The Current - 5 years after George Floyd: What changed, and what hasn’t?

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

“I did not see humanity provided to Mr. Floyd that day,” says Medaria Arradondo, the Minneapolis police chief at the time of George Floyd’s murder. Five years after Floyd was murdered in an interaction with police officers Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, Matt Galloway talks to former police chief Arradondo and civil rights lawyer and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong about what has or hasn’t changed — and where the Black Lives Matter movement stands in the U.S. today with Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

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Brass solidarity is one of the many ways this community pays tribute to the memory of George Floyd. It was five years ago this weekend that George Floyd, a black man, was murdered by police. His death was captured on video, shot by a bystander. It sparked widespread protests around the world and ignited the Black Lives Matter movement and was seen as a moment of reckoning on race and racism. Nkeema Levy Armstrong is a civil rights lawyer and the founder of the Racial Justice Network. She's also the former head of the Minneapolis NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Nkeema, good morning. Good morning. How did you learn about the death of George Floyd? Well, it was a normal Memorial Day in 2020, and I happened to check Facebook, and I noticed that I was tagged in a Facebook post by a woman who was an activist whose husband had been killed by police. And in that Facebook post, she said that the Minneapolis Police Department had murdered someone that day by either choking them or

crushing their throat. So immediately I looked online and I did not see any report of someone being killed by the Minneapolis Police Department. So then I picked up the phone and I called Chief Madera Arradondo, who was the chief of the Minneapolis Police Department at the time. And you know, his nickname is Rondo. And I said, Hey Rondo, did Minneapolis police kill someone today? And he said, No, Ms. Nakima, they didn't kill anyone today. But someone did die in custody as a result of a medical incident. And I said, have you seen video of the incident?

And he said, no, I sent the case over to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to begin investigation. And I said, well, that's not what the community is saying has happened. This is what the community said is happening. And you need to see some video immediately. When you saw that video, what went through your mind? Well, after I hadn't seen the video at that point, after I got off the phone with him, I went to Facebook and I let people know something has happened. This is what Ashley said.

This is what the chief said. Now we need to see some video. And then a few minutes later I was tagged in the now infamous video that was recorded by then 17 year old Darnella Frazier. And when I clicked play on that video, I could not believe what I was seeing. I saw officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of a black man whose name we didn't know at the time, which we later found out to be George Floyd. I'm going to speak with that chief, Rondo, in just a moment. After George Floyd's murder, the police chief, who was the city's first black chief, promised

in his words, transformative change. How much of that transformative change do you feel that he was able to accomplish in the wake of that moment? Well, I think in that particular moment, we had to shift into crisis mode as a city, especially given the magnitude of the response to people watching the video.

And so after I saw the video, I then called Chief Rondo back and I told him what I saw and I sent him the video. And from that point forward, he reached out, you know, he did what he needed to do in terms of his process, but he also reached out to Black city leaders to meet him at City Hall at 730 the next morning. And we had a discussion with him to obviously express our outrage at what happened and to call for the firing of those officers. And so I have to give Rondo credit for listening to the community, understanding the gravity of the situation, and ultimately within hours, making the decision to fire

all four of the officers who were involved in the murder of George Floyd. That was unprecedented. Typically officers are not fired when they kill someone, even when it's an unjustified use of deadly force. So that was a huge moment. And from that moment, we were actually able to say, you all have fired these officers. Now we want to see these officers charged and arrested for what they did. That ultimately led to, of course, people continuing to take to the streets and calling for justice. It led to a shift in terms of who handled the case. Typically, the county attorney handles the case. But in a situation like this, we

knew that the county attorney was not going to do justice to this case. And to make a long story short, I had a conversation with Governor Tim Walz and I asked him if he would use his executive authority to remove the case from the county attorney and place the case into the hands of the attorney general, which was another unprecedented move. Some of those who were out on the streets calling for justice, one of the things that they called for was the defunding and dismantling, for example, of the Minneapolis Police Department. They wanted it replaced with a Department of Public Safety. That was voted down by the people of Minneapolis in a 2021 ballot question.

