For Immediate Release: 25 May, 2023
Media Contact: Noble Frank, noble@mnfreedomfund.org, (952) 353-6930
MINNEAPOLIS — In observance of the three year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police, the following is a statement from Mirella Ceja-Orozco, Executive Director of the Minnesota Freedom Fund:
“Three years ago today, George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officers Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao over an allegedly fake $20 bill, sparking a national uprising in pursuit of racial justice.
At the time, some called the widespread protests a ‘racial reckoning.’ Three years on, however, it’s clear that we’ve not only refused to reckon with the systemic injustices that caused George Floyd’s death; we’ve also failed to address injustices that impacted and shaped George Floyd’s life – and may have upended his life again had Derek Chauvin arrested him and brought him into custody.
Black people account for 80% of police stops and searches in Minneapolis; are 8.7 times more likely to be arrested for low-level offenses; are assigned bail amounts as much as double those of white defendants with similar charges, and — because of all these factors — are at least 25% more likely to be jailed pre-trial in large urban areas, regardless of eventual guilt or innocence.
These systemic injustices – and the harm people face when they’re jailed pre-trial – will never go viral. Most of them will never be recorded or known. But they nevertheless represent urgent threats to our community, and they should not be overshadowed by the spectacle of racist police violence.
Policies that aim to address police violence but leave these systemic inequities in place will never be enough to truly protect Black, brown, and Indigenous Minnesotans. That’s why we at Minnesota Freedom Fund remain committed to our core mission of dismantling our state’s cash bail system, which criminalizes poverty and is blatantly discriminatory. We will continue our struggle for a criminal legal system that provides justice and restoration – not violence, trauma, and economic ruin.
Our thoughts are with George Floyd’s family, particularly his children who are the inheritors of the world we’re creating. After her father’s murder and the subsequent protests, Gianna Floyd famously said: ‘My daddy changed the world.’ We’ll continue our work until the change that was promised is delivered.”
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