A montage at George Floyd’s funeral mistakenly featured a picture of a former Jets player.
Former New York defensive back and College Football Hall of Fame inductee George Floyd, 59, appeared in the photo montage during the funeral for the 46-year-old with the same name who was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derrick Chauvin. The funeral took place in Houston, Texas on Tuesday.
George Floyd's funeral mistakenly featured a photo of the wrong man in a montage celebrating his life — showing a living ex-New York Jets player with the same name https://t.co/q211uV6aCB @nypost pic.twitter.com/yJudXNQjdh
— Jackie Salo (@jackiesalo) June 10, 2020
The football-playing Floyd’s photo was erroneously broadcasted on multiple news networks, including NBC New York’s YouTube stream of the funeral and BBC’s News at Ten bulletin. The former Jet was a fourth-round pick in 1982 and played in 15 NFL games for New York.
“During our report on George Floyd’s funeral last night, we showed images from a montage of still photographs which had been played as part of his funeral service,” BBC said in a statement. “One of the photos we used, which we had taken directly from this montage, depicted the New York Jets player George Floyd. We don’t know why that particular image was used in the service, but we subsequently used it as part of our own coverage of the service. We’re still looking into exactly what happened. The BBC would never seek to cause any offense.”
Floyd’s killing has sparked global outrage and protests across the United States calling for an end to social and racial injustices against African Americans and other minorities. Chauvin has been fired and charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter with culpable negligence. The three other officers on the scene have been fired and charged as well. Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng were charged with felony aiding and abetting.