Darnella Frazier, who was 17 years old when she filmed the video of George Floyd’s arrest last year, praised the guilty verdict that a jury announced Tuesday for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
In a Facebook post minutes after the announcement Chauvin’s guilty verdict broke, Frazier expressed the sense of relief she felt in response to the news and the belief that “justice has been served.”
During her testimony last month during Chauvin’s trial, Frazier said that the event that sparked protests nationwide against police brutality last year had changed her life.
Appearing to hold back tears throughout her testimony, Frazier said that Floyd’s death make her think about members of her own family.
“When I look at George Floyd I look at my dad. I look at my brothers, cousins, uncles, because they are all Black,” Frazier testified. “I have a Black father, I have a Black brother, I have Black friends. And I look at that and I look at how that could have been one of them.”
Frazier also expressed guilt for not intervening amid filming Floyd’s arrest.
“It’s been nights I stayed up apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life, but it’s not what I should have done. It’s what he should have done,” she said, referring to Chauvin.
Last person who needs to have survivor’s guilt. Only the other police could have stopped it, Darnella. You were brave. If things change for the better anywhere because of this, it’ll be because of you.
Darnella may not have been able to act in the moment to stop Chauvin from killing George Floyd but the record she made may well save hundreds of lives in the future.
Absolutely! Her bravery, her refusal to look away, is what made yesterday possible and the change I believe is coming. None of this happens without the bravery and persistence of a teenage girl. We all need to find that bravery within ourselves the next time we see a Black person pulled over. Maybe you won’t save them, maybe you will, but it may be you who finds them some measure of justice.
Assuming the Presidential Medal of Freedom still means something, Darnella Frazier has more than earned it for helping to break America’s 400-year streak of letting lynchers go free.
The revenge killings started an hour after the verdict.