Activist Reverend Al Sharpton reacted to the verdict in the George Floyd case on Tuesday after the jury found Derek Chauvin guilty of three charges.
As The Daily Wire reported, “After a little over ten hours of deliberation, a jury on Tuesday found former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in relation to the death of George Floyd.”
Sharpton, who has been connected to the incident since shortly after it took place last year, said, the indictment “would not have happened had not the Attorney General Keith Ellison took this case. And Keith Ellison fought and put together a team that made this possible and this is the first time in the history of this state that a white police officer has been convicted, less known convicted of a murder.”
Sharpton continued, “… we don’t find pleasure in this. We don’t celebrate a man going to jail. We would have rather George be alive. But we celebrate that we — because young people, white and black — some castigated, many that are here tonight, marched and kept marching and kept going. Many of them looked down on but they kept marching and wouldn’t let this die. And this is an assurance to them that if we don’t give up that we can win some rounds but the war and the fight is not over. Just two days from now, we are going to have to deal with the funeral of Duante Wright in this same county, this same area.
“We still have cases to fight. But this gives us the energy to fight on and we are determined that we are going to fight until we make federal law — the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act must be law. We want to thank all that were involved, especially the attorney general and the governor and others.
“We want to thank President Biden, who the first time he came out of his house during the campaign he flew to Houston and met with the family and Attorney Crump and I. And he sat there and I will never forget — he said to George’s daughter that ‘I heard you say your father is going to change the world.’ Well, we can now tell George’s daughter she was right. Her father has begun the changing of the world for real.”
Sharpton said that they wanted to pray and thank God, adding that he wanted to thank the jury “for letting God give them the strength, wherever they are tonight, we want them to know we broke down in tears when we heard the verdict.”
He went on, “Today, we can wipe our tears away and fight on for another day. There is sunlight. We are going to keep going until we bring it for the Eric Garner’s and the Breonna Taylor’s,” whose boyfriend he mentioned was with the group.
Reverend Sharpton then went on to pray.
Sharpton received criticism this week as he made his way to Minneapolis in advance of the verdict regarding the trial to be with the family of George Floyd.
Headed to Minneapolis to stand with the Floyd family as closing arguments are set to be made today. pic.twitter.com/kkS9KtHzq1
— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) April 19, 2021
He posted a video of himself walking to a private jet with the caption “Headed to Minneapolis to stand with the Floyd family as closing arguments are set to be made today” on Monday. Some users on Twitter criticized the reverend for seeming to be out of touch.