LaTonya Floyd with George Floyd’s great-niece, Arianna DeLane.Photo: Marie D. De Jesus
As she ponders the second anniversary of her brother’s murder,George Floyd’s sister,LaTonya Floyd, tells PEOPLE that she feels “like hell.”
“It’s still hard to believe,” LaTonya, 53, says. “It’s unbearable for me. I’m a full-blooded sibling. I was in the waiting room when he was born. All I can see is that little boy.”
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LaTonya describes the statue as “a real him. A life-size him.”
She can’t wait to see the statue and come face-to-face with her brother’s likeness.
George Floyd.
“I might get a blanket and sleep there,” she says. “I always feel his spirit. Every day. Every day. It’s like he’s laying his hand on me. Because I know what his hugs feel like. I know what his touch feels like. And I know I feel his spirit every day.”
She adds, “I just want to hug him.”
LaTonya says she turned down an invitation to join family members at the White House to commemorate the anniversary. “I’d rather be here with him,” she says.
She also plans to visit the mausoleum where her brother rests, and attend various local portrait unveilings. Last week, she says,she attended an unveiling of a muralof her brother at a Houston restaurant.
“This is his blood, sweat and tears right here in Houston’s Third Ward,” she says. “He would be right here.”
LaTonya Floyd.Marie D De Jesus
The stretch of street in Minneapolis where her brother was murdered has been renamed George Floyd Square. “I want to go there. I really do,” says LaTonya.
In an interview with PEOPLE, Floyd’s niece, Bianca Williams, 28, said she was grateful for the public’s continued support of her family. “I’m thankful that everybody’s still standing with us and we’re all family and we’re all going to be all right,” says Williams.
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Last year, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death. Chauvin wassentencedto 22 and a half years in prison. Last December he alsopleaded guilty to a separate federal chargeof violating Floyd’s civil rights.
Derek Chauvin in court June 25, 2021, at his sentencing.ALEX LEDERMAN/AFP via Getty
LaTonya is disappointed that just last week,former Minneapolis Police Officer Thomas Lane pleaded guilty to manslaughter— she believes the charge should have been more severe.
“No one is above the law,” LaTonya says. “You’re a grown man. You have kids. Picture your kids in my brother’s situation.”
From left, former Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao.AP/Shutterstock
She adds: “You know what’s right, you know what’s wrong,” she says. “Maybe he didn’t do as much, or he didn’t have much to do with it. [But] Man, you stood there and watched your superior murder my brother. And held the crowd back. Along with the other two officers. Laughing. Y’all was twisting his fingers. So how in the hell can he just grab manslaughter?”
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source: people.com
