Eight minutes and 46 seconds of silence were observed, Thursday, June 4, during the ceremony in honor of George Floyd in Minneapolis. This is the time that passed, kneeling on him, the policeman who killed him. In New York, thousands of people gathered in a Brooklyn park.
Several hundred people took part in a ceremony on Thursday June 4 at Minneapolis in tribute to George Floyd, the black man whose death after his arrest by the police sparked widespread protests interspersed with violence and stirred the debate on racial issues in United States.
We want justice for George
“Everywhere you go and see people, how they clinged to him, they wanted to be around him. And George, he was like a general. Every day, he walks outside, there would be a line of people…that wanted to greet him.”
-George Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd https://t.co/hEm2mxmDUW pic.twitter.com/zECGPPc0lt
— CNN (@CNN) June 4, 2020
“Everyone wants justice, we want justice for George, he’s going to get it,” Philonise Floyd, one of George Floyd’s brothers, said at the service in a chapel. “It’s crazy, all these people came for my brother, it’s amazing that he touched so many hearts,” added Philonise Floyd, dressed in black and sporting a badge with a picture of her brother and registration I can not breathe. George Floyd repeated this phrase several times, while searching for air, as a policeman rested his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes before his death on May 25.
Images of the 46-year-old’s arrest, which quickly spread across the United States, sparked anger against US police accused of racism and brutality against the African-American community.
‘I loved my brother, we had so many memories together. Everybody loved George. He touched so many hearts’
George Floyd’s brother, Philonise talks of him at a memorial.
Follow the memorial live: https://t.co/N77XsJcCvB pic.twitter.com/U48z2zFybz
– SkyNews (@SkyNews) June 4, 2020
Riots and looting
Crowds of Americans defied curfews and demonstrated in many cities across the United States for nine consecutive evenings, accompanied by riots and looting on the fringes of these peaceful gatherings, prompting President Donald Trump to threaten to send the army to put an end to this violence.
Ben Crump, a lawyer for the Floyd family, said during the ceremony on Thursday that the methods employed by the police in arresting George Floyd were evil itself. “What we saw in this video is evil. So America, as we salute the memory of George Floyd, reject evil. Protest against evil. We cannot cooperate with evil. We cannot. not cooperate with torture, ”he said.
?? Dead of #GeorgeFloyd : Jacob #Frey, the mayor of #Minneapolis, cried in front of George’s coffin #Floyd this Thursday during a commemoration ceremony. (BFMTV) #protest #blacklifematters pic.twitter.com/jdvY0NTADZ
– Conflicts (@Conflits_FR) June 4, 2020
A million dollar bond
Derek Chauvin, the 44-year-old cop who was filmed applying his knee to George Floyd’s neck, has been kicked out of police and charged with murder. The three police officers who accompanied him, also sacked, were charged with complicity. They appeared for the first time Thursday in a court which set their bond at one million dollars, likely to be lowered to 750,000 dollars under certain conditions, including the confiscation of all their personal weapons.
A New York, thousands of people also attended a ceremony in honor of George Floyd in a park in Brooklyn. Many knelt on the lawn, in what has become a gesture of protest against police violence, chanting No justice, no peace.
FULL SPEECH: Family attorney Ben Crump delivers impassioned speech at George Floyd memorial.
More coming up on @NBCNightlyNews. pic.twitter.com/HEVFpAVcOF
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) June 4, 2020
“Extremist agitators”
US Justice Minister William Barr said Thursday, without providing details, that foreign interests and “extremist agitators” affiliated with leftist movements like the Antifa (anti-fascists) were taking control of the protests.
For his part, the president Donald Trump continues to want to be firm. “PUBLIC ORDER!”, He tweeted again Thursday in the early morning in capital letters in what will certainly be one of the themes of his re-election campaign until the presidential election of November 3.
LAW & ORDER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2020
The funeral is scheduled for Tuesday
Civil rights activist and television personality Reverend Al Sharpton, for his part, said at the ceremony in Minneapolis that the vast majority of protesters were peaceful.
“There have been protests around the world. Some have looted and done other things. None of us condone that, looting and violence,” Al Sharpton said. “But there is a difference between those who call for peace and those who call for calm. Some of you all don’t want peace, you just want calm. You just want us to continue to suffer in silence.” The George Floyd tribute ceremonies are scheduled to last six days with a funeral scheduled for Tuesday.
8 minutes of silence for the first public tribute to George Floyd pic.twitter.com/zkxdw6fSbK
– BFMTV – Matinale (@PremiereEdition) June 5, 2020
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