The brother of George Floyd, the unarmed black man killed by Minneapolis cops, pleaded with lawmakers Wednesday to enact sweeping restrictions on the use of force by police — and defended his older brother’s behavior the night he died.
“I could not take care of George the day he was killed, but maybe by speaking with you today I can make sure that his death will not be in vain,” Phillonise Floyd told the House Judiciary Committee in emotional testimony.
“To make sure that he is more than another face on a T-shirt, more than another name on a list that won’t stop growing. George always made sacrifices for our family and he made sacrifices for complete strangers. He was always a gentle giant,” he continued.
“I was reminded of that when I watched the video of his murder. He called all the officers ‘Sir.’ He was mild-mannered. He did not fight back. He listened to all of the officers. The man who took his life, suffocated him for eight minutes and 46 seconds, he still called him ‘sir’ as he begged for his life.”
He then spoke of the pain of watching his brother die.
“I can’t tell you the kind of pain you feel when you watch something like that, when you watch your big brother, who you looked up to your whole entire life die, die begging for his mom? I am tired. I am tired of pain, pain you feel when you watch something like that. When you want your big brother who you looked up to for your whole life die, die begging for his mom? I am here to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain. Stop us from being tired,” he said, calling for police reforms to cut violence.
Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his brother’s neck for nearly nine minutes, suffocating him, an incident captured on video that sparked unrest across the US and the world on the heels of the coronavirus pandemic and economic fallout.
