George Clooney has been outspoken about George Floyd’s death, penning an op-ed last June where he called racism in the U.S. “our pandemic.”
As ex-cop Derek Chauvin’s trial concludes its second week, Clooney has offered some opinions to the Floyd family’s attorney Benjamin Crump. The actor emailed him to lament Chauvin’s lawyers’ argument that drugs—not Chauvin pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for almost 10 minutes—were the reason why Floyd died last May.
In an appearance on The View at roughly the 7:50 mark in the clip above, Crump shared Clooney’s thoughts from the email, which is not the first one he’s received from the two-time Oscar-winner, whom he called “very engaged in these social matters.”
“He says, ‘Attorney Crump, you should tell them if Derek Chauvin feels so confident in that, he should volunteer during his case to get down on the floor in that courtroom and let somebody come and put their knee on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds and be able to see if he can survive,’” Crump recounted. Clooney’s rep verified the email to Entertainment Tonight.
After relaying that message, Crump continued, “The experts will opine during this case that the average human being can go without oxygen from 30 seconds to 90 seconds—where George Floyd went without oxygen for over 429 seconds, and that’s why it was intentional what this officer did. And I believe in my heart...that he will be held criminally liable and it will hopefully set a new precedent in America.”
Clooney published his op-ed in the Daily Beast in the beginning of June 2020 as Black Lives Matter protests swept the nation. “It infects all of us, and in 400 years we’ve yet to find a vaccine,” Clooney wrote. “It seems we’ve stopped even looking for one and we just try to treat the wound on an individual basis.”
Chauvin has pleaded not guilty to second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter charges in the death of Floyd.
