Multiple gunshots were fired on May 25 near the spot in the US city of Minneapolis where George Floyd died, scattering people who had gathered to commemorate the first anniversary of his murder, police and witnesses said.
A police spokesman said that shortly after the shooting, “an individual showed up at Abbott Northwestern Hospital suffering from a gunshot wound”. The wound was non-life-threatening, the spokesman said.
In video footage taken at the moment the gunshots broke out, people could be seen crouching behind cars and running for cover as more than two dozen shots rang out.
“Get down,” a man was heard shouting.
Police responded to the report of shots being fired and a vehicle leaving the area “at high rate of speed”, the police spokesman said.
The shooting occurred about one block away from the intersection in Minneapolis which has come to be known as George Floyd memorial square.
An AFP photographer saw bullet casings on the ground where the shooting occurred and a broken window in a barber shop.
Former police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder last month over Floyd’s May 25, 2020 death, which sparked protests against racial injustice and police brutality across the US.
Members of Floyd’s family were in Washington on May 25 to meet with President Joe Biden and urge lawmakers to pass a reform bill known as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
A spate of shootings in the US over the weekend left dozens of people dead and injured.
Homicides, mostly gun-driven, rocketed by a historic 30 per cent last year over 2019, and are currently running an estimated 20-25 per cent above a year ago.
Experts say there is no one explanation for the mounting carnage that affects nearly all major cities, and that it cannot be expected to fall sharply as the coronavirus pandemic ebbs.
