Four years after George Floyd’s murder on a Minneapolis street under the knee of Derek Chauvin, then a Minneapolis police officer, George’s uncle, Selwyn Jones, spoke about what everyone can now do about that horrible event: “Get moving, brotha. A lot of people are going, ‘OK, what do we do?’ Do something. Do something. Use this for fuel, so it’ll never happen to anybody else again.” [1]
Selwyn Jones has been doing just that.
He has met with “mothers, fathers, siblings and friends of others who have lost loved ones to police brutality and violence” to advocate for them in various ways.
“In [April 2024], he spoke at Harvard to advocate for the passage of the Medical Civil Rights Act, a bill in Massachusetts that would establish a right to emergency medical care during police interactions. . . [That Act] would basically state that if somebody yells, ‘I can’t breathe, my back hurts, my head hurts,’ you have to restrain them … and get them medical assistance in a timely fashion. So that watching my nephew with [Chauvin] with a knee on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, then another 10 minutes until the [paramedics arrived], you would be [criminally] charged for that.”
Jones also said that it is important to remember the lives affected by George Floyd’s absence. He has done just that by staying in touch with Floyd’s daughter, now 10 years old. And Jones offered his own way of doing this by this statement: “I remember the good days, you know? I remember hanging out with him. I still remember his life. I still have the phone where I can look at it and see where he last texted me, ‘Happy Birthday, Unc,’ four years ago.”
Myron Medcalf, a StarTribune columnist, also has done that by writing the column summarized above.
This blogger as a retired lawyer has remembered the lives affected by George Floyd’s absence by researching and writing blog posts supporting the four criminal cases against Chauvin and the other policemen who were involved in that murder (Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng).[2]
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[1] Medcalf, Medcalf: George Floyd’s uncle speaks out 4 years after his nephew’s murder, StarTribune (May 25, 2024).
[2] See List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: George Floyd Killing. The only such case still pending is Derek Chauvin’s lawsuit to vacate his federal court conviction for the Floyd murder, which was stayed indefinitely in light of the serious injuries Chauvin sustained in prison until the court issued an order of March 29, 2024, order lifting the stay and imposing a deadline of June 27, 2024, for Chauvin’s filing papers in support of his motion to vacate his federal conviction. (Order, U.S. v. Chauvin, Case no. 21-108(1), U.S. Dist. Ct. (D. Minn. Mar. 29, 2024).