to be activated and deployed on May 28.

[43] The largest post-civil rights movement protest in the 20th-century was the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which were in response to the acquittal of police officers in using excessive force against Rodney King, an African-American man.

The ACLED characterized Black Lives Matter as "an overwhelmingly peaceful movement", finding that more than 93 percent of protests involved no incidents of violence nor destructive activity.

[59][60] Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove on March 13, 2020.

[63] The primary targets of the LMPD investigation were Jamarcus Glover and Adrian Walker, who were suspected of selling controlled substances from a drug house more than 10 miles (16 km) away.

Officers approached the car and ordered George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, who according to police "appeared to be under the influence", to exit the vehicle, at which point he "physically resisted".

[80] An autopsy of Floyd was conducted on May 26, and the next day, the preliminary report by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office was published, which found "no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation".

In Minneapolis–Saint Paul alone, the immediate aftermath of the murder of George Floyd was second-most destructive period of local unrest in United States history, after the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

[117] A riot occurred in downtown Minneapolis in reaction to false rumors about the suicide of Eddie Sole Jr., a 38-year-old African-American man; demonstrators believed he had been shot by police officers.

[131] Dolal Idd was a 23-year-old Somali-American man who was killed in an exchange of gunfire with Minneapolis police officers at approximately 6:15 p.m. CST on December 30, 2020, after he shot at them from inside the car he was driving.

[140] Approximately a thousand protesters outside a downtown Minneapolis courthouse as Chauvin's trial commenced on March 8, 2021, to call for justice for Floyd and raise broader issues of racial injustice.

Separately, protesters marched in downtown Minneapolis to demand justice for Floyd and rallied at the Hennepin County Government Center and City Hall, and some demonstrators parked cars on the Metro light-rail tracks, which closed train traffic for several hours.

At 38th and Chicago Avenue, the street intersection where Floyd was murdered, a group of people held a training workshop at the square on how to avoid arrest and keep calm if detained by police.

[144][145][146] On April 11, 2021, at 1:48 p.m., 20-year-old Daunte Wright was shot and killed during a traffic stop by Kim Potter, an officer with the police department of Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis.

[151] Winston Boogie Smith, a 32-year-old black man, was shot and killed by law enforcement authorities on June 3, 2021, as they attempted to apprehend him at a parking ramp in the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis.

Armstrong alleged that Dohman, a Trump administration appointee, had a conflict of interest due to a past working relationship with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

[185][186] The Stop Cop City protests that Terán was participating in were part of longstanding tensions over police killings in the United States since George Floyd's murder.

[184] Protests in Atlanta on January 21, 2023, briefly turned violent as some demonstrators threw objects, set police car on fire, and smashed windows of bank buildings with hammers.

Interim Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Stanford said the looting was unrelated to the earlier peaceful protests and characterized the looters as "...a bunch of criminal opportunists take advantage of a situation to make an attempt to destroy our city.

[200] The city council in Minneapolis voted in June to "end policing as we know it" and replace it with a "holistic" approach to public safety, but by September 2020, the pledge collapsed without implementation.

[202] The Black Visions Collective, an activist group seeking police abolition, called past reforms "weak" and stated, "It is the nature of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy or any of these other systems of oppression to want to do what is necessary to save themselves.

[214][215] Writing for Foreign Affairs, professor Brenda Gayle Plummer noted that "The particulars of Floyd's murder, taking place against the backdrop of the pandemic, may well have been the dam-break moment for the global protest movement.

[217] Prime minister Mark Rutte stated in a parliamentary debate on June 5, 2020, that he had changed his opinion on the issue and now has more understanding for people who consider the character's appearance to be racist.

[228] In late May to June 2020, the high-profile murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, along with the shooting of Breonna Taylor, led to a racial reckoning that greatly increased sentiment regarding systemic racism in the United States, with changes occurring in public opinion, government, industry, education and sports.

[236][237] By mid-June, American national culture and attitude towards racial injustice began to shift, including the Senate Armed Services Committee's approval of process to rename military facilities named for Confederate generals.

[229] Public opinion in support of the Black Lives Matter movement greatly increased,[238][239] with a surge of "am I racist" searches[240] and a greater approval for removing Confederate statues and memorials.

Various news organizations modified their style guides to capitalize "Black" as a proper noun in recognition of the term's shared political identity and experiences.

[250] The recent scrutiny on race relations in the United States brought comparisons to the Weinstein effect in which the Me Too movement put pressure on public figures for legacies of sexual assault, harassment, and systemic sexism.

[20] NPR wrote that renamed landmarks and similar gestures would not provide economic opportunities or civil rights, but signaled cultural disapproval towards symbols associated with racial injustice, including the history of racism and slavery.

[258] Many major American corporations pursued anti-racism and diversity training workshops, particularly companies seeking to be consistent with their Black Lives Matter message.