George Floyd death: Jay-Z calls Minnesota governor, says 'justice needs to be served'
Jay-Z is taking steps to call for more charges on George Floyd's death. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz revealed in a press conference today (May 31) that Jay-Z called him after getting his number from CNN's Van Jones to demand justice over Floyd's killing who was being restrained during an arrest.
Walz said, "It was so incredibly human," according to WCCO CBS Minneapolis. "It wasn’t Jay-Z, international celebrity. It was a dad and, I think quite honestly, a black man whose visceral pain of this that he knew," the governor noted. "His words to me, I want them to be confidential, but to summarize what it was: 'Justice needs to be served here. Justice needs to be served'," he said, adding, "He said he feels the compassion and the humanity of these folks who are speaking." Walz continued, "He knows that the world is watching. How Minnesota handles this is going to have an impact across the country, and I think that’s what his impressions were."
After a video of Floyd's death spread on social media, protestors gathered in major cities across the US this weekend, including Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta. With regards to the arrest of Derek Chauvin, the now-former Minnesota Police Department officer, Walz said on Sunday that he would like to see the three other officers involved in Floyd’s fatal arrest charged with murder. "If that would have been four civilians on another civilian? We wouldn’t be having a debate at all whether that was murder," he said. Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter on Friday, May 29.
Beyoncé has also been calling for justice with her husband in an Instagram video which rallies her followers to sign a petition that is seeking charges against the four officers involved in the killing of Floyd. "We need justice for George Floyd," she said in the video message. "We all witnessed his murder in broad daylight. We're broken and we're disgusted. We can not normalize this pain," she continued, adding, "I'm not only speaking to people of color, if you're white, black, brown and anything in between, I'm sure you feel hopeless by the racism going on in America right now."