Derek Chauvin Indicted For Reportedly Kneeling On Black Teen For 17 Minutes In 2017
Published
Former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin has been indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly kneeling on the neck of a teenager for 17 minutes three years before George Floyd’s death.
Chauvin was found guilty last month of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter relating to the death of Floyd in May 2020, when he preventing Floyd from breathing by kneeling on his neck during an arrest.
The former officer is now accused of using similar force on September 4, 2017, when he allegedly knelt on the neck and back of a then-14-year-old Black boy for 17 minutes.
According to a statement from the US Justice Department, cited by CNN, a two-count indictment charged Chauvin with willfully depriving the Minneapolis teenager of the ‘constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by a police officer’.
The former officer had reportedly been called to the teen’s home with a colleague after his mother reported her two children had assaulted her. The police told the boy he was under arrest before Chauvin struck him several times with a torch and put him in the prone position.
The 14-year-old is said to have called out for his mother and for the officers to stop hurting him, the indictment said, per Insider.
One count alleges that Chauvin ‘held Juvenile by the throat and struck Juvenile 1 multiple times in the head with a flashlight’ without legal justification.
It continues, ‘This offense included the use of a dangerous weapon — a flashlight — and resulted in bodily injury to Juvenile 1.’
The second count claims that the former officer ‘held his knee on the neck and the upper back of the teenager even after the teenager was lying prone, handcuffed, and unresisting, also resulting in bodily injury’.
Chauvin’s attorney, Eric Nelson, has declined to comment on the federal grand jury’s indictment, though representatives for Floyd’s family pointed out that it shows ‘a pattern and practice of behaviour’.
The charge came on the same day Chauvin and three other former officers were indicted on additional charges in the death of Floyd, with a federal grand jury alleging they violated Floyd’s constitutional rights.
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Topics: News, Derek Chauvin, George Floyd, Minneapolis
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