George Floyd’s family settles for $27 million
The family of George Floyd, the Black man whose death set off a wave of protests after a video showed a white police officer kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes last May, has settled a lawsuit against Minneapolis for $27 million, city officials said on Friday.
The City Council voted unanimously to approve the settlement, and a spokeswoman for the city said Mayor Jacob Frey would sign the measure.
The settlement was among the largest in a case of police misconduct, and was announced as Derek Chauvin, the former officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck, sat less than a mile away in a courtroom as jurors were being chosen for his trial. He has been charged with seconddegree murder, thirddegree murder and seconddegree manslaughter.
“This agreement is a necessary step for all of us to begin to get some closure,” Rodney Floyd, one of George Floyd’s brothers, said of the settlement. “George’s legacy for those who loved him will always be his spirit of optimism that things can get better, and we hope this agreement does just that — that it makes things a little better in Minneapolis and holds up a light for communities around the country.”
Ben Crump, the civil rights lawyer who is among those representing Floyd’s family, said the settlement was the largest reached before trial in a civil rights wrongful death lawsuit. And that it came in a lawsuit over the death of a Black man, he said, “sends a powerful message that Black lives do matter and police brutality against people of color must end.”
The settlement follows several other large payments from cities after highprofile police killings, including a $12 million payout in September from Louisville, Ky., after officers fatally shot Breonna Taylor, a Black woman, in her apartment last March.
Floyd’s family had sued the city of Minneapolis in July, saying that the police had violated his rights and failed to properly train its officers or fire those who violated department policies.
The $27 million includes a $500,000 donation to the community around the intersection of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue — the corner where the police had confronted Floyd over a convenience store clerk’s claim that he had tried to use a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes, and where a bystander captured the arrest on a video that brought worldwide attention to Floyd's death.