After George Floyd, other American families whose loved ones were killed by police battle for justice

A video is being filmed.He cries out, “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.” He is later taken away by officers to a hospital where he is pronounced dead.Those are not the final moments of George Floyd, a Black man who died May 25, 2020, after being restrained for more than nine minutes by Derek Chauvin, a white former Minneapolis police officer and now convicted murderer.Rather, they describe the arrest of Angelo Quinto, 30, of Antioch, California, one of hundreds of other men and women of color who lost their lives as a result of interactions with police in the 12 months since Floyd’s death triggered a social justice movement targeting police reform and systemic racism.While many Americans shouted Floyd's name in the wake of his killing, fewer know the names of those who have died since. But by sharing stories of outrage, grief and even joy when remembering those who died, four families that spoke with USA TODAY said they hoped bringing greater visibility to their cases might reform a police system that disproportionately harms people of color.In some of the cases, officers face murder charges. Justice Department statistics for 2018 show that of some 61 million people older than 16 who had at least one contact with police, 1% had a gun pointed at them, said Jim Burch, president of the National Police Foundation, a non-profit focused on improving policing."While no one can deny that excessive force is a problem and in 2020 we saw this first-hand with the murder of George Floyd and the deaths of others, the majority of officers encounter the public every day without the use of force and in response to requests for their assistance," said Burch.As reforms are considered, everything from laws to management decisions "must not be overlooked or forgotten in the reimagination of policing, nor should the fact that thousands of officers serve with valor and integrity each and every day," he said.Few question that police work can be dangerous. And 97 those killed were the subject of mental welfare checks, a trend that has led cities such as Eugene, Oregon, to dispatch mental health professionals instead of police officers to such calls.In nearly 99% of all cases last year where police killed someone, officers were not charged with a crime.The database shows that Black and Latino Americans stand out in this tally of death for being less likely to be armed or threatening when compared to white victims of police interactions.That disturbing inequity has continued into 2021 and dates back years, said Elle Lett, a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and lead author of a report, which included scholars from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, titled “Racial Inequity in Police Shootings: 2015-2020.” “It’s important to think of this data in the context of five years that were highly politicized and included more police departments using body cameras and civilians taking videos, and yet there was no decline in racialized violence by police,” said Lett. Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney running for Texas attorney general, has filed a wrongful death suit on the family’s behalf.“I never imagined this would happen in our small town, a place where police usually come and introduce themselves to you,” Louis said. Ja'Niah Bryant isn't counting on consequences."The day my sister was murdered, the police officer who killed George Floyd was pronounced guilty, and that was a shock to me because a lot of people are killed by police and the police usually just get off," she said.For the moment, Ja'Niah Bryant simply tries to keep her sister's memory alive. Only by being strident in the push for justice will change happen, she said.“Floyd’s daughter said, ‘My daddy’s gonna change the world,’ and while that’s true, we need more people to get out there pushing for what’s right,” said Byrd-Green.While many in Cocoa took to the streets to protest when Floyd was killed, Pierce’s death did not generate the same outpouring.“My son lived right here, and I didn’t see those people come out," she said. While the family continues to dispute the Antioch police department’s version of events, the end result of that 911 call was Angelo Quinto’s death three days later after leaving the family home unconscious.“I feel guilt about it every day,” said Collins. No matter how much brutality you see in the news, it doesn’t seem plausible it will happen to you, in your home.”The Quinto-Collins family, immigrants from the Philippines, are helping push for local reforms to ensure that what happened to their son is not repeated.In March, Antioch’s City Council approved a $1.4 million expenditure to purchase body and in-car cameras for local police, who were among the only officers in the Bay Area still without such devices.