This Sunday marks five years since the murder of George Floyd with the memories still difficult for many officers and first responders who were there.
May 25, 2020, George Floyd is arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit 20 to buy cigarettes at Cup Foods at 38th and Chicago. Minutes later, as police try to get him into a squad car, Floyd refuses, telling police he's claustrophobic.
He slips out of the back seat and ends up face down on the street. That's where Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin's knee was pressed on to Floyd's neck - for more than nine minutes as angry bystanders shout.
Eventually, Floyd stops breathing.
Third Precinct Minneapolis police officer Alexander Krohnfeldt was a paramedic at the time. He says the days of rioting and protests that followed Floyd's death were difficult.
"You could just feel, I mean you feel the tension, seeing the presence, really heavy police presence," Krohnfeldt explained to WCCO's Susie Jones. "I believe they saw the mounted patrol going down, there were helicopters, and with the - I don't know - it was a very ominous feeling. I remember calling my family and just kind of telling them that, you know, that I think this is - this is gonna be big."
Krohnfeldt actually decided to become an officer after having gone through this experience.
"I was hired in December of 2021, and a lot of that decision had just, you know, came out of seeing the aftermath of the loss of officers and kind of the difficulties that that I saw in trying to respond to 911 calls in the city, and wanted to just help out with that," Krohfeldt says.
A lot has changed in his life, but Krohnfeldt says he still carries the memories of the traumatic time in the city's history.
Building Back Trust in the Community
Officer Drea Mays remembers trying to protect firefighters and paramedics as they tried to respond to calls.
"It's pretty overwhelming, You're nervous," she remembers. "Of course I'm a mother who has children, and so you just never know what's going to happen."
She says it has changed the way that she responds to calls.
"If anything, you're just trying to be more mindful, I guess, of when you are responding to a call," says Mays. "I say second guessing yourself, but really like thinking of the call and thinking like, 'OK, this is what I'm responding to.' What are my options, in other words."
As far as what's changed?
"We just don't have enough officers out here to do this job," Mays said.
But, she also understands that everyone grieves differently and hopes that the grief can lead to better relationships with people in the community.
"We have ran into so many people who will just sit there and say, you know, 'we don't like you guys, we don't want to talk to you,' but then we find ourselves having a conversation with these people," explains Officer Mays. "And then they're just like, 'oh wow, like, I never understood this,' or 'I guess I didn't know that.'"
Understanding one another, she says, can go a long ways.
"I know there's people that are still grieving and grieving looks different for everybody," says Mays. "And I understand that. But I would like to invite the opportunity for people to actually just really take a moment, and if you have an opportunity to talk to an officer on this department, we have phenomenal people that work here, great men and women on this department."