Lawyers rejoice.
The Minneapolis City Council has agreed to settle the lawsuit over the death of George Floyd before the verdict has even been reached in the trial of former cop Derek Chauvin who is accused of murdering the man who has achieved martyrdom for the Black Lives Matter cause.
On Friday, the socialists who run what was once a great Midwestern City before they took over voted 13-0 to pay an eye-popping $27 million to Floyd’s family and the lawyers who represent them including Benjamin Crump who has been a fixture in the nation’s most highly visible cases involving race including Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice.
By settling now, the City Council has ensured that even if Chauvin isn’t convicted which is possible, that those with vested interests in the racial outrage industry will make bank.
The settlement includes $500,000 for the George Floyd Memorial in Minneapolis which is near the “autonomous zone” that has been set up by violent militants as a basecamp.
BREAKING: Minneapolis will pay $27 million to settle a lawsuit brought by George Floyd's family, a new record for a police payout in the city. https://t.co/JoeV6SHIdc
— Star Tribune (@StarTribune) March 12, 2021
Via VOA News, “Minneapolis to Pay $27 Million to Settle George Floyd Family Lawsuit”:
The Minneapolis City Council emerged from a closed session to announce the record settlement, which includes $500,000 for the neighborhood where Floyd was arrested.
Floyd family attorney Ben Crump, in a prepared statement, said it was the largest pretrial civil rights settlement ever, and “sends a powerful message that Black lives do matter and police brutality against people of color must end.”
Floyd, who was Black, was declared dead on May 25 after Derek Chauvin, a former officer who is white, pressed his knee against his neck for about nine minutes. Floyd’s death sparked sometimes violent protests in Minneapolis and beyond and led to a national reckoning on racial justice.
“I hope that today will center the voices of the family and anything that they would like to share,” Council President Lisa Bender said. “But I do want to, on behalf of the entire City Council, offer my deepest condolences to the family of George Floyd, his friends and all of our community who are mourning his loss.”
Floyd’s family filed the federal civil rights lawsuit in July against the city, Chauvin and three other fired officers charged in his death. It alleged the officers violated Floyd’s rights when they restrained him, and that the city allowed a culture of excessive force, racism and impunity to flourish in its police force.
Crump hailed the payout, the largest pre-trial settlement ever for sending a message.
This historic $27 million settlement is PROOF that Black lives will no longer be written off as trivial, unimportant, or unworthy of consequences. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/H2LHCkiNVI
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) March 12, 2021
Otherwise, the reaction to the payoff was mixed, with BLM activists weighing in including New York Times columnist Charles Blow, who only last week added the pelt of cartoon skunk Pepe Le Pew to his trophy hall after he accused the popular Loony Tunes character of being a rapist.
Happy the family is compensated, but money isn’t justice. This just punishes the taxpayers. This money doesn’t come from the officers or from the police but from the city’s coffers, some from the very communities that feel oppressed. How is that justice?! https://t.co/wnO95oD8ou
— Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) March 12, 2021
We live in a society that would rather make taxpayers subsidize police murder than make the structural changes that would stop police from killing Black people.
$27 million won't bring George Floyd back. Stop killing us. https://t.co/UJYmBwdXcM
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) March 13, 2021
‘We can’t put a price tag on this man’s life’ https://t.co/1I9ZufPkGc
— The ReidOut (@thereidout) March 13, 2021
We have seen this playbook before.
Race soldiers execute Black person. The police agencies and their funds are protected. The tax payers foot the bill. And the settlement is presented as a form of justice while the race soldier get acquitted.. https://t.co/dnmkp9s2t4
— Tariq Nasheed 🇺🇸 (@tariqnasheed) March 12, 2021
There could be a method to the Minneapolis City Council’s madness.
The public officials who preside over Little Somalia have been determined to defund and dismantle the police and have been thwarted to this point but running the city into the rocks financially would force such cutbacks out of necessity.