Lawyers seek an amount to be determined by a jury, hope it will be so costly as to stop future killings by police.
George Floyd’s family has filed a lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis and the four police officers charged in his death, alleging the officers violated Floyd’s rights when they restrained him and the city allowed a culture of excessive force, racism and impunity to flourish in its police force.
The lawsuit seeks compensatory and special damages in an amount to be determined by a jury. The complaint also asks for a receiver to be appointed to ensure the city properly trains and supervises its police officers in the future.
« We seek to set a precedence to make it financially prohibitive that the police won’t wrongfully kill marginalised people, especially Black people in the future, » lawyer Benjamin Crump said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit.
The complaint, emailed to Al Jazeera by Crump’s office, alleges the Minneapolis Police Department is at fault for Floyd’s death, due to its ratification of « the culture of systemic racism and disparate treatment of the Black Community », vague and « unconstitutional » use of force policies and « Killology » training that « teaches officers to consider every person and every situation as a potential deadly threat and to kill ‘less hesitantly' ».
