On Friday (May 29), Rihanna shared a powerful message to social media in which she demanded justice following George Floyd’s death. Earlier this week, news broke that Floyd was an unfortunate victim of police brutality in Minneapolis.
In her lengthy post, the “Pon de Replay” artist shared a photo of the late 46-year-old. She also explained that she was disgusted by the actions of former officer Derek Chauvin, who was caught on video resting his knee on Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes after he became unresponsive. “For the last few days, the magnitude of devastation, anger, sadness I’ve felt has been overwhelming to say the least! Watching my people get murdered and lynched day after day pushed me to a heavy place in my heart! To the point of staying away from socials, just to avoid hearing the blood curdling agony in George Floyd’s voice again, begging over and over for his life! The look of enticement, the pure joy and climax on the face of this bigot, murderer, thug, pig, bum, Derek Chauvin, haunts me!” she wrote.
She continued, “I can’t shake this! I can’t get over an ambulance pulling up to an arrest, a paramedic checking a pulse without removing the very thing that’s hindering it! Is this that f—king normal? If intentional MURDER is the fit consequence for ‘drugs’ or ‘resisting arrest’….then what’s the fit consequence for MURDER?”
Prior to Rihanna’s message, Floyd’s family revealed that they will conduct an independent autopsy, adding that they “don’t trust anything coming from the Minneapolis Police Department.” The Hennepin County Medical Examiner also performed a preliminary autopsy and found that “no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.”
“We’re going to take custody back of George Floyd’s body and we’re bringing in Dr. Michael Baden to perform an independent autopsy because we saw in the Eric Garner case and so many other cases where they have these people who work with the city come up with things that are such an illusion,” Attorney Ben Crump said during a press conference. “They’re going to have their own autopsy. We’re not going to rely on this DA or this city to tell us the truth. We already saw the truth.”