George Floyd’s final moments, captured on a cell phone camera, have been seen worldwide by millions, including by the mother of Botham Jean who couldn’t help but think of her son.
“When I saw this police officer keep his knee on George Floyd’s neck for that extended time it told me that what my son suffered seemed to be a norm among police officers,” Allison Jean said.
Botham Jean was murdered by Amber Guyger in 2018, when she entered his apartment and shot him, telling a Dallas County jury she believed he was an intruder in her apartment. In the weeks and months that followed Jean’s mother became an outspoken proponent of police reform in America.
“We need to stop playing around when people are dead, when families are missing loved ones, when a wife is missing her husband, when children are missing their father, when brothers and sisters are missing their siblings,” Jean said.
Now back home in St. Lucia, Jean said the death of George Floyd and the subsequent unrest in Minneapolis has transfixed her home country, which has come to associate America as a dangerous place for men of color.
“Things do not seem to be getting better because state by state you see the same thing happening to our people,” Jean said. “They(the officers involved) must be immediately indicted, they need to be charged.”
Jean said she can understand and relate to the frustration being expressed by thousands on the streets of Minneapolis. Botham, she said, would have also been on the side of social justice reform were he alive at this moment in time.
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“Americans need to know the world is watching, what is happening in Minneapolis is beamed all over the world,” Jean said.
