- Title: Horse-drawn carriage takes George Floyd to final resting place
- Date: 9th June 2020
- Summary: HOUSTON, TEXAS, UNITED STATES (JUNE 9, 2020) (UNRESTRICTED POOL) VARIOUS OF CASKET CARRYING REMAINS OF GEORGE FLOYD BEING TAKEN OUT OF CHURCH
- Embargoed: 24th June 2020 00:59
- Keywords: George Floyd Houston Minneapolis burial funeral procession
- Location: HOUSTON, TEXAS / PEARLAND, TEXAS, UNITED STATES
- City: HOUSTON, TEXAS / PEARLAND, TEXAS, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Civil Unrest
- Reuters ID: LVA001CHNH1DZ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:The streets of a Houston suburb were lined with people on Tuesday (June 9) as a horse-drawn carriage took George Floyd's body to his final resting place after a funeral in which he was remembered as "an ordinary brother" transformed by fate into the "cornerstone of a movement."
Floyd, a black man whose death under the knee of a white police officer roused worldwide protests against racial injustice, was memorialized during a four-hour service that was broadcast live on every major U.S. television network from a church in Floyd's boyhood home of Houston.
The funeral followed two weeks of protests ignited by graphic video footage of Floyd, 46, handcuffed and lying face down on a Minneapolis street while an officer kneels into the back of his neck for nearly nine minutes. The video shows Floyd gasping for air as he cries out, "Mama," and groans, "please, I can't breathe," before falling silent and still.
The officer, Derek Chauvin, 44, has since been charged with second-degree murder and three other officers with aiding and abetting Floyd's May 25 death.
His dying words have become a rallying cry for tens of thousands of protesters around the globe who have since taken to the streets, undaunted by the coronavirus pandemic, demanding justice for Floyd and an end to mistreatment of minorities by U.S. law enforcement.
Some 2,500 people attended the funeral, which followed memorial services last week in Minneapolis, where Floyd made his home after leaving Houston, and Raeford, the North Carolina town where he was born. More than 6,000 people filed past Floyd's open casket on Tuesday as he lay in repose inside the church.
American flags lined the streets outside the church. Flowers and bouquets were placed around a photograph of Floyd.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate in the Nov. 3 election, addressed the service via a video recording, lamenting that "too many black Americans wake up knowing that they could lose their life in the course of just living their life."
"We must not turn away. We cannot leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away from racism," he said.
Two voter registration tables were set up outside the church.
Fallout from Floyd's death, and reaction to a spate of arson and looting that accompanied some of the otherwise mostly peaceful protests, also plunged President Donald Trump into one of the biggest crises of his tenure.
A Republican, Trump repeatedly threatened to order the military onto the streets to quell protests, focusing on restoring order while saying little about the U.S. racial wounds at the root of the upheavals.
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