The household of George Floyd has stated it’s contemplating taking authorized motion in opposition to Kanye West after the rapper alleged that the 46-year-old man died from drug abuse.
Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of Floyd’s homicide in Could 2020. He knelt on Floyd’s neck for round 9 minutes whereas the unarmed Black man was handcuffed and mendacity face down on the road, crying “I can’t breathe”.
West (who has legally modified his identify to Ye) made the claims in an look on the Drink Champs podcast on Saturday whereas discussing a brand new documentary by conservative commentator Candace Owens – steadily by West’s facet throughout his latest run of antisemitic and racist feedback – titled The Biggest Lie Ever Offered: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM [Black Lives Matter].
“They hit him with the fentanyl, in the event you look the man’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that,” West stated on the podcast.
Civil rights lawyer Lee Merritt responded to West’s claims on behalf of Floyd’s household.
“Whereas one can not defame the lifeless, the household of #GeorgeFloyd is contemplating go well with for Kanye’s false statements in regards to the method of his dying,” he tweeted on 16 October.
“Claiming Floyd died from fentanyl not the brutality established criminally and civilly undermines and diminishes the Floyd household’s battle.”
Floyd died because of “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating legislation enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression”, in accordance with the ultimate post-mortem findings of Dr Andrew Baker, chief health worker for Hennepin county. Though fentanyl was present in Floyd’s system, it was not sufficient to be thought-about deadly.
Heart specialist Dr Jonathan Wealthy instructed the court docket at Chauvin’s trial: “I can state with a excessive diploma of medical certainty that George Floyd didn’t die from a main cardiac occasion, and he didn’t die from a drug overdose.”
West’s feedback have been extensively condemned by fellow musicians and spiritual leaders.
Elsewhere within the interview, West continued to make antisemitic statements and stated that 4 live shows he had scheduled on the Los Angeles SoFi stadium had been cancelled by the venue house owners after he tweeted that he was “going dying con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE” on 9 October. Twitter eliminated the tweet for violating the platform’s guidelines.
In response, the Los Angeles Holocaust museum invited West to go to “to grasp simply how phrases can incite horrific violence and genocide”. On the podcast, West responded: “I need you to go to Deliberate Parenthood, that’s our holocaust museum.”
After making his remarks about Floyd, West requested the podcast hosts whether or not they would be capable to run the interview, in reference to his latest look on HBO’s The Store, which was not broadcast owing to his use of what host Maverick Carter known as “hate speech and intensely harmful stereotypes”. Segments of an interview with Fox Information host Tucker Carlson have been additionally canned over West spouting racist conspiracy theories.
West wore a hat emblazoned with “2024”, presumably in reference to his intentions to stage a second presidential run after his failed bid in 2020, through which he appeared on solely 12 state ballots and received fewer than 60,000 votes. The marketing campaign reportedly violated fundraising guidelines.
West and Owens have been related since round 2018 when West tweeted “I like the way in which Candace Owens thinks”. A Black writer and commentator, she turned identified for her criticism of Black Lives Matter and her help of Trump. Just lately, the pair debuted a “White Lives Matter” shirt at Paris Vogue Week.
