George Floyd’s brother Terrence spoke publicly for the first time Monday as he gathered with hundreds of people for a vigil near the place in Minneapolis where George was killed during an encounter with police. Terrence implored protesters to stop looting in Minneapolis and across the country.
“What are y’all doing? Y’all doing nothing! Because that’s not going to bring my brother back, at all,” he said.
It seems Monday night protesters in Minneapolis took Terrence’s words to heart, taking part in a peaceful sit-in near the place police pinned downed George. Earlier, speakers had called for the arrests of the other officers involved in the fatal encounter with Floyd.
A newly released autopsy commissioned by the Floyd family says the cause of death was asphyxiation from compression to the neck and back. It differs from the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office autopsy, which says Floyd died from a heart attack while being restrained. Both label the death a homicide.
“Everything is in the dark, and now it’s coming to the light,” said Neeno Sky, who lives in Minneapolis and attended the vigil with his young niece.
He said he hopes the protests will help give his niece a better future.
“I pray there’s change because there’s been so much hope,” Sky told CBS News correspondent Jamie Yuccas. “Hopefully this, actually, you know, puts cops in a position … if you approach somebody now, you have to hesitate before you approach. You don’t just go in and think you can do whatever you want and you’re going to get away with it.”
Terrence Floyd said there’s at least one alternative to the destruction.
“Let’s stop thinking that our voice don’t matter and vote,” he said to the crowd. “And that’s how we’re going to hit them because it’s more — it’s a lot of us. It’s a lot of us. It’s a lot of us.”
Sky said the government needs to change up the system if it wants this cycle of violence to stop. Asked what that would look like, he said three words: safe, free and peace.
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