Minneapolis to pay George Floyd’s family US$27 million to settle civil lawsuit
- The amount is the largest pretrial settlement for a wrongful-death lawsuit in US history, says the family’s lawyer Benjamin Crump
- Jury selection continues in the trial of ex-policeman Derek Chauvin, who was seen kneeling on the black man’s neck in a video that sparked US-wide protests
The city of Minneapolis on Friday agreed to pay a US$27 million to settle a lawsuit by the family of George Floyd over his death in police custody, a case that stirred national protests over racial injustice and police brutality.
Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died in May as Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Floyd’s dying pleas for help were captured on widely viewed bystander video, sparking one of the largest protest movements ever seen in the United States.
Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for the Floyd family, said the agreement was the largest pre-trial settlement of a wrongful-death lawsuit in US history.
The size signifies that a black person’s death at the hands of police “will no longer be written off as trivial, unimportant or unworthy of consequences,” Crump said at a news conference where he was joined by Floyd’s relatives, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other officials.
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Anti-racism and police brutality protests sparked by death of George Floyd continue around the globe
Floyd’s family was “pleased that this part of our tragic journey to justice for my brother George is resolved,” his sister Bridgett Floyd said in a statement.
