Who was George Floyd before he was killed in police custody?

thank you for joining us, no doubt you've seen the horrific video for yourself now the former officer we witnessed with his knee on

george

floyd

's neck is a convicted murderer

floyd

's loved ones hope the verdicts now help bring about systemic change i'm done from calling him big g i just call him floyd i called him georgie he is known as perry from q georgie baby floyd dick floyd and gentle giant you guys called him

george

but i call him floyd and uh my brother was very adorable georgie i mean you can't even say his name without smiling he was a protector he was always uplifting encouraging he always had something positive to say he gave you the shirt off his back man just the life of the party all the time making jokes just a good guy good guy man I went through some things, The man had to recover.

I'm just sharing one thing now about old Floyd. I love the world. He was born in Fairfield in Houston to his mother. The lady was Georgie's mother and she loved him very much and he loved her. he loved his family, he loved the people he connected with, a lot of people don't realize this, but george floyd was a loving father and father, he was kind and kind to my mom all the time with me, my mom I loved them both. he, my name is wayne l sexton and i was george floyd's second grade teacher at frederick douglass elementary school in houston, texas.

George was always Perry to his classmates and to me and he was a good student. every kid wrote an essay about what I want to be when I grew up and Perry's essay is very nice when I grow up I want to be a supreme court judge when people say Your Honor, he robbed the bank, I'll say sit down, he always dreamed with being big and doing something that had a big impact. He made the statement that that caught my attention. He said man, I'm going to be great, I'm going to touch the world. George Floyd grew up in the cuny houses of Houston.

It is known as one of the notoriously toughest areas in Houston. Most of the people in section 8 are poor and low income, few have jobs. The 3rd Ward was one of those places where you would always see

police

officers making traffic stops or arresting people suspected of having drugs or guns or whatever it was for George Floyd while he was growing up. In a place like that it was a life surrounded by

police

and drugs and violence growing up our only way out that we felt was our way I was doing sports involving drugs the reason was that we didn't have doctors in our families I didn't have lawyers the only way to Leading a lawyer on tour was if someone got in trouble for George, the way out ended up being basketball and football sports.

Floyd played football and was good at it, but he was incredible on the basketball court. he was like, oh, there were very few people who ran the high school in Bali. Perry was one of those who earned a college athletic scholarship. He was that good. His plans were if he couldn't be the NBA or NFL that he wanted for us. To be in law enforcement, at one point he wanted to be a police chief, but George was not academically prepared for the rigors he would encounter at university and it was when he returned home that he began to have problems with the law, he did not use drugs, No.

He wasn't a big drug addict, I mean, he still went to work, he could still support himself, he could still take care of his business. I never knew of him using fentanyl or methamphetamines in George's next decade. life was a cycle in and out of the criminal justice system he was involved and arrested several times for drugs and for an armed robbery that eventually landed him in a Texas prison we all have a past we all have things we did that we We regret it. Don't we wish we hadn't when you think your life is going to go one way and somehow it goes another?

I just see him trying to figure things out. George Floyd came to Minnesota looking for a better life and he landed here thanks to a gentleman in Minneapolis who bought his bus ticket here and told him: come to Minneapolis, stay in this house with other men, clean up and we'll fix you up and put you in a best path in life. I just wanted to be free from drugs and alcohol, and from what I understand from Floyd, if he completed the program, they would help him get a job and he could get

custody

of Gianna. My name is CJ and I am George's daughter. floyd george's daughter was the apple of his eye, yes you can see every time she talked about him he would just smile, his eyes would get big and the smile would appear on his face, you know what his baby is, his world, i mean honestly , their world that they love. gg he used to call me buttercup i like that name buttercup he just wanted to be a better man and a better father he loves her with all his heart he would call me non stop buddy, i want to stop calling myself man, he was telling me i got him a job, he was there working on the program, he was doing well, he liked it, he went there and graduated from the program and got his commercial driver's license and the people who know Floyd, that's a big accomplishment that he was pretty successful with. working he had a couple of jobs he was working in a steel factory or a steel mill he liked random security jobs he was still able to make it through and the chances of me george's life was really looking up things had been as good to him as they had ever been and then his mother died and everything changed.

He took it very badly. He was a strong and strong person, but it broke him just by looking at him. He knew he would never be the same and then the pandemic hit. He lost his job, it was just a bunch of different emotions and feelings that he was going through like a week and a half before he died, he said, uh, man, I love you stiff, I said I love you too, Georgie, he says, I'm leaving. to call. Later, okay, that was the last time I spoke to him tonight, outraged by the deeply disturbing death of a black man arrested and handcuffed by police in Minneapolis.

I got a call from my sister and she said Perry was gone and I thought where and she said she was.

killed

I watched the video for about 10 seconds like oh my god I turned it off I heard his voice scream not this way not this way this came here not this way when I first saw the footage of george floyd on the ground I was I didn't. It surprised, it didn't surprise me, I was sad and my first thought was here, let's go again, it was different from other videos. It was people watching a man die slowly.

I think in many ways that crowd on the sidelines represents America on the sidelines watching that. videotape like stop why he can't breathe can't you see that shows him some humanity and they didn't do it? I saw his life leave his body why because I saw this man murder another man who looked like me for no reason. The knee on the neck was reminiscent of an old school lynching and most people today have never been to one and now they are clear that there was something different about this case because a few days later the mayor announced that these officers were fired and we had not seen that before not only was the firing of the four officers involved, but there was also the arrest of lead officer Derek Chovin and there were multiple charges against him.

Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chavin has been charged by the Henova County Prosecutor's Office with murder and manslaughter as an officer is charged in the death of a black man, many people following the story say he is Well, the case is solved, but many people in the black community know that that is not enough, that is where the focus is on a case. They should start this generation they are not interested in false ideas of hope or these empty expressions of justice they want it, they want it now and it is not negotiable thousands have filled the streets asking for justice 70,000 peaceful people, all coming out you know for George, let's go to fight for justice for my dad.

There was also a sense of hope that maybe our numbers are so big, our voices are so strong, that we can no longer be dismissed when we say we have to change ten months after this. incident after they lost their loved one, the man accused of killing him will finally face a jury, whether they believe Officer Derek Shovin is innocent or guilty, this trial is monumental, it is the trial of the century. Hello everyone, George Stephanopoulos, thank you for Check out the ABC News YouTube channel if you want more videos, highlights and live event coverage, click right here to subscribe to our channel and don't forget Download the ABC News app to receive breaking news alerts.

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