Princess Märtha Louise of Norway has spoken out after the death of African American George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The Princess made the remarks on her Instagram account with a photo of a woman holding a sign with George Floyd’s name. Princess Märtha Louise called for an end to “this inhumanity” in her post.
Her Highness said: “Stop!!! It has been going on for far too long; the killing of innocent men and women! Who are these Monsters of Distorted Believes [sic] thinking they have the right to kill someone just because a different pigment of their skin? It grieves me so deeply that we as a human race has not developed past killing each other, bringing someone else down, hurting each other because of our own insecurities. When will we wake up to see that we are part of the same creation? That we are all the same? When will we wake up to see we can trust and love each other because that is what we are here on earth to do. How many more men and women will die, get hurt, get bullied, get threatened before anything changes? When will we wake up? Stop this inhumanity!”
Floyd died on 25 May after a white police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck during an arrest. Floyd was lying face down on the road and handcuffed while repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe.”
Four police officers were involved, and all were fired the following day. Massive protests and riots have since broken out in Minneapolis as a result.
Floyd’s death came weeks after another unarmed African American man was gunned down in south Georgia by a father and son which caused a national outrage in the US. Both have been arrested and charged with murder.
Floyd’s death is the most recent in a series of deaths for African Americans in the United States at the hands of police. Eric Garner had the same fate, saying, “I can’t breathe,” in 2014 in New York. In 2016, Alton Sterling died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, during an arrest.
