Responsible verdict in Chauvin trial may set precedent for policing: Benjamin Crump, civil rights lawyer

Crump, who represents the Floyd, Wright families, appeared on ABC’s This Week.

April 18, 2021, 3:01 p.m.

• • 7 min read

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If Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, is found guilty of the murder of George Floyd, it could set a new precedent for policing, said Benjamin Crump, a civil rights attorney who represents the families of Floyd and Daunte Wright.

“The result that we and Derek Chauvin are praying for is that he will be held criminally accountable for killing George Floyd because we believe it could set a precedent,” Crump told ABC’s co-host on Sunday Martha Raddatz. “Finally getting America to live up to its promise of freedom and justice for all. That means we all – Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans – all of us.

“And I’m sick of – like many blacks – hearing them kill unarmed blacks. I mean, from the local level to the President of the United States, they say, ‘It’s tragic that Daunte Wright was killed, but looting are unacceptable, “said Crump, who also represented the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Breonna Taylor.

“I want the president and everyone, Martha, killing unarmed black people to be unacceptable,” he continued. “We have to send this message to the police because the whole point is, I was born black and will die black, but the police won’t kill me because I’m black.”

Crump added that action by Congress is needed as the country seeks to address the issue of police violence against non-white Americans.

“We need to pass the George Floyd Justice and Police Act to change the culture and behavior of the police force in America, particularly with regard to marginalized minorities – and black people in particular. Because if a black person is stopped for a traffic violation, it shouldn’t.” lead to a death sentence, “he said.

Outside the chauvinist trial, Crump – on behalf of the Wright family – said earlier this week that Kim Potter, the former Brooklyn Center policeman in Minnesota, resigned after saying she accidentally pulled out her taser instead of her gun on an interaction with Wright, Wright viewed it as “expendable”.

Raddatz looked at the verdict in Chauvin’s trail and asked, “If he is found not guilty – how the nation is preparing for that verdict – what would you say to the people of Minneapolis?”

Crump said the country could no longer tolerate excessive violence.

“I would say once again the American legal system has broken our hearts and we cannot tolerate this excessive use of force, America. We cannot tolerate this inhumanity, America. We cannot tolerate this evil that we are in this video with Derek Chauvin ‘when he held his knee to George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds. And we finally have to have this racist reckoning America because if we don’t, people are going to keep having these emotional protests, “he said said.

In a separate panel on Sunday, following Crump’s interview, Dan Abrams, chief legal analyst of ABC News, and Channa Lloyd, civil rights attorney and managing partner of Cochran law firm, agreed that it was highly unlikely that Chauvin would be acquitted.

“I think those of us who watched this case closely, who saw all of the expert testimony, saw the video, saw the opening speech, and so on, would be stunned if there was a full acquittal where you find 12 jurors who say he was not guilty, “Abrams said.

“In this case, the prosecution came up with a very tight case, they covered a lot of the basics, they were very thorough,” Lloyd said. “I don’t think the defense produced experts who were able to combat the information given by the experts in the state, and in this case I don’t think we’ll see an acquittal.”