George Floyd’s death brought Wanda Johnson back to a dark place.
She was scrolling through Facebook when she came across the footage, now seen around the world, of a white Minneapolis police officer digging his knee into Floyd’s neck on May 25 as the 46-year-old black man begged for his life and gasped for air for nearly nine minutes.
When Floyd used one of his last breaths to call out for his mother, Johnson wept.
It took her back to the Oakland train platform where her own son, 22-year-old Oscar Grant, was killed by police 11 years ago. Grant, who was lying face-down when he was fatally shot in the back, screamed that he had a 4-year-old daughter. It was one of the first incidents of deadly police force to be captured on video by bystanders, and it set off days of protest.
“It’s still so emotional for me,” Johnson says of Floyd’s killing, which she watched three times. “It reminded me of my son telling the officer he had a daughter, telling the officer that he just wanted to go home—just never to come home again.”
“It opens up wounds in me,” she adds. “The most painful part is seeing it continue to happen.”
Continue Reading: time.com
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