Floyd family, legal team kneel for 8 minutes 46 seconds outside courthouse

Members of George Floyd’s family and their legal team knelt in front of a Minneapolis courthouse for 8 minutes and 46 seconds ahead of the murder trial for the former city police officer charged with his killing. 

“Today starts a landmark trial that will be a referendum on how far America has come on its quest for equality and justice for all,” Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said outside the courthouse on Monday. “This murder case is not hard, just look at the torture video of George Floyd.” 

Opening statements began in the trial on Monday. Video taken from the scene last summer shows former officer Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis Police Department kneeling on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 36 seconds as he told the officers at the scene he could not breathe and feared for his life. 

Chauvin faces charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and third-degree manslaughter charge and several other officers at the scene that day have been hit with accessory to murder charges. 

Chauvin’s attorneys are expected to argue that Floyd resisted arrest and had drugs in his system when he was being arrested, which they argue could have reasonably led to his death. Floyd’s family on Monday before the trial began warned against personal attacks on the victim.

The trial, which is expected to last several weeks, will gain national attention after the case sparked massive nationwide demonstrations for racial justice and cries from activists to reform police departments around the country. 

“This was not a flash of anger, it became intentional and deliberate, and justice must be intentional and deliberate in this courthouse,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist close to the Floyd case said on Monday.