George Floyd’s family marks 1-year anniversary of murder: ‘We miss him so much’

For the first time, George Floyd’s family is heading into a Memorial Day weekend with the sad certainty he’ll never be joining them for the annual holiday again.

The unofficial start of summer will forever be associated with his brutal murder in police custody.

When the relatives gather in Minneapolis Tuesday to mark the one-year anniversary of his death, they’ll remember how he was always the life of the party, Tera McGee Brown, a first cousin who lived with Floyd for a time when they were kids growing up in Houston, told the Daily News.

“Most every holiday was an occasion for us all to get together and cook food,” McGee Brown said.

George Floyd

“Everybody has a sense of humor in my family, and it would bring that out in us. We’d sit around and laugh all day. That’s what we miss most. That’s gone forever. We’ll still be able to get together, but its’s those times we’re reminded he’s not here. The loss is so great. We miss him so much,” she said.

McGee Brown, 49, was in Minneapolis for the entire trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer found guilty last month of murdering Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020.

After traveling from Texas to Minneapolis again over the weekend, she planned to gather with fellow relatives for a public “celebration of life” Tuesday.

“And we’ll definitely take some time to do some things privately and just spend some time with each other. That’s what really has been sustaining us, being able to lean on each other,” she said.

She then plans to fly immediately back to Houston to mark the first anniversary of another somber date, May 26, 2020, the day she first learned the cousin who was her closest playmate growing up had been killed in custody while begging for his life in a caught-on-video slaying.

She and her immediate family will head Wednesday to Houston Memorial Gardens in Pearland, where Floyd’s golden casket was entombed in a mausoleum next to his mother, the woman he cried out for with his last breaths.

“It will be my first time visiting, so I really don’t know what that’s going to feel like. I just want to be in the same space, you know, just kind of have that quiet time with him,” she said.

Tera McGee Brown (pictured) at a George Floyd memorial in Minneapolis, with her sister, Shareeduh McGee Tate (right) and niece, Tedra McGee.

McGee Brown, who serves as board president of the Texas-based George Floyd Foundation, led by her sister Shareeduh McGee, said Chauvin’s trial was a roller coaster for the family.

She’ll never forget March 31, the day prosecutors played never-before-seen video of Floyd laughing and chatting inside the Cup Foods convenience store in the hour before his murder.

“That was one of the highlights when we saw him kind of dancing around, talking to people. That was his personality. That was who he was, always so friendly,” she said. “It made us smile.”

Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin is pictured during the arrest of George Floyd. (Handout/)

But March 31 quickly became “one of the hardest days,” she said, when it segued into police video showing how terrified Floyd was when Officers J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane confronted him with weapons drawn over an alleged counterfeit $20 bill he used to buy cigarettes.

The video that day showed the police perspective as Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck as the Black man made it clear he couldn’t breathe and yet another officer, Tou Thao, stood watch.

April 21, 2021: Jury needs less than a day to convict Chauvin on all counts in slay by cop that rocked nation. Crowd outside Hennepin County Courthouse in Minnesota cheers Tuesday after Derek Chauvin (r.) was convicted on all counts in George Floyd's murder.

“That was day three of the trial. It was crazy. It’s forever catalogued in my head. We got an up-close look at how he was fine one minute and then literally begging for his life the next – and the people who should have cared didn’t. I remember I was extremely emotionally drained at the end of that day,” she said.

On another day, McGee Brown had her turn to occupy the one seat in the socially-distanced courtroom reserved for family members. She was in the room with Chauvin, face-to-face, for the first time.

“It was distracting. just being in the same room with him. I was trying to focus on the trial, but from time to time I would look over at him. I never saw him look in my direction. I never saw any emotion from him whatsoever, no remorse or pity. He was pretty stoic the whole time,” she said.

Looking ahead, McGee Brown said the family is working hard on legislative efforts related to police reform and waiting for the other three officers charged in the case to go on trial – a proceeding that recently was postponed from August to next March.

“Obviously I think about it, whether or not they will be held accountable. I just think that all of them have a certain amount of accountability in this case,” she said. “I just want to see it go the way it’s supposed to go.”

A crowd gathers at George Floyd Square after a guilty verdict was announced at the trial of former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin for the 2020 death of Floyd, Tuesday, April 20, in Minneapolis. Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted of murder and manslaughter in the death of Floyd. (Julio Cortez/)

In the meantime, she supports the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act at the federal level and recently testified in the Texas Capitol in support of the The George Floyd Act (House Bill 88), which seeks to ban chokeholds in the Lone Star State and require cops to ease their use of force the “moment the imminent threat of death” is contained.

Texas lawmakers in the largely Republican state have said the bill doesn’t have enough support to pass, but McGree Brown isn’t giving up.

“We’re still actively working, breaking it down somewhat so they can approve some parts,” she said.

The Chauvin guilty verdict energized her again, she said, so the family’s fight continues.

“When they read those three guilty verdicts, it was like they were peeling away layers of weight. I remember being very emotional. It was a huge weight lifted that I wasn’t even aware I was carrying,” she said. “That’s definitely a moment in time I will never, ever forget.”