Piers Morgan rages at lawyer for one of four Minneapolis cops charged with George Floyd’s murder and tells him: ‘I would have said this guy is dying and I’m not going to be part of this’
- Earl Gray slammed down his laptop after arguing innocence of Thomas Lane, 37
- Gray is defending Lane on charge of aiding and abetting second-degree murder
- He claims: ‘There is no race issue here. One is black and the other is Asian’
Piers Morgan has delivered a telling interview with the lawyer of one of the Minnepolis cops who stood by as George Floyd was killed.
The car crash interview saw lawyer Earl Gray slam down his laptop after arguing the innocence of his client Thomas Lane, 37, on Good Morning Britain today.
Mr Gray is defending Lane on a charge of aiding and abetting the second-degree murder of 46-year-old black man George Floyd.
In a widely shared video of Mr Floyd’s death, officer Lane is seen standing by as Mr Floyd is pinned to the floor by his neck under the knee of police officer Derek Chauvin, 44, despite Mr Floyd telling officers he couldn’t breathe.
Host Susanna Reid asked Earl Gray: ‘Why didn’t Thomas Lane step in to stop him [Chauvin]?
To which Mr Gray claimed police hierarchy had stopped the new officer from stepping in to save Floyd.
Mr Gray said: ‘Thomas Lane was on his fourth day of being a police officer. Chauvin had 20 years of being a police officer. A police department is ran like a military service. You have officers you have experienced police officers and then you have rookies.
‘In any event my client said twice shall we roll him over. One time he thought he was suffering, I can’t remember exactly what he said, in delirium. My client was at his feet because [George Floyd] had resisted being handcuffed and had resisted going into the back of the squad car’
Earl Gray claimed police hierarchy had stopped the new officer from stepping in to save Floyd
Piers Morgan (left) and Susanna Reid (middle) asked hard hitting questions to ‘sneering’ Mr Gray over his client Thomas Lane’s actions
Piers Morgan hits Back: ‘I’m sorry but your client must have heard, as we’ve all heard, George Floyd crying out sixteen times in five minutes that he couldn’t breathe.
‘When you hear a human being say he can’t breathe that number of times, why don’t you just say this guy can’t breathe.
‘You know what I would have done, I would have got up and said this guy is dying and i’m not going to be party to it.’
Mr Gray then sarcastically thanks Piers for his ‘hindsight’ and insists Lane was just following orders.
He told Piers: ‘You’re not a police officer. A police officer is trained to follow orders, he was following his belief that they were doing right.’
Former Minneapolis Police Officer Thomas Lane, 37, mugshot after being charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder in the death of George Floyd, 46
Former Minnesota police officer Lane, one of three officers charged with aiding and abetting in the murder of George Floyd, is seen in an artist’s sketch attending a court hearing on Thursday. He has an unconditional bail of $1million or $US750,000 with conditions
Lane is one of four former Minneapolis police officers arrested and charged with the death of George Floyd, pictured, which sparked protests across the world
Susanna then steps in to blow holes in the Mr Gray’s argument, asking why a newly trained officer hadn’t followed the police force’s ‘duty to intervene’ policy.
Susanna said: ‘I know that your argument is that he was a rookie and had only done four shifts, and was up against a man that had done 20 years of service, but underneath that man’s knee was another man who was dying and I think a lot of people think basic humanity would’ve required someone to step in.
‘There is a policy in the police force that is a duty to intervene, saying officers are required to stop or attempt to stop another sworn employee when force is being inappropriately applied or is no longer required. He had a duty to intervene no matter the status of the other officer.
Mr Gray replies: ‘You obviously are very opinionated and biased what you don’t understand is what goes through the head of a police officer on his fourth day.
‘The individual that he arrested originally [Floyd] was on drugs, he resisted being handcuffed, he resisted being in a squad car, while he was on the floor he was resisting, while he was resisting going into the squad car he also said then I can’t breathe claiming he had claustrophobia.
Derek Chauvin, pictured left, is charged with second-degree murder of George Floyd. The other three former officers, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao (pictured from second left to right) have been charged with aiding and abetting Chauvin
Thomas Lane is seen here to the far right holding down George Floyd’s legs during his arrest as the man said he could not breathe. This was on his fourth full day as a police officer
‘He resisted then, he was lying on the ground, he said he can’t breathe, that’s why my client said to [Derek] Chauvin “should we roll him over?” He said that twice. My client did nothing wrong, my client went into the ambulance and tried to revive this guy. He had no intent to murder this man.’
Piers hit back: ‘With respect your client was one of four police officers who held down George Floyd and rendered him unconscious and carried on holding him down for another three minutes.’
Mr Gray replied that his client was ‘down by the feet’ and ‘he didn’t know that’.
He added: ‘There is no race issue here. Two of the four officers, one is black and the other is Asian. Answer that one… you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. You know what i’m going to do? I’m going to bed goodnight.’
Thomas Lane is seen here in CCTV footage during the arrest of George Floyd on Memorial Day
Piers tells Mr Gray: ‘Do you realise that your whole performance here merely tells the world how disgusting even the people representing these people are?’
Mr Gray thanks him for the ‘compliment’ and slams down the laptop, ending the interview.
Co-hosts Piers and Susanna then discuss the ‘disgraceful’ interview.
Piers exclaims: ‘That guy needs another lawyer and that guy should not be practising law. That was one of the most disgraceful interviews I’ve ever seen in my whole career. Disgraceful. “He was only following orders”, we’ve heard that before haven’t we.
‘That’s a guy representing one of those four police officers, smirking his way through, arrogant, dismissive, insulting. “My client did nothing wrong”.’
To which Sussana reminds viewers of the officers’ ‘Duty to Intervene, introduced in 2016’.
Piers ends the segment: ‘Absolute extraordinary interview. That guy’s a lawyer. If you’re one of the Floyd family watching that what would you be thinking. The sneering arrogance, the dismissiveness. “Nah nothing wrong here, he’d been resisting”. Passersby pleads with him he can’t breathe. You think that guy at the back there can’t hear him shout he can’t breathe? He heard him every time. unbelievable.’
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