George Floyd’s family is weighing legal action against Kanye West after the rapper propelled false claims about the Black man’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police.
The bar for such a suit would be high, the family’s lawyer acknowledged, but he suggested the claims West — who has legally changed his name to Ye — made in a podcast were so egregious that action must be taken. Ye blamed Floyd’s death on fentanyl rather than officers compressing his neck and chest.
“While one cannot defame the dead, the family of #GeorgeFloyd is considering suit for Kanye’s false statements about the manner of his death,” civil rights attorney Lee Merritt tweeted Sunday.
“Claiming Floyd died from fentanyl not the brutality established criminally and civilly undermines & diminishes the Floyd family’s fight,” Merritt said, as many on social media condemned West’s latest offensive remarks.
The backlash to Ye’s comments came as right-wing social media platform Parler announced he was buying the company, days after Instagram and Twitter removed antisemitic posts by the rapper.
Of Floyd’s death, Ye said, “They hit him with the fentanyl. If you look, the guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that,” speaking to the weekly podcast Drink Champs on Saturday, referring to claims he said he saw in a documentary.
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