Former NBA champion Stephen Jackson said he was devastated when he woke up to learn that his close friend George Floyd had died after a tragic encounter with four Minneapolis police officers.
Floyd was the unarmed Black man who was handcuffed and lying on the street as one of the officers held him down with his knee on Floyd’s neck on Monday, May 25, 2020. Despite Floyd’s cries that he could not breathe, the officer kept the pressure on his neck. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Bystanders, however, can be heard yelling in the chilling video that they saw Floyd’s body go limp and stop moving altogether while the officer knelt on his neck before the paramedics arrived.
Jackson, who is arguably best known for being a major part of the “Malice in the Palace” brawl between players and spectators in suburban Detroit in 2004, last played for the San Antonio Spurs in 2014. He took to Instagram to express his feelings about Floyd’s death.
“This what I gotta wake up to, huh? This is what I got to wake up to? Floyd was my brother. We called each other twins,” Jackson said.
“Everybody know we called each other twins. My brother was only out there in Minnesota, he was changing his life, he was driving trucks. I had just sent him two or three boxes of clothes. My boy was doing what he was supposed to do and ya’ll killed my brother. I’m on my way to Minnesota Whatever I can do. We can’t let this ride. Y’all not going to be mad until it hit y’all front door. It’s bull—-.”
Jackson posted several tributes to Floyd for his 477,000 IG followers, including the one below. Jackson said he was proud of Floyd for moving to the Upper Midwest and turning his life around as a truck driver.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CArQqmrl-IH/
Both Jackson, 42, and Floyd had ties to Port Arthur, Texas, a 90-minute drive east of Houston. He felt a special kinship with Floyd because of their resemblance to one another.
“I know this is going to sound f—ed up and I want it to sound f—ed up because it is f—ed up. Y’all just take my boy’s life and what we supposed to do? What is his family supposed to do? Just move on? Hope you go to jail, hope they punish you for killing my boy?
Why we can’t just kill you? That’s the justice we want because we can’t get nothing back. So the cops should die too … but they not going to do that.”
Go to the next page to listen to Jackson’s gut-wrenching reaction to Floyd along with the calls for justice in Minneapolis.
