Hundreds attend memorial for Floyd

Our •Family ‘relieved’ by new charges against officers

•Two cops suspended for attacking journalists

 

 

HUNDREDS of mourners gathered at a Minneapolis chapel on Thursday to remember George Floyd, the man whose death set off anguish and demands for changes to American policing.

A giant image of a mural of Floyd was displayed at the front of the sanctuary at North Central University — an image that was painted in recent days along a Minneapolis street near where a police officer had held his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, even after the black man had said, “I can’t breathe.”

At the bottom of the image in the church were the words: “I can breathe now.”

Sprays of white flowers were placed around a shiny copper casket, and security officials, in masks because of the coronavirus, lined the stage.

More memorial services were planned to remember Mr. Floyd in the coming days — including one on Saturday in Raeford, N.C., where some of his family lives, and Monday in Houston, where he lived for many years.

Some seats were reserved with the names of celebrities and political leaders who were expected to attend. Among them were placards for Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith of Minnesota, Martin Luther King III, the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

The lead attorney for George Floyd’s family, Benjamin Crump, has said the family is relieved to see new charges against police officers involved in the case, but believes that they should have been arrested earlier.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has announced that charges against Derek Chauvin, a police officer involved in the fatal arrest, have been upgraded to second-degree murder, and that new charges have been filed against three other officers involved.

“Well, they (Floyd family) are relieved … But we all believe that the officers should have been arrested on the first day after they offered no humanity to a man who was … in handcuffs, and held the knee on his neck, kept two knees on his back that our autopsy found could press his lungs,” Crump told MSNBC broadcaster.

One of the witnesses, who was on the scene compared Floyd to a “fish out of water”, Crump recalled.

“It was right to charge all of these officers … for disobeying their oath,” the attorney said, condemning police brutality.

The new second-degree murder charge alleges that there was an intent to kill, which could be punished by 40 years in prison.

Also, two police officers have been suspended after attacking two Australian journalists, who were covering the George Floyd protests in Washington D.C., the U.S. Park Police (USPP) said.

On Monday, 7NEWS U.S. correspondent Amelia Brace and cameraman Tim Myers were attacked by police officers during their coverage of riots near the White House in Washington.

The next day, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called on the country’s embassy in Washington to investigate the violent actions of U.S. police officers toward the Australian journalists.

Several similar incidents involving police violence against journalists covering the ongoing U.S. riots have been reported over the week.

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