Sharpton eulogized 17-year-old Hunter Brittain, who was shot and killed by a white sheriff’s deputy, Sgt. Michael Davis, during a traffic stop June 23
The Rev. Al Sharpton and attorneys for George Floyd’s family on Tuesday mourned a white Arkansas teenager fatally shot by a sheriff’s deputy, as they urged support across racial lines for efforts to reform police practices.
Sharpton eulogized 17-year-old Hunter Brittain, who was shot and killed by a white Lonoke County sheriff’s deputy, Sgt. Michael Davis, during a traffic stop June 23 near Cabot, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock.
The killing in the predominantly white community has drawn the attention of national civil rights activists such as Sharpton, who said concerns about police tactics aren’t just limited to the Black community.
“The issue of policing is not about Black and white,” Sharpton told a packed auditorium at Beebe High School, where Brittain was a rising senior. “It’s about right and wrong.”
Many attending the memorial wore jeans and shirts that read “Justice for Hunter,” in a ceremony that included Floyd family attorneys Ben Crump and Devon Jacob. Both are representing Brittain’s family.
Floyd died in May last year when a white Minneapolis police officer used his knee to pin the handcuffed Black man’s neck to the ground. His death sparked nationwide protests over policing and racial inequality.
Crump and Jacob invoked other people killed by police, including Breonna Taylor, a Kentucky woman who was fatally shot during a botched police raid. Crump led the crowd in chanting, “Hunter Brittain’s life matters.”
Source: Al Sharpton eulogizes white Arkansas teen shot by deputy
