The family of George Floyd, the Black man murdered by a former Minneapolis police officer, rallied in his memory on Sunday outside the Minneapolis courthouse where Derek Chauvin was convicted.
The Associated Press reported that roughly a dozen of Floyd’s family members were joined by Minneapolis officials including the city’s mayor, Jacob Frey (D).
Activists including civil rights attorney Ben Crump and the Rev. Al Sharpton also attended the event and addressed the crowd.
“It has been a long year. It has been a painful year,” Floyd’s sister Bridgett said, according to the AP. “It has been very frustrating for me and my family for our lives to change in the blink of an eye — I still don’t know why.”
“We want something coming out of Washington. We want something that will change federal law,” Sharpton reportedly added. “There’s been an adjournment on justice for too long. It’s time for them to vote and make this the law.”
A separate gathering in New York was held in Floyd’s honor and was organized by his brother, Terrence.
“If you keep my brother’s name ringing, you’re going to keep everybody else’s name ringing,” Terrence Floyd told the news service in a statement. “Breonna Taylor, Sean Bell, Ahmaud Arbery, you could go through the whole list. There’s a lot of them.”
Chauvin was convicted last month of second-degree murder and other charges in the trial resulting from George Floyd’s death. The former Minneapolis officer was seen in a now-viral video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest May 25 last year.