On Monday, Terrence Floyd, the younger brother of George Floyd, did something that no one should ever have to do: He visited the site where his sibling lost his life at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.
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From the St. Paul Pioneer Press:
When Terrence Floyd finally made it to the spot Monday afternoon where his brother died a week earlier, he collapsed to one knee and dropped his head. He cried, and his delegation from Brooklyn, N.Y., consoled him.
The sound of clicking cameras by media from across the world soon was drowned out by chants from many of the hundreds of people who gathered at Cup Foods on Chicago Avenue and 38th Street in Minneapolis.
“What’s his name?” someone from the crowd yelled. “George Floyd!” they yelled back.
Terrence Floyd raised his gloved hand to his heart, patted it twice and touched the Chicago Avenue pavement where his 46-year-old older brother died May 25 after being pinned facedown by three Minneapolis police officers for nearly nine minutes, despite his pleas to stop and that he couldn’t breathe. A fourth officer stood guard.
Afterward, Floyd addressed the crowd and called for an end to the unrest tearing apart the country.
“I understand y’all are upset, but I doubt y’all are half as upset as I am,” he spoke into a bullhorn. “So if I’m not over here wildin’ out, if I’m not over here blowing up stuff, if I’m not over here messing up my community, then what are y’all doing?”
He continued, “My family is a peaceful family. My family is God-fearing. [...] Let’s stop thinking that our voice doesn’t matter. Educate yourself, and know who you’re voting for. That’s how we’re going to hit them.”
Rev. Kevin McCall, who flew to Minneapolis from New York with Floyd, civil rights lawyer Sanford Rubenstein and others, echoed Floyd’s sentiments as he addressed the crowd himself.
“We’re sending a message to people all over this country to stop looting and throw up the peace sign,” he said. “The power is in the numbers. Don’t stop protesting, but throw up the peace sign.”
As we previously reported at The Root, an independent autopsy requested by the family has confirmed what we already knew: That Floyd’s death was a homicide. Specifically, that it was “caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain.”
The results of the autopsy, which was conducted by Dr. Michael Baden and Dr. Allecia Wilson, were released Monday afternoon by Floyd family attorney Ben Crump. Hours later on Monday, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office officially declared Floyd’s death a homicide when it issued its final public report, which states that he died as a result of “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression,” the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports.
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