OPINION | George Floyd's Death Sparked Global Protests. But 5 Years Later, the Need for Justice Is Just as Strong

As we approach the five-year anniversary of George Floyd's murder and the social uprisings that ensued, the memories of that time linger in my mind as clearly as if it all happened just months ago. The maddening whir of low-flying police choppers. The haze of tear gas. The constant and mounting anger, juxtaposed with emboldening feelings of solidarity, resolve, and hope.

For that fleeting chapter of our history, we were united in a radical desire for deep change and a real reckoning. The spirit of those who had taken to the streets before us was present and strong. The collective demand for justice was loud and urgent.

People who'd never attended a protest before, who normally stayed silent or on the sidelines, were moved to march, to post, to say something. Even though we knew much of it was performative, I remember how powerful and unstoppable the momentum felt in that moment.

But it wasn't unstoppable.

I often reflect on the first police press release that followed George Floyd's death. The headline read: "Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction." It described Floyd as resisting arrest, and it claimed he "appeared to be suffering medical distress." They made the point to state that "at no time were weapons of any type used by anyone involved in this incident."

You'd never know from that report that a police officer had knelt on Floyd's neck for nearly nine agonizing minutes, as the life slipped from his body. There was no mention of his pleas, of his gasps for breath, of the bystanders who begged officers to stop. That truth only came out because civilian witnesses, who recorded the incident, forced it into the light. The Minneapolis community, fed up with unchecked police violence, mobilized swiftly to demand accountability. Those of us following the story through social media worked to ring the alarm by circulating the story and the video through our own feeds, urging lawmakers and media to address the senseless killing — as we'd done many times in the years prior. We banded together, we marched, we escalated the pressure. We refused to let the system bury another life under bureaucratic language and silence.

We don't do that anymore. Not on the same scale and not with the energy of 2020.

There's so little conversation about police violence now that someone unfamiliar with the issue might think things have gotten better. They haven't. In fact, by many measures, they've gotten worse.

Despite the widespread protests and calls for reform following George Floyd's murder in 2020, the data reveals that no measurable progress toward curbing police violence has been made. "Overall, more people are being killed by police now than were being killed in 2020," said Samuel Sinyangwe, who founded Mapping Police Violence in 2014 following the police killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The project emerged from a glaring gap in government accountability in tracking comprehensive public data on police violence. What began as a grassroots effort has since grown into a formal nonprofit that not only tracks police killings, but also captures nonfatal uses of force — an issue affecting an estimated 300,000 people annually.

Sinyangwe attributes the worsening numbers to two main factors: a rise in police violence in conservative states that avoided post-2020 reforms, and the limited impact of narrowly targeted reforms in states that did act. To make a real difference, he argues, reforms must be broader and more transformative, shifting certain emergency responses away from armed police; investing in unarmed crisis response programs, like California's CRISES Act; and scaling those solutions in the hardest-hit communities.

This isn't just about numbers. It's about the dangers of complacency. It's about how quickly this country folds back into the comfort of the status quo, even when that status quo is quite literally killing us. It's about the way we let narratives be rewritten and outrage be pacified by half-promises and symbolic gestures. It's also about the trend in Democratic presidencies essentially serving as a sedative for so many left-leaning people who might otherwise show some resistance against injustice.

Now, after the Democrats failed to achieve any meaningful level of reform during Joe Biden's presidency, the governing party in the White House has flipped. And on the very week of George Floyd's anniversary, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced it will dismiss cases of injustice against police departments in cities across the country — including Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed.

Jazmyn Clark, smart justice policy program director at the ACLU of Washington, said, "This decision sends a dangerous signal — not just to Seattle's police department, but to law enforcement across the country." The DOJ is also ending federal consent decrees around the nation, a move that Clark said "gives a green light to abuse and a pass to [police] departments that have historically harmed communities, particularly Black, Indigenous, and other Communities of Color, and communicates that civil rights are negotiable and police oversight is optional."

Five years after the summer of 2020, the marches are over. The institutions that swore they'd do better have moved on. But the crisis has not. Here in Seattle, the City government has protected the art produced from our local protests, but the City Council recently approved a resolution decrying the defund police movement and its "failures," despite the fact that police were never defunded and the Seattle Police Department's current budget is astronomical. Our police department's federal consent decree was functionally terminated in 2023. In the 12 years the decree was active, SPD's budget increased 48%, and the Mayor's Office estimated programs related to the decree cost the city $200 million.

When I reflect on the radical energy — the organizing, the solidarity, the truth-telling — of 2020, I wonder: Can that be recovered? And how? Do the people who once felt compelled to critique the tactics of resistance movements feel that same urgency to speak out against the worsening crisis those movements sought to address? The killings have not stopped. The reforms have not been delivered. Though the fervor of that moment has faded, the need for action has not. Five years later, with deeper injustices unfolding, it's undeniable: That resistance was vital then, and it's just as necessary today.

The South Seattle Emerald is committed to holding space for a variety of viewpoints within our community, with the understanding that differing perspectives do not negate mutual respect amongst community members.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the contributors on this website do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the Emerald or official policies of the Emerald.

Gennette Cordova is a writer, organizer, and social impact manager.