Darnella Frazier, the teenager who pulled out her cellphone and began recording when she saw George Floyd being pinned to the ground by a US police officer was given a special citation by the Pulitzer Prizes on Friday for her video that helped to launch a global movement to protest racial injustice.
18 year old Frazier was cited by Pulitzer Prizes “for courageously recording the murder of George Floyd, a video that spurred protests against police brutality, around the world, highlighting the crucial role of citizens in journalists’ quest for truth and justice.”
Handcuffed and lying face down in the street, Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis a year ago when one of the officers put the weight of his knee on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes.
The murder of Floyd reignited longstanding anger at police brutality in the US and triggered what many call a global reckoning on racism.
She was 17 when she recorded the arrest and death of Floyd on May 25, 2020. She testified at the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin that she was walking to a corner grocery store to get snacks with her then-9-year-old cousin when she saw a black man being pinned to the pavement, “terrified, scared, begging for his life.”
“A year ago, today I witnessed a murder. The victim’s name was George Floyd. Although this wasn’t the first time, I’ve seen a black man get killed at the hands of the police, this is the first time I witnessed it happen in front of me. Right in front of my eyes, a few feet away. I didn’t know this man from a can of paint, but I knew his life mattered. I knew that he was in pain. I knew that he was another black man in danger with no power. I was only 17 at the time, just a normal day for me walking my 9-year-old cousin to the corner store, not even prepared for what I was about to see, not even knowing my life was going to change on this exact day in those exact moments… it did. It changed me,” a year after she recorded George Floyd’s murder on her cellphone, Frazier released a public statement about her lasting grief over Floyd’s death, and how the trauma has affected her and her nine-year-old cousin, who both witnessed the police killing.
She has not done media interviews or made public statements outside of her trial testimony.
She has not done media interviews or made public statements outside of her trial testimony.
