Carrying bouquets of flowers and Black Lives Matter signs, hundreds of demonstrators marched through downtown Minneapolis on Sunday, demanding justice for George Floyd and other victims of police violence.
The crowd gathered outside the Hennepin County Government Center, fortified with fencing and concrete barricades, a sight not lost on demonstrators like Brandyn Tulloch, 24, of Oakdale.
"The city is preparing for the worst," he said, "because they haven't done anything over the last nine months. ... They do nothing to listen to the people who are out here fighting for our lives."
The march came one day before jury selection is set to begin in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of killing Floyd in south Minneapolis on May 25.
Throughout the two-hour march on Sunday, six volunteers, some of whom were friends with Floyd, carried a white casket covered with dozens of fresh roses. A large, peaceful crowd followed behind, marching to songs by Bob Marley, Prince and Sam Cooke on the balmy spring afternoon.
At 8th Street and Hennepin, the crowd sat down in the street for a moment of silence while attorney and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong read from a list of every person killed by law enforcement in Minnesota since 1984.
"It's sobering, isn't it?" she asked the crowd after reading a fraction of the list, which includes more than 470 names and was compiled by the nonprofit Communities United Against Police Brutality, founded by Michelle Gross.
"The city had four chances to stop Chauvin before he put his knee on George Floyd's neck, and they did nothing," Gross told the crowd. "These are people whose families are left to grieve. These are people who will never complete their life's mission because their lives were stolen from them prematurely."