Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis marches with hundreds of other clergy to this memorial in honor of George Floyd. | Lorie Shaull/Wikimedia Commons
Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis marches with hundreds of other clergy to this memorial in honor of George Floyd. | Lorie Shaull/Wikimedia Commons
Tyrone Rigsby, a High Point pastor, was shocked when he received the phone call from his sister informing him that George Floyd, the black man he just watched killed by a white officer on video, was his third cousin.
Forty-six-year-old George Floyd’s May 25 death sparked protests and riots across the nation. The world watched as then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into the neck of Floyd as he gasped for air, stating several times, “I can’t breathe," and calling for his mother before taking his last.
“Really?” Rigsby said, according to The High Point Enterprise, in June. “This is still happening?”
Rigsby’s birth name is Tyrone Keith Floyd but he changed it after he was adopted by his stepfather when he was young, The High Point Enterprise reported. Rigsby’s grandfather was the brother of Floyd’s father and they lost contact years ago after the Floyds left for Texas.
“I never really spent time with him, but when I was growing up, he would come to our family reunion every year in Dunn,” Rigsby said, The High Point Enterprise reported.
Chauvin has since been charged with murder. The three Minneapolis police officers who watched were have also been charged.
“It was such a senseless killing,” Rigsby said, the High Point Enterprise reported. “That officer, it was like he didn’t care — he wasn’t remorseful or nothing. It really hurt me.”
Rigsby said that as a Black man, these circumstances have refueled his concern on how white officers treat black suspects and that we need to move beyond these senseless killings of blacks, according to The High Point Enterprise.
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