His image has been at the forefront of recent social justice movements worldwide but to those who knew and loved George Floyd, he was a father, brother, friend, and loved one. We’re in the thick of the Derek Chauvin trial and while Floyd supporters are hoping for a conviction, many don’t have as much faith in America’s justice system.
Floyd’s sister, Brigett Floyd, sat down with The Shade Room to speak candidly about her late brother and the police officer responsible for his death. “My brother is not on trial. Derek is on trial,” said Bridgett. “So I would love for them to keep it the way that it’s supposed to go. They’re bringing my brother up day after day after day as if he done something wrong. He hasn’t done anything wrong. The officer is the one who killed him.”
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“Every time I think I’m ready to hear my brother cry for help, I have to get up and leave out because I’m just not ready, but I want to be ready so bad because I want to hear what that officer did to him,” she said of not being able to watch the troublesome video of her brother’s final moments. “I want to see what really happened, but my heart just…every time I think about it, my stomach gets cramping up, my heart starts fluttering, I get weak because that was a man that loved me, he loved his family and to see him on the ground like that.”
Bridgett added that it may take a guilty verdict to force her to watch the viral clip, but she’s still not sure. “I am hoping and praying that this guilty verdict comes along, and I will be able to actually see for myself what happened from detail to detail. What happened to my brother, and that’s all I wanted to say.”
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“This incident touched the world. People in other countries are fighting for us, so I think they’re going to make the right decision about this because this is not just an ordinary, regular death that happened. Nine minutes and 29 seconds. We thought it was eight minutes and 46 seconds, which was long enough – too long – but now they have said nine minutes and 29 seconds. Almost 10 minutes.”
Watch Bridgett Floyd speak with The Shade Room about her brother, the George Floyd Policing Act that will hopefully hold police officers accountable, and Chauvin’s trial below.