FLOYD’S FAMILY FILES WRONGFUL-DEATH SUIT
Minneapolis, four former officers charged are named; compensation sought is unspecified
George Floyd’s family filed a federal wrongfuldeath lawsuit Wednesday against Minneapolis and the four police officers charged in his death, alleging that officers violated Floyd’s constitutional rights when they restrained him and that the city allowed a culture of excessive force and racism in its police force that allowed the encounter to happen.
The lawsuit did not specify specific damages sought. Ben Crump, an attorney for the Floyd family, said the lawsuit is seeking compensation “that makes it financially prohibitive for police to wrongfully kill marginalized people — especially Black people — in the future.”
“It was not just the knee of officer Derek Chauvin on George Floyd’s neck,” Crump said in an afternoon news conference, referring to the former Minneapolis police officer charged in Floyd’s death. “But it was the knee of the entire Minneapolis Police Department on the neck of George Floyd that killed him.”
The lawsuit was announced hours after the public release of police body camera videos from the scene that show Floyd scared and on the verge of tears as he is confronted by police outside a Minneapolis store in an encounter that ultimately turned fatal.
The footage, recorded by cameras worn by two of the four officers charged in Floyd’s May 25 death, present a desperate scene: Floyd moaned and begged for his life while pinned to the ground, a White police officer’s knee at his throat for more than eight minutes.
The two videos, about half an hour long each, add to the cellphone videos posted to social media by bystanders of Floyd’s dying moments on a Minneapolis street corner, footage that sparked one of the largest and sustained series of protests in American history and transformed the nation’s conversation on issues of race and police brutality.
The body camera videos show Floyd trying to cooperate with the police but appearing increasingly anxious and afraid of them. He repeatedly begged officers not to shoot him and complained of being claustrophobic as they tried to place him in a squad car. Restrained by officers, Floyd complained at least 25 times that he could not breathe and told the police he’d been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
As then-officer Chauvin pressed a knee into his neck, he told Floyd that he must be OK because he was able to speak, saying he was using up a lot of oxygen pleading for help.
“They’ll kill me. They’ll kill me,” Floyd gasped in response. Within a few seconds, Floyd was motionless. He was pronounced dead later.
The videos, made available to the public for the first time Wednesday by a Hennepin County judge, show that Floyd was pinned on the street for about nine minutes by officers. Chauvin had his knee at Floyd’s throat for most of that time — pinning Floyd down even as he stopped moving and another officer could not find Floyd’s pulse.
Chauvin, a 19-year-veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department, has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter. Three other officers at the scene — Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao — have been charged with aiding and abetting. All four were fired.
The footage made available Wednesday came from body cameras worn by Kueng and Lane, rookie officers whose attorneys have sought to deflect blame in Floyd’s death by saying they were following the lead of Chauvin, the senior officer at the scene.
The video offered new details about Floyd’s encounter with police and could presage the arguments that will dominate the proceedings when the officers are tried. It shows that Floyd appeared to be afraid of any dealings with police, saying he had been previously shot by an officer and did not want it to happen again. He repeatedly said he did not want to be placed in a squad car, insisted he would not hurt anyone and explained numerous times that he could not breathe and worried that he was going to die.
In the video, Lane pressed Chauvin on whether they should reposition Floyd. Chauvin declined and opted to wait for emergency medical help to arrive, keeping his knee on Floyd’s neck. Earl Gray, an attorney for Lane, has cited this statement as proof that his client sought to intervene but was rebuffed.
Officers had responded to a 911 call from Cup Foods complaining of a customer who had passed a counterfeit $20 bill. Kueng and Lane were the first officers on the scene, and the video shows that a store clerk pointed them to where Floyd and two others sat in a parked car nearby.
Lane’s body camera shows that he approached the car and tapped on the window of a blue SUV that Floyd was driving. Floyd initially did not respond but then looked over his shoulder and seemed scared to see Lane, who by then had pulled his gun.
Floyd tried to get out of the car. Lane, his gun drawn, shouted at him to show his hands at least five times. At one point, Floyd appeared to begin sobbing, tapping his head on a steering wheel and holding up his hands.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Floyd responded, according to a transcript of Lane’s body camera. “I didn’t do nothing. . . . What did I do though? What did we do, Mr. Officer?”
As Lane asked him to step out of the car, Floyd apologized several times and repeatedly asked the officer not to shoot him.
“I’m sorry; I’m so sorry. God dang, man. Man, I got shot. I got shot the same way, Mr. Officer, before,” Floyd told Lane. “Mr. Officer, please don’t shoot me. Please, man.”
“I’m not going to shoot you,” Lane replied.