Good morning. We're shifting today's edition away from COVID-19 to cover another tragic death of a Minnesotan at the hands of the police. We'll post the latest coronavirus information at the bottom of this newsletter. First, a quick forecast. Warm with some clouds. Twin Cities highs near 80. Statewide, mostly sunny with highs in the mid-70s to lower 80s, aside from the southeast part of the state where there's a chance of showers and thunderstorms. More on Updraft | Forecast George Floyd, or "Big Floyd" was a 46-year-old black man who friends remember as a supportive, gentle presence. He was well-known in the Twin Cities music community, sometimes helping artists carry their equipment at gigs. Floyd was a native of Texas, according to relatives, and lived in St. Louis Park.
Some of his final moments, captured on video, were spent face-down on Chicago Avenue with a white police officer's knee pinned against his neck. Among Floyd's final words were asking for water, pleading with the officers: "Please, please, please, I can't breathe. Please, man ... I can't breathe ... My stomach hurt, my neck hurt, everything hurts." Video from the scene shows Floyd stop moving and talking, then being placed onto a gurney. He was taken to HCMC and died shortly after arriving at the hospital. “We live in a society of law and order, police are suppose to serve and protect, I didn't see none of this.” That's from a written tribute by Jovanni Thunstrom owner of Conga Latin Bistro in Minneapolis, where Floyd worked as a security guard. “My employee George Floyd was murdered by a police officer that had no compassion, used his position to commit a murder of someone that was begging for his life.”
According to police, officers were responding to a report of a forgery in progress on the 3700 block of Chicago Avenue South at about 8 p.m. A statement from the department said officers found a suspect in a car and ordered him to stop out. "After he got out, he physically resisted officers,” police spokesperson John Elder said in a statement . “Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress.” Police said nobody, officers or the suspect, used weapons. The four police officers involved have been fired and community members are pushing for criminal charges. Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said Tuesday that criminal actions are pending. City officers have disproportionately used force on African Americans , according to city data. And convictions of police for on-duty killings are rare. Only one has been convicted in an on-duty, fatal shooting — Mohamed Noor, a black officer who shot Justine Rusczcyk, a white woman, in 2017. The FBI has joined the investigation. And that was the right call, civil rights attorney and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong said, but it may not be enough: "The hope is the FBI will take this matter seriously, and fairly and impartially investigate his matter, but at the end of the day, the community does not have a lot of trust in those that are part of the system." Now, for a briefing on COVID-19 in Minnesota. The number of people needing intensive care hit a new high yesterday, a sign that the expected surge in hospitalizations and ICU cases appears to be starting. In the Twin Cities metro area, about 87 percent of ICU beds were in use, largely from COVID-19 cases.
As more places begin to open up, there could be more community spread of COVID-19. Health commissioner Jan Malcolm said people should not let their guard down, believing the coronvavirus is “‘only a problem for certain populations and not for me.’ … That's just not the case."
Here are the latest coronavirus statistics :21,960 confirmed cases via 209,898 tests 899 deaths 2,709 cases requiring hospitalization 570 people remain hospitalized; 258 in intensive care 15,523 patients no longer needing isolation
— Cody Nelson, MPR News | @codyleenelson | 
