Floyd family lawyer hopeful charges against officer will be upgraded to first-degree murder

The lawyer representing the family of George Floyd said he is hopeful the charges against the former Minneapolis officer seen kneeling on Floyd’s neck while Floyd said that he could not breathe  will be upgraded to first-degree murder. 

Benjamin Crump said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that former officer Derek Chauvin likely knew Floyd ahead of the incident, which resulted in Floyd’s death. 

“His family has been notified by the owner of a club that Derek Chauvin was an off-duty police officer while George Floyd was a security guard. And so they had to overlap,” Crump said. 

“And so that is going to be an interesting aspect to this case and hopefully upgrading these charges to first-degree murder because we believe he knew who George Floyd was,” the attorney added. 

Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter after he was fired from the Minneapolis police department. Three other officers who were fired have not been charged. 

“We don’t understand how that is not first-degree murder. We don’t understand how all these officers have not been arrested,” Crump said on Sunday. 

Asked if there is evidence that the death was “premeditated,” Crump said there was “intent,” citing the number of minutes Chauvin was kneeling on Floyd’s neck. 

“I’ve talked with his family ad nauseam because you can imagine after seeing the police have his knee on his neck, not for one minute, not for two minutes, not for three minutes, but for over eight minutes while George pleaded, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,’ [and] called for his mother,” Crump said. 

“We now have the audio from the police body cam and we hear where one officer says, ‘He doesn’t have a pulse, maybe we should turn him on his side.’ But yet, Officer Chauvin says, ‘No, we’re going to keep him in this position.’ That’s intent,” Crump said. 

He added that Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for almost three minutes after Floyd was unconscious.