Omar: Derek Chauvin Killing George Floyd Was a ‘Lynching’
'Many of us saw that video and witnessed a lynching take place'
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Progressive Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar weighed in on the former Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin's guilty verdict for the killing of George Floyd.
During an interview on “CNN Newsroom,” Omar described the killing of Floyd as “lynching.”
She also asked “how we move forward as a society,” when nearly half of Republicans disagree with Chauvin's guilty verdict, according to a poll.
“[T]here has been, you know, so many people who have been spinning what happened to George Floyd and what the ultimate cause of his death was."
"We now know that it was murder,” Omar outlined.
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“And you know, we didn’t need to be told by the jury with that guilty verdict," Omar added.
"Many of us saw that video and witnessed a lynching take place."
"You know, throughout the summer and up to the court hearing, we all thought it was eight minutes and 46 seconds, and we ultimately know that it was more than nine minutes."
"And I don’t really know how we move forward as a society where there is a particular segment that believes that that is a justifiable thing for a police officer to do and that they should not be held accountable.”
Omar then said the United States has a history of getting entertainment out of “public lynchings.”
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“It shouldn’t be that surprising that there are still segments in our society that believe it is justifiable for a black man to be lynched,” she advised.
“But it’s going to be important for us to confront that reality, to confront our past history, and to find ways to move forward as a society.”
Last week, Chauvin was taken to maximum security prison and placed on suicide watch.
He was transferred to Oak Park Heights, Minnesota's only maximum-security prison, according to The Daily Mail.
Chauvin faces a minimum sentence of 12.5 years and a maximum of 40 years if he serves terms for each charge concurrently.
The news comes as a new investigation was launched into the medical examiner who testified that Chauvin did not kill Floyd.
Dr. David Fowler, Maryland's chief medical examiner from 2002 to 2019, will have 17 years' worth of his in-custody death reports independently reviewed after his testimony.
The doctor said the issue was due to underlying heart disease, contradicting several experts who said Floyd had died due to a lack of oxygen.
