Too often, the stories of lives lost become headlines that we scroll through. But it is essential to remember who they are; we need to know 46-year-old George Floyd.
Floyd was choked to death by the knee of police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis on Monday. Chauvin is now in custody and charged with 3rd-degree murder.
Ironically, both Floyd and Chauvin worked security at the El Nuevo Rodeo club. Within the past year, their schedules often overlapped on popular music nights, according to Maya Santamaria, who owned the building for nearly twenty years but recently sold the venue. She said:
“Chauvin was our off-duty police for almost the entirety of the 17 years that we were open. They were working together at the same time, it’s just that Chauvin worked outside and the security guards were inside.”
But while most Americans know Floyd through horrific cell phone footage capturing his final moments, others—particularly those in ministry in his hometown of Houston—knew him to be a “person of peace.”
Standing more than six-feet-tall, he was known as “Big Floyd” to his friends. For decades he mentored young men living in rough areas.
Floyd had a criminal history of his own and served a few stints behind bars for drug possession and armed robbery. But he had turned his life around. He was a model example of what it means to be rehabilitated.
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In 2018, Floyd moved to Minneapolis for a discipleship program, including job placement, after having worked in ministry for over ten years in Houston.
During his time in Texas, Floyd was a force for good. He led a basketball outreach in the Third Ward and helped Resurrection Houston, an up-and-coming church at the time in the notoriously rough area, secure space on a basketball court for worship services.
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In an undated, now-viral video on Twitter, Floyd pleaded with the young men he mentored to put down their guns and stop the violence, saying:
“Our young generation is clearly lost, man. I don’t even know what to say… It’s clearly the generation after us, man, that’s so lost.”
To the young men who go out, thinking they’re tough for carrying a gun, Floyd added:
“Come on home, man. One day, it’s gonna be you and God. You’re goin’ up or you’re goin’ down, you know what I’m sayin’? That’s gonna be it…My heart hurts.”
On Thursday, Minnesota Mayor Jacob Frey (D) said that Floyd would still be alive following the incident if he were white, saying:
“I’m not a prosecutor. but let me be clear: The arresting officer killed someone.”
RIP George Floyd. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends, and all those who loved him.
