Hundreds of mourners in Minneapolis on Thursday remembered George Floyd.
Reuters:
Hundreds of mourners in Minneapolis on Thursday remembered George Floyd, the black man whose death in police custody sparked a wave of nationwide protests that reached the doors of the White House and unleashed a debate on race and justice.
Philonise Floyd, one of Floyd’s brothers, told a memorial service in a chapel at North Central University in Minnesota that their family was poor and that he and George would wash their socks and clothes with soap. in the sink and would dry them in the oven because they didn’t have a dryer.
“It’s crazy, all these people came to see my brother, it’s incredible that he touched so many hearts,” said the brother, dressed in a dark suit and a badge with a photo of his brother and the words “I can’t breathe” on his lapel.
Floyd’s May 25 death became the final flash of anger at police brutality against African Americans, pushing race to the top of the political agenda before the US presidential election on November 3 .
Derek Chauvin, 44, was fired from the Minneapolis police force and charged with second degree murder after being filmed in a widely broadcast video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes while Floyd gasped for him. air and moaned repeatedly, “Please, I can’t breathe. “
Police said they suspected Floyd, 46, of using a counterfeit bill to pay for cigarettes.
Huge crowds defied curfews and took to the streets of cities across the country for nine nights during sometimes violent protests that prompted President Donald Trump to threaten to send soldiers.
Ben Crump, a lawyer for Floyd’s family, told the memorial service that police action on that day was bad.
“What we saw in this video was evil. So while we proclaim by commemorating George Floyd, we do not accept evil. Protest against evil. We cannot cooperate with evil. We cannot cooperate with torture, “said Crump.
Prosecutors have laid new charges against four former Minneapolis police officers involved in the Wednesday massacre.
On Thursday, the three police officers accused of helping and aiding the murder of Floyd made their first appearance in court, where bail was set at $ 1 million but would be reduced to $ 750,000 if they agreed to certain conditions, including the confiscation of any personal firearm.
In New York, which was affected by looting during the protests, thousands of people attended a memorial event in a Brooklyn park for Floyd.
Many kneeled in the grass in the afternoon sun in protest at the behavior of the police and chanted, “No justice. No peace ”.
US representative Hakeem Jeffries urged people to continue their protests, saying the tragedy woke up a representative sample of people who can bring lasting change.
“This time will be different because the movement is led by young African-American sisters,” the New York Democrat told the crowd. “This time will be different because it is not a movement from top to bottom, it is a movement from bottom to top.”
“Extremist agitators”
US Attorney General William Barr said Thursday there was evidence that foreign interests and “extremist agitators” affiliated with leftist movements like Antifa were taking over from the protests. But he gave no details.
Reverend Al Sharpton, political television commentator and civil rights activist, told the Minneapolis service that the overwhelming majority of protesters were peaceful.
“There have been protests all over the world. Some have looted and done other things. None of us will tolerate this – looting and violence,” said Sharpton. “But there is a difference between those who call for peace – and those who call for calm. Some people don’t want peace, you just want calm. You just want us to suffer in silence.”
Services for Floyd are scheduled to span six days and three states, including memorials in North Carolina and Houston. A funeral is scheduled for Tuesday.
In another racially motivated case that caught the country’s attention, a court heard on Thursday that one of the white men accused of the murder in Georgia of another black man, Ahmaud Arbery, had used a racial slur.
Special Agent Richard Dial, an investigator for the prosecution, quoted William Bryan as saying that his accused countryman Travis McMichael had cursed after shooting Arbery in February.
Protests against the murder of Floyd approached the White House on Monday evening when the police who threw the batons used muscular tactics to chase the demonstrators.
Trump has threatened to send US troops to end civil unrest against the will of state governors. This alarmed current and former military officials.
Trump’s former defense secretary Jim Mattis, after long refusing to explicitly criticize his former boss, has denounced any militarization of the response to the protests. The US military rarely collides with the president.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my life who does not try to unite the American people does not even pretend to try,” wrote Mattis, who resigned from his position as Secretary of Defense in 2018, in a statement released by The Atlantic.
