The semi-autonomous area in Minneapolis has become a service to the community, but the city wants to see it reopened

The sign on a barricade on a once-unassuming street in Minneapolis reads: “You’re now entering the free state of George Floyd.”

A small rectangle of city blocks features murals, flowers, candles and tributes in the place where Floyd, a Black man, died under the knee of a white police officer last May, sparking the biggest US civil rights uprising since the 1960s.

Derek Chauvin, the officer kneeling on his neck, replied: ‘It takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk’

Newly released transcripts of the minutes leading up to George Floyd’s death reveal he told officers “I can’t breathe” more than 20 times, only to have his plea dismissed by Derek Chauvin, the white officer pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck, who said: “It takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk.”

Floyd’s dying words have become a rallying cry at demonstrations around the world amid a reckoning with systemic racism and police brutality. The chilling transcripts of body camera video recordings that were made public on Wednesday provide the most detailed account yet of what happened after police apprehended Floyd on 25 May.