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The city of Minneapolis has agreed to pay George Floyd’s family $ 27 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed last July.
Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to approve the settlement at a meeting Friday midway through the first week of jury selection in the ongoing criminal trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis cop accused of killing Floyd last May.
As part of the settlement agreement, $ 500,000 is to be used “for the benefit of the community” around 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, the site of Floyd’s death which is now widely known as of George Floyd Square.
“No amount of money will ever be able to cope with the intense pain or trauma his death caused to George Floyd’s family or to the people of our town,” City Council President Lisa Bender said after the vote . “Minneapolis was fundamentally changed during this era of racial calculation.”
Lawyers for Floyd’s family said Friday it was the “largest pre-trial settlement in a civil rights wrongful death case in US history.”
“The horrific death of George Floyd, witnessed by millions of people around the world, triggered a deep and undeniable desire for justice and change,” Benjamin Crump, one of the attorneys, said in a statement. a wrongful death case would never be for the life of a black man sends a powerful message that black lives matter and police brutality against people of color must end, ”he said.
Floyd’s brother Rodney Floyd said the deal was a “necessary step” for the family to secure a shutdown.
“George’s legacy for those who loved him will always be his spirit of optimism that things can get better, and we hope this deal will do just that – make things better in Minneapolis a bit. and shed light on communities across the country, ”Rodney Floyd said in a statement.
His sister, Bridgett Floyd, founder of the George Floyd Memorial Foundation, said: “Although our hearts are broken, we are comforted to know that even in death, George Floyd showed the world how to live.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the settlement with Floyd’s family “reflects a shared commitment to advancing racial justice.”
Friday afternoon, six jurors were selected. Chauvin’s criminal trial began on Monday amid heightened security in the city. He was charged with second degree murder, second degree manslaughter and third degree murder.
Lawyers for Floyd’s family have said they are also waiting “for justice to be done in the criminal courts.”
Last July, Floyd’s family filed a civil action alleging that Chauvin and the three other officers involved in Floyd’s death violated his constitutional rights by using “an unwarranted, excessive, unlawful and lethal use of force.”
The lawsuit also accused the Minneapolis Police Department and the city of acting with “willful indifference” in tolerating unconstitutional police practices, which were the “driving force behind George’s death.”
Any public information about the case, including the settlement agreement, could be detrimental to the defense, Mitchell Hamline School of Law professor Ted Sampsell-Jones told BuzzFeed News ahead of Friday’s announcement.
However, he believed that the civil settlement would not affect the criminal trial. It wouldn’t be admissible evidence, so the jury couldn’t hear everything, Sampsell-Jones said.
“Of course with this trial there is a ton of inadmissible evidence that has been released to the media,” he said. “We just have to hope that the jury will follow the law, ignore what it reads in the press, and decide the case based on the evidence presented at trial.”
In 2019, Minneapolis agreed to a $ 20 million settlement with the family of Justine Ruszczyk Damond who was shot and killed by former Minneapolis officer Mohamed Noor, a Somali American convicted of third degree murder and manslaughter. in the second degree.
Floyd’s civil lawsuit said that while the city’s settlement with Damond’s family was “billed as transformational, it has had no significant impact on the way the MPD conducts its business.”
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