George Floyd’s family sues Kanye West for $US250m

The rapper suggested the black American was killed not by an officer who knelt on his neck, but an overdose of fentanyl.

Kanye West attends a Paris fashion show this month. Picture: AFP

Lawyers for George Floyd’s family are filing a $US250m ($401m) suit against the rapper Kanye West after he suggested that Minnesota police were not responsible for his death.

West, now known as Ye, referred during a podcast interview released by a conservative commentator suggesting that Floyd, 46, was killed not by an officer who knelt on his neck, but an overdose of fentanyl.

Floyd’s death led to a global movement against racism and police brutality.

West’s remarks contradicted the findings of a coroner, who concluded that Floyd had been murdered and that heart disease and traces of fentanyl were contributing factors to his death. At the trial of Derek Chauvin, the policeman jailed for more than 20 years for the killing, experts said that Floyd died from a lack of oxygen after Chauvin pressed his knee to his neck for eight minutes.

Lawyers for Roxie Washington, the mother of Floyd’s daughter Gianna, 7, accused the rapper of making “blatantly false statements”, while promoting his businesses. They said the family would sue for “harassment, misappropriation, defamation and infliction of emotional distress”.

Roy Gutterman, a Syracuse University professor, said the family might be able to claim that West deliberately inflicted emotional distress on them.

The Times