Statement of Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director and CEO of MomsRising, an online and on-the-ground organization of more than one million mothers and their families, on the brutal murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police:

“The moms of America are grieving that George Floyd was killed by four police officers earlier this week. No mother should have to worry about the loss of a loved one at the hands of those charged with protection. No one should lose their lives.

“MomsRising is calling for the police officers who killed George Floyd to be charged with murder and for the vicious and inflammatory attacks on protesters, including the inflammatory attacks by President Trump, to stop immediately. 

“We grieve, we’re angry, and we will not stop holding leaders accountable: This includes prosecutors, who hold more power in the criminal justice system than almost anyone else. It includes everyone from mayors and governors to the president of the United States.

“Sadly, it’s not just George Floyd. It’s Breonna Taylor. It’s Ahmaud Arbery and Atatiana Jefferson. It’s a list of names too long to fit on this page. Each of whom was a person, with loved ones, dreams, and lives to be lived.

“It’s a president who has encouraged police violence and is consistently and openly fueling white supremacy in our nation. A president who just last night Tweeted an implication that protesters could be shot, implying that he’d order the military to act as judge, jury, and executioner, using wording that has historically stoked anti-Black racism.  A tweet so racist and incendiary that Twitter took the rare step of putting a warning label on it for “glorifying violence” and limited the public’s interaction with it. And it’s this same president who has also dog-whistled white supremacists, militias, and vigilantes time and again.

“It’s a system that directly targets Black people and people of color through sanctioned acts of violence; and structurally targets people of color by intentionally cutting programs,  diverting resources, and so much more.

“It’s police brutality, it’s an unjust criminal justice system, it’s the wage gap that dispropotionatly harms moms of color the most, it’s discrimination in the health care system that’s leading to more people of color losing their lives to COVID-19 and to Black women dying three to four times as often as white women while giving birth. It’s Amy Cooper, a white woman who called the police saying, ‘I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life.’” 

“It’s white supremist groups with guns marching on state capitols protesting public health measures that scientists have prescribed to stop the pandemic -- and remaining unharmed and untouched by law enforcement; while protestors of color demanding an end to police brutality are met by tear gas and rubber bullets.

”All of this is why the moms of America  demand full accountability for what happened to George Floyd. And why we will never give up demanding a system and a country in which everyone can live and thrive.”

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