'IT CHANGED HISTORY'
GEORGE Floyd’s aunt has praised the brave teenage girl who filmed her nephew’s death on May 25 last year, calling the footage a “major breaking point”.
Angela Harrelson and without the crucial evidence, George Floyd’s death would be “just another statistic”.
🔵 Read our for the latest updates
3
3
Darnella Frazier was just 17 when she filmed almost ten minutes of footage as tragic George Floyd died after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by cop Derek Chauvin in a Minneapolis street.
Mr Floyd’s aunt Angela Harrelson said the video “meant everything” in the journey for justice.
“Without [Darnella Frazier's] video that event of 9 minutes 29 seconds would not be a story,” she said.
“It would be another black man killed by police but nobody would really know why and my nephew would be dead and and it would just be everything back to normal.
“He would be just another statistic. That video meant everything.
“I commend her, she was brave because she held that phone, that camera for 9 minutes 29 seconds, she held it.
“She was scared, she was nervous, but she held it. She held it and the family are so eternally grateful to her.”
Speaking this morning in an interview on Good Morning Britain, Ms Harrelson explained the video’s importance could not be underestimated.
“The way this thing affected the whole world, people were moved around the world,” she explained.
“They saw what they saw and they knew what they saw. You can't convince what the eyes saw. What they saw is what they saw.
“The video is going to be a major breaking point in making the story what it is and also in defining the truth.”
Ms Harrelson appeared in the interview with hosts Susanna Reid and Adil Ray alongside George Floyd’s cousin Paris Stevens.
The family members were speaking following a guilty verdict in Derek Chauvin’s trial.
3
“What happened has changed the world and has changed the world that black America is not looking back,” added Ms Harrelson.
“We are going forwards and that verdict validated to us, to black America, that systemic racism exists, it always existed. That we were not making things up.
“Because for 400 years we are the only race I know of in America that have to negotiate equality.
"We had to negotiate for 400 years to ride a bus, to be able to vote, even to go to school to get educated. We had to fight for those simple things that white America had.
"But that verdict means everything, that we don't have to fight any more. That change is here and we are going forwards."
Shortly after the verdict was announced, Frazier - now-18 - wrote on Facebook that .
"I just cried so hard," she wrote. "George Floyd we did it!!"
Family members paid tribute to George Floyd in the emotional GMB interview, and vowed they would accept the sentence passed down by the judge in around eight weeks’ time.
LATEST GEORGE FLOYD NEWS
Cousin Paris Stevens said: “The guilty verdict is the beginning but we want the maximum sentence.
“Whatever the maximum sentence is. Whatever the judge decides we will understand.
Read More on The Sun
“But Mr Chauvin he will eternally have to pay for this. Emotionally he will be under duress the rest of his life. We are going to accept the sentence and keep moving forwards.”
George Floyd's brother says 'we are able to breathe again' after Derek Chauvin verdict
Topics