Minneapolis, MN – In response to yesterday’s guilty verdict in the Derek Chauvin murder trial, Family Equality released the following statement:
“This week’s verdict is an incremental step forward in the fight for police accountability, and we hope it will help heal a grieving community. But we know that accountability isn’t justice. It will not bring George Floyd back nor erase the pain that his family and his community have been forced to live through for the past eleven months.
“Real justice means permanently altering the systems that allowed a police officer to kill George Floyd—the same systems that resulted in the killing of another Black man, Daunte Wright, mere miles from the trial and the killing of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio on the same day of Derek Chauvin’s conviction.
“So, while we welcome this step towards police accountability, we will not allow this verdict to lull us into complacency. Instead, we will honor the lives of George Floyd, Daunte Wright, Ma’Khia Bryant, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, and countless other Black lives that were violently taken at the hands of police by continuing to fight for Black lives. We will renew our commitment to combating white supremacy and ushering in systemic change. And we will work together to create the future that George Floyd, Daunte Wright, Ma’Khia Bryant, and so many other Black families deserved: a future where Black people can live long, full, hopeful lives without the persistent threat of death and violence.
“Alongside our community members, our families, our elected officials, and our movement partners, we will fight to make this future a reality.”
About Family Equality
Family Equality advances legal and lived equality for LGBTQ+ families, and for those who wish to form them, through building community, changing hearts and minds, and driving policy change. Family Equality believes every LGBTQ+ person should have the right and opportunity to form and sustain a loving family, regardless of who they are or where they live. Learn more at familyequality.org.
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Press Contact
Anna Libertin,
Chief Communications Officer (Interim)/
646-880-3005 ext. 157
communications@familyequality.org