Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) said on The View that seeing the suspects in George Floyd‘s killing convicted “will not be easy.” Harris, the former attorney general of the state of California, explained that while the evidence surrounding Floyd’s death “without any question supports the charges,” the fact of the matter is that juries tend to trust police officers. Floyd’s suspected killer is Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer fired after video showed him kneeling on the unarmed black man’s neck for nine minutes as he struggled to breathe. He was charged with second degree and third degree murder, as well as manslaughter.
Sen. @KamalaHarris tells us “the evidence surrounding George Floyd’s death I think without any question support the charges.”
“There is no denying that this officer and those who were his accomplices should pay a real consequence and accountability.” https://t.co/mjKRxEI2Yb pic.twitter.com/Q1R6SpS0bO
— The View (@TheView) June 8, 2020
“It is still the case that jurors are inclined to to trust — because that’s part of the social contract — to trust police officers and and that has been part of the difficulty that so many prosecutors have had when they brought these cases,” Harris said on the June 8 episode of The View. “But there’s no denying that this, this officer and those who were his accomplices should pay attention real consequences and accountability for what they’ve done.” The three other officers present while Floyd continuously begged for air, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng, were all arrested and charged with aiding and abetting second degree murder.
Harris, a former 2020 presidential candidate, said that she doesn’t “think there is any question that [Floyd] did not die of natural causes. He died while this police officer who had been invested with a badge and a gun by the people, used the power he was given by the people, to have his knee on a human being’s neck.” Harris’ appearance on The View comes the same day that Chauvin made his first appearance in court.
The other three officers are due in court on June 26. “About nine days ago, the world watched Floyd utter his last words, ‘I can’t breathe,’ as he pleaded for his life. The world heard Floyd call out for his mama and cry out, ‘Don’t kill me,'” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said on June 3. “The very fact that we have filed these charges means that we believe in them.”