HOUSTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th June, 2020) Mourners flocked on Monday to bid a final farewell to George Floyd, calling the victim of police brutality a martyr, chosen by God and promising to carry on the nationwide anti-racism movement that his death has ignited.
A motorcade escorted by police bikers brought the gilded coffin to The Fountain of Praise church in Houston, Texas, where Floyd spent a large portion of his life and where will be interred on Tuesday.
"He was a sacrifice from God, he was a martyr. A lot of people got killed by the police without causing much confusion, but he was the one that God chose," an African American man, selling Floyd's portraits near the venue, said.
Organizers expect thousands to arrive for a six-hour long ceremony on Monday followed by a private service and a closed for press entombment on Tuesday.
"Thousands - that's what I am prepared for. They will be arranged in a socially distanced line with people allowed in in groups of probably 30," a woman attending the service said.
The woman said all safety precautions necessary have been put in place and no violence is expected.
"It's very secure. We have tons of security there - several agencies, even plainclothes security out here as well," she said.
Albert Sanchez, a Spanish American human rights activist, was among the first to appear at the event.
"Being here is the least I could do... He started this movement. We feel we have an obligation to take it from here," he said.
Sanchez also said he sees police reform as the immediate goal of the movement and does not agree with demands to defund law-enforcement agencies or strip them of their powers.
"The majority of the policemen are good-hearted men, they just need to be obligated in some kind of a police reform to be able to speak up or be made to speak up," Sanchez said. "Something needs to be done, but we do need the police, of course."
People at the ceremony said they agree that racism is still ubiquitous in the United States.
"It's a mindset, it's a discriminatory mindset. If I am driving my vehicle and a police officer comes up my heart changes. Automatically. White men wouldn't experience that. But my heart changes its bit," Furkhan Ali, an elderly African American, said. "I had an officer telling me 'I am not going to shoot you yet." That was his communication to me when he was checking my license."
His suggestion is an autonomy for a black community within the US funded by reparations for centuries of slavery. "We need a police of our own. We have enough expertise, we have enough professional people, educated people to establish our own land," Ali said, displaying a placard with his demands.
"Hey, Russian media, tell people we have a country of systemic racism here," another African American man said. "Why, America, are you talking about Russia? America, what about you?"
Houston, where Floyd grew up, is a final leg of the farewell journey. Previously, memorial services were held in North Carolina, where Floyd was born, and in Minnesota, where he died in police custody.
Floyd's death has sparked a worldwide movement against social injustice. Mass protests have taken place in the United States, United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, France, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, among others. Some of the protests turned into riots complete with violence against police and civilians and acts of vandalism, arson and looting.
