Former federal prosecutor Trey Gowdy says he has seen enough from the George Floyd death video to call it murder.
Speaking with Martha MacCallum on Fox News Thursday evening, Gowdy said he didn’t need to “wait on the Feds” to recognize that Floyd’s brutal death was unwarranted and criminal.
“Take the uniform off of that police officer, just have a man with his knee on another man’s neck, there’d already be an arrest,” Gowdy said. “I don’t need to wait on the Feds, this is a violation of Minnesota state law. This is murder. It’s either Murder one, two, or three under Minnesota law, but it’s one of the three. So, I’m happy that the Feds are investigating a civil rights violation, but you can take all the time you want for that, there’s really no reason that this officer has not already been charged with either murder one, two, or three.”
Floyd was arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill and died after officers at the scene pinned Floyd to the ground by his neck.
Gowdy specifically decried the actions of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who can be seen with his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes as Floyd and onlookers pleaded with them to stop. Gowdy noted that, at times in the video, Chauvin had his left hand in his pants pocket, proving that Floyd posed no imminent threat to the arresting officers.
Gowdy said it’s time for a “national conversation” about the way in which police treat black men in the United States.
“If I was a person of color, I’d be wondering how Dylan Roof, who killed nine black people in a church in South Carolina can be arrested without incident, but Mr. Floyd, under suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill, can’t even live through the arrest?” Gowdy said. “It would do us all well to take a step back and try to see the genesis of this outrage.”
