Thousands turned out for a rally in Nyack yesterday to support the Black Lives Matter movement following the death last week of George Floyd. He was seen on video with a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes, setting off massive protests all over the country. News 12 said the crowd near the Nyack Center on South Broadway took a knee in silence for about nine minutes and chanted “I can’t breathe.” Nearly 30 people also demonstrated against Floyd’s killing at the Rockland County Courthouse in New City. Around the same time, a time zone away, the familiar voice of a former Rockland politician was among those calling for justice in Minnesota. Former Ramapo legislator, attorney Sanford Rubenstein, was in Minneapolis yesterday representing George Floyd’s family. Rubenstein was with George Floyd’s brother and Reverend Kevin McCall from Brooklyn taking part in a prayer vigil and press conference at the site where George Floyd died last week. Rubenstein said the remaining three Minneapolis police officers who stood by as one put his knee on Floyd’s neck and did nothing to stop it, also deserve to go to jail…
That audio is courtesy of CNN. Rubenstein served for two decades in the county Legislature, some as majority leader, before stepping down in 1998. He has handled several prominent civil rights and police brutality cases, including Abner Louima, the families of Sean Bell, who was fatally shot by police in 2006 on the morning of his wedding, and Eric Garner, the black Staten Island man who died after a white police officer put him in a chokehold. Terrence Floyd, George’s brother, urged people to stop the violence, and told them instead to use their political influence at the ballot box.