Former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin pleads not guilty to federal charges
By Omar Jimenez and Brad Parks, CNN
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted in April on state murder charges for killing George Floyd, pleaded not guilty on Thursday to federal charges related to the use of unreasonable force on a 14-year-old in September 2017.
A federal grand jury indicted Chauvin and three other former officers in May for allegedly violating Floyd’s constitutional rights.
Chauvin also was charged in a separate indictment related to an incident in which he allegedly used unreasonable force on a Minneapolis 14-year-old in September 2017, according to the Justice Department.
The first count of that indictment said Chauvin “held the teenager by the throat and struck the teenager multiple times in the head with a flashlight,” the DOJ said in a statement at the time.
A second count said 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.”
Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, ignited nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
Bystander video showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds while the 46-year-old, handcuffed and lying prone in the street, gasped for air, telling the officers, “I can’t breathe.”
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