Five years after murder of George Floyd, police distrust remains in Minneapolis

Aflred Flowers Jr. remembers the crowd gathering before the Minneapolis’ Third Precinct went up in flames.

“I watched it go from 200 to 500 to by the time we got to third precinct, it was over 1000 people. And by the time that night was over, it was over five, 10,000 people,” Flowers said.

The youth sports coach grew up in the neighborhood, where many residents looked at the officers who worked there with deep distrust.

Anger over the deaths of Black men in police custody in Minnesota and across the country had long been simmering, and the pandemic lockdowns provided the conditions for a flashpoint.

Former Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo watched the scene from his SUV nearby.

“I can smell the burning rubber from the auto zone that's going up in flames. I'm seeing the people straight ahead of me on top of the building of Minnehaha Liquors, throwing Molotov cocktails onto the front foyer area of the precinct. And all the while, I've got police inside the building who are transmitting they're breaching. They're going to breach. They're coming in,” Arradondo recalled.

He called Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry and recommended evacuating the precinct.

“The decision as made, again, lives are at stake here, and it was getting those men and women out of there fast as safely as we could,” he said.

For Flowers, the moment was bittersweet.

“I remember at that moment the level of excitement, it sounds crazy, but literally the excitement that people felt that they were taking the power back from the Minneapolis Police,” he said.

But as flames engulphed more structures along the Lake Street business corridor, Flowers worried about what might come next.

“It was a level of rage and energy I've never experienced in my life and probably never will experience again,” he said.

Five years later the charred precinct building remains. Arradondo, who grew up in the neighborhood wonders if earlier reforms could have prevented the events that May.

“When I look back five years, there's things I would have done differently. I would have pushed harder and sooner at trying to dismantle some of the toxic culture that allowed that indifference to exist,” Arradondo said.

Though distrust remains, Flowers says he sees progress in remaking the force.

“We've made some significant strides working with our Minneapolis Police Department as far as their future hiring, some of the policies that they have in place to ensure that those type of things won't happen will hopefully don't happen again,” he said.

But economic dipartites and racial inequities that have long plagued the neighborhood around 38th and Chicago Avenues remain.

“What was very interesting on a large scale in terms of when Mr. Floyd was killed was the benevolence of corporate America and other institutions. And for the first time naming the inequities, particularly within black communities in America, and certainly specifically to Minneapolis there seemed to be an initial genuine gesture to try to address those. I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that when I talk to black community members and family members, many feel that those initial promises have rang hollow today,” said Arradondo.

It's a point that Flowers agrees with. As the city weighs a permanent plan for the intersection that become known and George Floyd Square, nearby business have continued to struggle.

“What I don't see is the community that's over here, investment into it. I don't see that. So, I respect the fact of what community can do to come together. But at the very same time, I do believe that it's important that we help change the conditions for those businesses and especially for those African Americans that's in this city and in this world,” Flowers said.