Five years ago today...

That's right...it happened.

46-year-old Houston-born George Floyd was murdered in his adopting city, Minneapolis, by police officer Derek Chauvin.

Floyd was a father of five...and he entered a convenience store to buy some cigarettes. A clerk at that store suspected Floyd had used a $20 bill to purchase the smokes, so the store's manager called the police. When MPD officers arrived at the store, they pulled guns on Floyd...who cooperated with the cops during the arrest. But then, he told the officers he had claustrophobia...so he resisted going into the squad car. Once they pulled Floyd out, Chauvin pinned him to the ground.

The whole thing was caught on video...and the footage made it to Facebook.

After nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds underneath Chauvin, Floyd was unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at a Minneapolis hospital.

Protests took place almost immediately...and Minneapolis was the first city where demonstrations took place in the wake of the murder. In the next week or two, two hundred US cities had imposed curfews. Roughly twenty-five states used the National Guard...on top of police departments nationwide using riot-control tactics.

Things got to the point here in America where more than 2,000 protests happened in the wake of the murder of Floyd...in a year where Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor had already lost their lives to police brutality.

Bigwigs in all walks of American life started talking about the role of police departments...and started talking about how to end racism (let's face it, this country's original sin...and I'm quoting bestselling author Jim Wallis) and how to make these United States a truly inclusive nation.

I can't help but ask: How much have we actually learned as a nation since 5-25-2020?

For starters, the same man who, in the light of these protests, wanted the police to "dominate the streets" is back in office.

Speaking of police...Chauvin was arrested on 5-29-2020; he was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. A jury found him guilty of all those charges on 4-20-2021. (Those seventeen misconduct complaints Chauvin racked up coming into 2020's Memorial Day weekend sure didn't help him.)

He's now serving a 22.5-year prison sentence...whether the Charlie Kirks of the world like it or not.