Pittsburghers rally to remember George Floyd, others, 1 year after slaying

They gathered in Pittsburgh to remember George Floyd one year after those nine agonizing minutes that changed the trajectory of a nation.

By 6 p.m. Tuesday, between 50 and 60 people had assembled in Westinghouse Park in the city’s Point Breeze neighborhood for what would become a candlelight vigil for Floyd, who died of asphyxiation one year ago to the day at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers.

The crowd may not have been as large as those that protested in large numbers in the days immediately following Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020. But the emotions it displayed were no less passionate, even though it’s been over a month after a jury found former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin guilty on all the counts he faced in Floyd’s death.

“We’ve got a long way to go for justice. We’ve got three more officers to arrest, so we really have not gotten justice, have we?,” said Ramona Jones as she addressed the crowd. Jones, who is from Pittsburgh’s West End, was one of the rally’s organizers.

“We’re coming together today in remembrance of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and all the lives that have been taken at the hands of police terrorism since those nine minutes on George Floyd’s neck,” Jones said. “So, no, we don’t have justice yet, and until we have justice, then there will be no peace.”

Ramona Jones of the West End speaks during a rally this evening at Westinghouse Park in Point Breeze to mark the 1st anniversary of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police. pic.twitter.com/aAVqRt7HKd

— Paul Guggenheimer (@PGuggenheimer) May 25, 2021

The rally also was led by Ikhana-Hal-Makina, 45, of Stanton Heights, Pittsburgh, who said the remembrance was about George Floyd as well as others who have been killed or hurt in incidents involving police.

Her brother, Jerome Smith, was killed along with Michelle Rankin after a 2006 car crash with a driver who ran a red light with police in pursuit. The case renewed debate about when police should pursue suspects on crowded streets.

Hal-Makina also had been wounded in 2012 after police responded to a domestic dispute she had with her former husband. During an exchange of gunfire between the man and police officers, she was shot in her right hand.

“I do feel for police officers, but this is the job they signed up for. I bear the scars today. I cannot close my hand. I am still in immense amounts of pain, and I still need surgery,” Hal-Makina said. “I have yet to receive even as much as an apology. I feel if I was perhaps a European woman who was innocently shot by the police, perhaps in Sewickley, that something different would have happened.”

Hal-Makina said she feels police need to be held accountable for incidents such as these.

“I think that the system needs to change,” she said.

Seated a bit farther back from the speakers and others in attendance was Cheryl Harris, 73, Penn Hills, a soft-spoken woman wearing a black “I can’t breathe” T-shirt. Harris shared a story about being hit by white, male police officers after she was arrested following an incident 35 years ago.

“I got into an argument with someone at the grocery store, and they called the police on me. The police came and arrested me and took me to the police station in East Liberty and attempted to beat me up in the jail cell. But I fought back,” Harris said.

That’s why she was at the rally: “To let it be known that it’s not only Black men that they take out, it’s not just our Black children that they take out, it’s Black women, too.”