George Floyd to be buried today in Houston

The black man whose death has inspired a worldwide reckoning over racial injustice will be buried Tuesday in Houston, carried home in a horse-drawn carriage.

George Floyd, who was 46 when he was killed, will be laid to rest next to his mother. On May 25, as a white Minneapolis officer pressed a knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes, the dying man cried out for his mother.

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His funeral will be private. A public memorial service was held Monday in Houston, where he grew up. Some 6,000 people attended.

Under a blazing Texas sun, mourners wearing T-shirts with Floyd’s picture or the words "I Can’t Breathe” — one of the other things he cried out repeatedly while pinned down by the police officer — waited for hours to pay their respects. Floyd’s body, dressed in a brown suit, lay in an open gold-colored casket.

George Floyd, who was killed by a Minneapolis officer.

Shorty after the memorial ended, Floyd’s casket was placed in a hearse and escorted by police back to a funeral home.

In the two weeks since George Floyd was killed, police departments have banned chokeholds, Confederate monuments have fallen and officers have been arrested and charged amid large global protests against violence by police and racism.

The moves are far short of the overhaul of police, prosecutors’ offices, courts and other institutions that protesters seek. But some advocates and demonstrators say they are encouraged by the swiftness of the response to Floyd’s death — incremental as it may be.

An aerial view of protesters gathered near the makeshift memorial in honour of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. AFP

Protesters walked onto Interstate 84 on Monday evening in Portland’s Lloyd District, which led to officials temporarily shutting it down in that area, news footage showed.

Earlier, protesters cheered when a speaker at the demonstration talked about the police chief’s resignation.

"Are we done yet?” he asked the crowd. "No,” the crowd shouted back.

Another crowd near the downtown jail after 9 p.m. was urged by police not to shake and climb a fence erected to keep protesters away.

"We are not here to police a fence,” Portland police said on Twitter. "We are here to protect the people who work in the Justice Center and the adults in custody who are living there.”

On the ground, police were staying farther away from the fence than they had during other nights. The crowd had grown to hundreds by around 9:40 p.m., The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

Associated Press