by Jeff Mason and Nick Pfosi
WASHINGTON / MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – Members of the family of George Floyd met Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday, on the first anniversary of the African-American man’s death when he was arraigned by officers in Minneapolis, and pleaded with the US president for police reform.
George Floyd, pinned to the ground and suffocated by one of the knees of Derek Chauvin, since dismissed from the police and convicted of the murder of Floyd, has become the face of a vast protest movement against racial discrimination and police violence in the USA.
A bipartisan group of congressional elected officials are working on a bill named after George Floyd that seeks to revise the practices of US law enforcement agencies and make them more accountable for their actions.
“We have to act. We are at an inflection point,” Joe Biden said in a White House statement after President and Vice President Kamala Harris met with six family members of George Floyd. “The battle for America’s soul has been a constant push between the American ideal that we are all born equal and the harsh reality that racism has long torn us apart.”
(Jeff Mason and Susan Cornwell in Washington, with Jonathan Allen in New York and Nick Pfosi in Minneapolis; French version Jean Terzian)
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