If not for her video, Chauvin might still be a police officer
Now the teen who stood firm, capturing the longest and clearest bystander video of George Floyd’s final moments, is overcome with emotion and praise after Chauvin’s convictions Tuesday.
“I was so anxious … But to know GUILTY ON ALL 3 CHARGES !!! THANK YOU GOD THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. George Floyd we did it!! justice has been served.”
Frazier kept filming despite the agony of watching Floyd’s life slip away.
“I heard George Floyd saying, ‘I can’t breathe, please, get off of me’ … and crying for his mom,” Frazier testified in court. “He was in pain. It seemed like he knew it was over for him.”
Floyd’s aunt Angela Harrellson praised Frazier, who was a 17-year-old high school student when she captured the footage that proved to be damning in Chauvin’s trial.
“The sad thing is if it hadn’t been for that 17-year-old girl Darnella, it would have been another black man that was killed by the police … and they would have said, ‘Oh, it was drugs, oh it was this,'” Harrellson said.
“And we would never have had the story we would have. And wouldn’t be here today talking.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz publicly thanked Frazier.
“Taking that video, I think many folks know, is maybe the only reason that Derek Chauvin will go to prison,” Walz said.
“Without Darnella’s presence of mind and readiness to risk her own safety and wellbeing, we may never have known the truth about George Floyd’s murder.”
The video shot by a high school student “will go down in history,” wrote the NAACP in North Carolina, the state where Floyd was born.
Oprah Winfrey joined the countless Americans who thanked Frazier and the jury.
“I cried tears of joy when the verdict was read,” Winfrey tweeted.
“I’m grateful to the witnesses and their testimonies. Grateful to Darnella Frazier. Grateful to every Juror for seeing and acknowledging what the world saw on that tape. Thank you God for real!”
Frazier, who is now 18, replied to the thousands of people who thanked her on Facebook.
“I can’t reply to all of your beautiful comments as I wish to, but THANK YOU all of you,” she wrote. “The support I had since day one carried me a long way so thank you again.”
CNN’s Adrienne Broaddus, Harmeet Kaur, Eric Levenson and Jamiel Lynch contributed to this report.
