WASHINGTON, May 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) — President Joe Biden praised the bravery of George Floyd’s family on Tuesday, a year to the day since the African American man was killed by a police officer during an arrest, sparking nationwide protests.
“The Floyd family has shown extraordinary courage, especially his young daughter Gianna, who I met again today,” Biden said in a statement after talking with several members of the Floyd family in the White House.
“His murder launched a summer of protest we hadn’t seen since the Civil Rights era in the ’60s — protests that peacefully unified people of every race and generation to collectively say enough of the senseless killings,” Biden said.
Meanwhile, George Floyd’s family appealed for sweeping police reform on the anniversary of his murder by a white officer Tuesday as they met President Joe Biden.
The Democratic leader and Kamala Harris, America’s first female and first Black vice president, hosted several of Floyd‘s relatives at the White House after the family spoke to top lawmakers hoping for progress on police reform.
The legislation they are calling for to increase police accountability would be named after Floyd, who suffocated under the knee of Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020.
“If you can make federal laws to protect the bird, the bald eagle, you can make federal laws to protect people of color,” Philonise Floyd, George’s younger brother, said as he emerged from the private meeting, which lasted over an hour.
Another brother, Terrence Floyd, said as he left the White House that he was encouraged by the “productive conversation” in which Biden and Harris were eager to “actually give an ear to our concerns.”
Floyd’s mother, siblings and his daughter Gianna, along with family lawyers, had earlier gathered at the US Capitol with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic members of Congress.
While the adults discussed their hopes for police reform, it was seven-year-old Gianna — hugging her mother Roxie Washington — who eloquently addressed the lasting legacy of her late father, saying he would “change the world.”
“He did,” Biden said in a statement after meeting the family nearly a year after their first encounter ahead of Floyd’s funeral.”The Floyd family has shown extraordinary courage, especially his young daughter Gianna, who I met again today,” Biden added.
Floyd’s death sparked protests against racial injustice and police brutality across a country already crackling with tension from the election battle between Biden and Donald Trump.
Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as he passed out and died, is to be sentenced in June for murder and manslaughter.
In the wake of Chauvin’s conviction last month, Biden sought to build on political momentum by urging Congress to pass a far-reaching police reform bill in time for the anniversary.
However, the ambitious deadline comes with only the House having passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, while the Senate continues to wrangle over key details.
Despite missing Biden’s hoped-for deadline, Representative Karen Bass, a co-author of the reform bill, reiterated her commitment to Democrats and Republicans negotiating a compromise.
“We will get this bill on President Biden’s desk,” she said at the meeting with the Floyd family. “We will work until we get the job done. It will be passed in a bipartisan manner.”
The proposed law seeks to reform what critics say have become ever more violent and unaccountable police forces around the country.
Biden says a culture of impunity and underlying racism has made tragedies like Floyd’s death increasingly common, although opponents believe police operating in often heavily armed communities are being scapegoated.
As if to highlight the staggering number of US shootings, multiple gunshots rang out Tuesday near the site in Minneapolis where people were marking the anniversary of Floyd’s killing.
Shortly afterward a patient arrived at hospital suffering from a gunshot wound, police said. — NNN-AGENCIES