And you wrote that many of those who supported that were part of the white progressive population. But in your words, many black residents like me worried that it would reduce safety in black communities without increased police accountability. What did you make of that, that idea that the police itself should be scrapped? Well, I understood completely why people had that perspective because we had dealt with so much violence and brutality and dehumanization from the Minneapolis Police Department over such a long period of time. However, I understood that if someone has an emergency or they are a victim of crime,

which Black people are disproportionately victims of crime, they're not going to have anyone to call as the city tries to figure this out. And so that is why I did not go along with those calls to defund and dismantle, but to say we need to transform this police department and shift the paradigm of their culture, how they operate, their policies, their procedures, and to make sure we strengthen accountability mechanisms. People have talked about this being a reckoning, a reckoning on race. And I wonder five years later where you think that reckoning is. You have written that, these are your words, now we're in a place where it seems like we're going backwards as a result of what's happening

under the Trump administration. What do you see as backstepping when it comes to the progress and the promises that were made in the wake of the murder of George Floyd? Well, what we saw when Donald Trump took office beginning on January 20th was a series of executive orders that he issued attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion. And that led to corporations such as Target that's headquartered here in Minneapolis to roll back its focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Now, Target had been a leader

in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And they, in fact in fact pledge $2 billion after George Floyd was killed, saying that they would increase black brands on the shelves, improve the black customer shopping experience, and increase promotion and retention practices for black employees. So to see them take several steps back after Donald Trump took office was a huge slap in the face for Minneapolis residents. So we wound up calling for a nationwide boycott of Target. Do you think Americans want the change now that was called for five years ago? Americans should have persevered in calling for change over the last five years and not

just seeing the murder of George Floyd as a moment. There was an opportunity for a racial reckoning and now we are going to have to build momentum again to get folks on the same page as far as demanding the changes that we want to see and not going along with the Trump administration's attempts to roll back progress. I'm going to let you go, but one of the things, just the last thing I wanted to ask you is the president of the NAACP said that progress isn't a straight line, that it swings like a pendulum. As that pendulum kind of swings, do you still have optimism about what's possible? I do have optimism because of the people who came before us who had worse experiences and

conditions and they continue to stand up and fight for some of the changes that we now enjoy. So it's our responsibility to dig in, to persevere and to continue to push for the changes that we need to see. Nakeema, it's good to speak with you. Thank you very much for your time this morning. Thank you for having me. Nakeema Levy Armstrong is a civil rights lawyer and the founder of the Racial Justice Network.

It was over 30 years ago that Clifford Olson first called me. Secret phone calls from Canada's most notorious serial killer. I knew I was killing the children, but I couldn't stop myself. Now it's time to unearth the tapes. Because I believe there are still answers to be found. I'm Arlene Bynum, from CBC's Uncovered. Calls from a Killer, available now. Madera Arradondo was the chief of the Minneapolis Police Department five years ago when George Floyd was murdered.

His new book is Chief Rondo, Securing Justice for the Murder of George Floyd. Good morning to you. Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being here. Nakeema mentioned her conversation with you of the night that George Floyd was murdered. What do you remember of that conversation? Well, I was fortunate first and foremost that we established a relationship in the quiet moments. I had reached out to her even five years prior to that.

She has been a great community leader, social justice activist, and so we had that relationship. So when she called me around midnight that evening, I knew something, and I certainly heard it in her voice, I knew something was not right. And so she called me, she asked me if a person had been killed at the intersection that evening. I mentioned to her that we had a medical-related death. That was the first information that was provided to me. But because of the trust I have for her,

I waited for her to get back to me. And when she got back to me, she sent me the video, Now That the World Knows. And that is when I knew that something absolutely shocking that spoke against our humanity, and certainly our department values, had occurred at that intersection. What changed for you when you saw that video?

Matt, I will tell you that in my 30 plus years of being a peace officer, my heart sunk. I did not see humanity provided to Mr. Floyd that day. It created a seismic rupture in the American policing system. And I knew it was going to have an impact, a life-changing impact, not only for me, certainly for the organization, but more importantly, for Minneapolis. But it's worth mentioning, I mean, this is by no means

the first time that Minneapolis police were found to have used excessive force, and it certainly wasn't the first time that a black American was murdered by police. Activists had been working on these issues for years and had been pointing the finger at what was happening in your force. As the chief, how much responsibility do you take for the culture, I suppose, inside that

force that led to George Floyd's murder? Yeah, so I'm a student of history and, Matt, you're probably aware. I myself, back in 2007, I actually litigated against my own department for discrimination. And I actually came into being chief on the tragic officer-involved killing of Miss Justine Ruschak back in the summer of 2017. So I'm very familiar with the history. I think looking back, Matt, if there are things I would have done differently, I would have absolutely pushed harder and stronger in trying to dismantle some of the toxic culture within the organization that even allowed that indifference that existed with Officer Derek Chauvin in terms of how

