No products in the cart.
Hundreds of mourners, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and the mother of Eric Garner, filed into a private memorial service in Minneapolis Thursday afternoon to honor George Floyd, the man whose death in police custody sparked nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
Sharpton, who will deliver the eulogy, has said he plans to announce a new social movement at the service and demand federal legislation to stop racial injustice by police departments, according to the New York Times.
“He was a human being. He had family, he had dreams, he had hopes. The real duty of one with this type of assignment is to underscore the value of the human life that was taken, which gives the reason the movement was occurring,” Sharpton said ahead of the gathering.
MINNEAPOLIS OFFICER FACES UPGRADED MURDER CHARGE IN GEORGE FLOYD DEATH, 3 OTHERS CHARGED
Inside the sanctuary, a golden casket was flanked by white and purple flowers, and the image of a mural was projected over the pulpit. It showed Floyd at the street corner where he was pinned to the pavement by police. The message: “I can breathe now.”
The sanctuary normally seats 1,000, but because of the coronavirus outbreak, the capacity was reduced to about 500, and mourners wore masks.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was present in 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., and members of Congress, including reps. Ilhan Omar, Sheila Jackson-Lee and Ayana Pressley prayed over the casket. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris also arrived. A band and choir performed the gospel standard “Goin’ Up Yonder” as the sanctuary began to fill.
Seats were reserved for actors and comedians Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish and Regina Hall; actor and producer Tyler Perry; Martin Luther King III; Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz; Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and others.
Crowds and media lined the streets outside the chapel at North Central University in Minneapolis, since the service was only open to friends, family and invitees of the Floyd family, according to the university’s website.
Quincy Mason, center, the son of George Floyd, Mason’s uncle Twain Mason, right, and family attorney Ben Crump kneel, June 3, as they visited the site of a memorial in Minneapolis where Floyd was arrested on May 25 and died while in police custody. Video shared online by a bystander showed a white officer kneeling on his neck during his arrest as he pleaded that he couldn’t breathe.
(AP)
“It just feels like I’m coming to my son’s funeral again,” Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, told the Times on Wednesday. “This young man was crying for his mother at the end. That was like my son echoing from the grave saying, ‘Mama, you’ve got to do something. They’re still killing us.’”
Garner, an unarmed black man, died in 2014 in New York after he was placed in a chokehold by police and recorded saying “I can’t breathe” – the same phrase that galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement and was repeated by Floyd before he died.
In the Garner case, family and activists pleaded for five years before the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, was removed from the force in 2019, though he never faced federal charges.
Gianna Floyd, the daughter of George Floyd, listens to a news conference with Stephen Jackson, June 2, in Minneapolis, Minn.
(AP)
A second memorial service in North Carolina, where Floyd was born, is scheduled for Saturday at the Frank J. Lindquist Sanctuary in Raeford, outside of Fayetteville.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and other public figures and celebrities are expected to attend a third memorial service in Houston scheduled Tuesday at the Fountain of Praise, KABC-TV reported. Floyd attended high school in Houston and lived there for most of his life until moving to Minneapolis five years ago.
Senate Democrats came together at the Capitol Visitor Center’s Emancipation Hall to hold a nine-minute moment of silence Thursday morning, the Washington Post reported. It symbolized the nearly nine minutes former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was recorded holding his knee to Floyd’s neck, as he pleaded for his life.
Minnesota’s Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday upgraded the charges against Chauvin to second-degree murder. The other three officers involved — Thomas Lane, J.A. Kueng, and Tou Thao – were taken into custody Wednesday night and charged with two counts of aiding and abetting and second-degree murder. Chauvin, who still faces third-degree murder and manslaughter charges, was arrested last Friday. All four officers were fired from the Minneapolis Police Department on May 26, a day after Floyd’s death.
The Minnesota Department of Human Rights filed civil rights charges against the Minneapolis Police Department and vowed to investigate any racial discriminatory practices or policies, Gov. Tim Walz announced Tuesday.
The Hennepin County medical examiner also announced Wednesday that Floyd posthumously tested positive for the coronavirus, without saying the virus played a role in his death. The pandemic, which has dominated news coverage for months as Americans were told to stay inside, has largely been swept to the background as the nation grieves Floyd and demands an end to systemic racism. The virus has also disproportionately affected members of the black community.
Social distancing measures are expected to be put in place for the hundreds of guests at the memorial service Thursday.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
More than 10,000 people have been arrested nationwide in the civil unrest since Memorial Day, The Associated Press estimates.
As many cities enforced nightly curfews to clampdown on looting and limit out of towners from coming in to drum up chaos, police have clashed with protesters, firing rubber bullets and deploying tear gas to disperse crowds. Officers have also suffered violent attacks, most recently, as one New York City police officer on looting patrol was stabbed in the neck, and two others were shot in an “unprovoked attack” Wednesday night.
As businesses, already struggled from the pandemic, are looted, vandalized and burned to the ground, President Trump has clashed with top officials on whether to send the military into cities to restore the peace.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
