The family of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man whose death in police custody sparked massive protests against systemic racism, filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday against the city and the officers who were involved in his death.
Benjamin Crump, a lawyer representing Floyd’s children and siblings, said their 40-page civil action filed in the District of Minnesota will continue an “important conversation” on the “pandemic of police brutality.”
The civil complaint listed a series of violent arrests made over the years by the Minneapolis Police Department.
“It was the knee of the entire Minneapolis Police Department on the neck of George Floyd that killed him,” Crump told reporters. “The city of Minneapolis has a history of practice and procedure and deliberate indifference when it comes to the treatment of arrestees, especially Black men, that cries out for training and discipline.”
The lawsuit did not specify an amount of money the plaintiffs seek.
Floyd died on May 25 after he was handcuffed and put on the ground by police officers answering a call about a possible phony $20 bill being passed.
Officer Derek Chauvin was videotaped kneeling on the handcuffed Floyd’s neck for over 8 minutes, even as the the man moaned in agony, repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe” and calling out for his late mother.
“Mr. Floyd did not physically resist arrest,” according to the civil complaint. “Mr. Floyd was unarmed and did not at any point physically or verbally threaten the officers, nor did he attempt to flee.”
Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder. The other officers involved in the deadly arrest — Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng — have also been arrested and charged with aiding and abetting murder.
Pathologists hired by the family said officers pressed on Floyd’s neck and body, cutting blood and air flow to his brain and causing him to die by mechanical asphyxia.
Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s lawyer, and Thomas Plunkett, an attorney for Kueng, declined on Wednesday to comment on the lawsuit.
Emails and phone messages seeking comment from Thao, Lane and the city of Minneapolis were not immediately returned on Wednesday.