he just sort of discarded Mr. Floyd that evening at 30th and Chicago. When you promised to change the force, I mean, how much resistance did you get from inside the force to what you were proposing? Well, for leaders of organizations, and that was a 160-year-old organization, there's going to be resistance to change. There's a funny saying, Matt, that says the two things that copsy at the most are change in the way things are. I've certainly had that resistance there. There was a influential union leader who resisted tooth and nail any sorts of changes of reform. We had a climate politically within the city that, you know, you mentioned the ballot referendum. You know, I also spoke against that publicly. I did not think that was in the best interest of community members and certainly those members

who are disproportioned victims of crime. But do you understand why that was on the table? That there were people who say that what you're talking about, that resistance would lead people to say, you can't reform this, that this can't be fixed. And so we broadly as a society need to get rid of this thing that is broken and create something new. Yeah, and Matt, I agree with you on that. However, the one key part that was missing

with that call during that time in 2021 was that there was no plan. And as chief of police, I'm responsible for my 430,000 bosses, the residents of Minneapolis, and I can't leave that up to guessing and luck in terms of what will keep them safe. So I absolutely understand the premise behind it. But if we don't have a plan, that's more victims and I don't need any more funerals. And so I thought we needed to look at it pragmatically. And so, but I absolutely understand that. And transforming a broken system, it takes time. Matter of fact, the average shelf life for a major city chief in America, Matt, is three and a half years, and that's if things go good.

So you have to, with each day you have, you have to just keep chipping away at it. You have to loosen control and work with more collaboration. That's why I'm so thankful for Ms. Nakima. But again, we stand on the heels of people who have fought, literally, those who lost their lives in trying to, again, make improvements to a system that has not always been for their best interest. What do you mean the title of your book is securing justice for the murder of George Floyd? Five years later, what does justice look like to you?

Justice looks like to me, first and foremost, that we're seeing those that we serve as necessary. They are not disposable. We are working together with people in community. I will also say a big piece to this here too is it's working with young people. Ms. Nikima really has been a leader, but it was also young people who take to the streets. It's young people who not only wanna be at the table, they wanna shape how this public safety, how this community safety looks for them. Police chiefs in here in America,

we're using data more to tell our community stories. We're building more trust-based dialogue so that we can earn that trust from our communities. Do you think that trust has been earned from people in the communities five years later? I think there's pockets of it. I think there's pockets of it, but it's something that we can't step away. We can't step off the gas. My concern here in America right now, Matt, and for your listeners, is that we have a tendency to sleepwalk ourselves into the next crisis. We can't do that.

We also have a presidential administration that announced this week that it's abandoning its investigations of unconstitutional behavior in police departments, including in your own city. And I will tell you, I think that as a former chief, that is wrong. It's disappointing. I think that is a setback. But also, Matt will say this here, I'm a person by hope and I don't believe that hope is a mood, it's a practice. I believe this gives

our communities the opportunity to say, you know what, we don't have to rely upon people parachuting in in terms of the federal government. We need to build this out. We need to build this agreement, have this enforced between us to make sure that it sustains and outlives any administration. And so I think that the will is there for the people of Minneapolis and, and, you know, I don't, I don't bet against Minneapolis. I'm from Minneapolis, born and raised. And so we're resilient people.

I have to let you go, but just in the last couple of minutes that we have, I mean, your city became the center of, of this reckoning, the center of a firestorm in many ways that spread across the country and elsewhere as well. What do you think the legacy is of the past five years of George Floyd's murder? I think it's been pain.

I think it's been growth. I think there's been some healing, but I don't think the legacy is written yet, Matt. And I do believe that we are not going to let that situation and his murder be in vain. And I think we owe that obligation to the children and the next generation. So I'm hopeful that we're going to come out of this

and create something not sad and depressing, but we're going to create something beautiful and we're going to learn from it. Is that hard to find in the time that you're in right now when Nkeema talks about how she feels that things are going backwards? Yeah, it can be challenging, but I see the light out there. And even just the relationship with Ms. Nakeema

and the work that she continues to do, and so many others, our elders, our young people, we're going to make sure that we learn from this and something very positive comes from this. It's good to speak with you this morning. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, man. Thank you. Madera Arradondo was the chief of the Minneapolis Police Department when George Floyd was murdered. His new book is Chief Rondo, Securing Justice for the Murder of George Floyd.

You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.