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Relatives of George Floyd, the Black man killed by the former police officer Derek Chauvin, spoke out after Mr. Chauvin was found guilty of murder and manslaughter.
Following the verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, friends and family of George Floyd tearfully thanked the many lawyers, bystanders, jurors and protesters who they said helped to bring justice.
“Today, the tears are pure joy,” Chris Stewart, a lawyer for Mr. Floyd’s family, said at a Hilton hotel in downtown Minneapolis. “Pure joy and pure shock, because days like this don’t happen.”
Though the family celebrated the trial’s outcome, they noted that police violence against Black Americans persists, and that their fight is not over.
Philonise Floyd, one of Mr. Floyd’s younger brothers, drew a line from his brother back to Emmett Till, a Black child who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, and whom he called “the first George Floyd.” He also noted the recent fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was killed just a few miles from the courtroom where Mr. Chauvin was on trial.
“We ought to always understand that we have to march,” he said. “We will have to do this for life. We have to protest, because it seems like this is a never-ending cycle.”
Other family members called for broader police reform and for the passage of federal legislation that would increase law enforcement accountability and eliminate discriminatory policing practices.
“We can’t bring him back,” said Tera Brown, one of Mr. Floyd’s cousins, “but we can save lives. And we want the actual reform that’s going to not only give us the change we want but make sure not another family has to suffer what we’ve suffered.”
Mr. Floyd’s brother Terrence Floyd recalled him as the person who taught him to be strong, to be respectful and to speak his mind, and said he will salute him every day.
“I will miss him, but now I know he’s in history,” he said.
Source; The New York Times
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