Things may be getting worse for former police officer and convicted murderer Derek Chauvin. ABC GO reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced that it is looking into charges for a 2017 brutality incident that Chauvin was involved in but not held accountable for.
Like the George Floyd murder, the incident was caught on tape, and prosecutors have had the videos since they began organizing Chauvin’s trial. The Minnesota Police Department (MPD) claimed they are willing to help the Department of Justice with anything the agency needs.
On September 4, 2017, Chauvin allegedly struck a Black teen in the head so hard that he required stitches. The deranged racist then held the boy down with his knee for about 17 minutes while the child complained that his ability to breathe was being restricted.
“Those videos show a far more violent and forceful treatment of this child than Chauvin describes in his report” of the incident, state prosecutor Matthew Frank wrote in a court filing at the time.
However, they failed to charge him for the excessive use of force, and the teen has yet to receive any justice.
Prosecutors in the trial battled defense attorney Eric Nelson on the admission of the 2017 incident into evidence. Judge Peter Cahill sided with the defense and did not allow the prosecutors to introduce this evidence of Chauvin’s penchant for violence.
At the time, Nelson argued that the incidents had no relation to each other because the 14-year-old boy was actively resisting and had assaulted his mother. Further, when a complaint was filed with the MPD, Chauvin was “cleared” by his superiors.
However, standards may be different for the Department of Justice.
The DOJ has stepped in to reopen the investigation of the George Floyd murder. Now, the federal agency is digging deeper into Chauvin’s problematic past. The day after Derek was convicted, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that they are investigating the policing practices of the Minneapolis Police Department.
Garland noted that the probe is civil– not criminal, and is being done to determine if MPD has a pattern of engaging in unconstitutional or unlawful police practices and discriminatory behavior.
The MPD has a history of both poor policing and general behavior ranging from kidnapping to intentionally hitting citizens while in their cruisers. The day after George Floyd’s murder, the department received an influx of excessive force complaints. Most of the complainants were Black. Chauvin alone had 17 complaints in 19 years on the force.
Three other officers are set to be jointly tried for Floyd’s death in August. A spokesperson for the Department of Justice did not wish to comment when approached by ABC.
