Derek Chauvin taken into custody after George Floyd death

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Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been charged with George Floyd’s murder as it’s revealed the disgraced cop had knelt on his neck for nearly three minutes after he lost consciousness.  

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced Chauvin was taken into custody by state investigators on Friday afternoon and was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter following nationwide protests and riots demanding the white officer’s arrest. 

The charges come a day after prosecutors had warned there was ‘evidence that did not support criminal charges’ in the case, saying they needed to prove Chauvin had used ‘excessive’ force on Floyd. 

A criminal complaint on Friday shed light on the moments leading up to Floyd’s death, revealing he was ‘non-responsive’ for almost three minutes before Chavin released him from under his knee.

‘The defendant had his knee on Mr Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds in total. Two minutes and 53 seconds of this was after Mr Floyd was non-responsive,’ the report states.

It notes police officers are trained that this amount of time of restraint on a suspect in that position is in ‘inherently dangerous.’ 

However, a preliminary autopsy did not find evidence of ‘traumatic asphyxia or strangulation’ and found Floyd may have died from being restrained as well as from underlying health conditions.

Freeman on Friday highlighted the ‘extraordinary speed’ in charging the case just four days after Floyd died, but also defended himself against questions about why it did not happen sooner. 

As for the other three officers who were fired alongside Chauvin over Floyd’s death – J Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao – Freeman said the investigation is ongoing and prosecutors chose to focus on the ‘most dangerous perpetrator’. 

The criminal complaint details the events leading up to Floyd’s death and lays out the charges that have finally been brought against Chauvin following four days of bubbling anger that the suspected murderer could walk free. 

It reveals that Floyd had stopped struggling under the grip of the officers for more than a minute before he then stopped speaking and breathing. 

It was then another two minutes later that Chauvin finally moved his knee from Floyd’s neck.

At one point, when Floyd was still talking and breathing, one of the other officers suggested moving Floyd into a different position but Chauvin refused, telling them they were ‘staying put’, the complaint states.  

It also says that after Floyd passed out, one of the officers checked and found no pulse, but still none of the three officers holding him down – Chauvin, Lane and Kueng – moved from their positions pinning him to the floor – or began giving him medical assistance.  

The murder charge states that Chauvin caused Floyd’s death ‘by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life’.   

Chauvin also faces a second degree manslaughter charge citing that his ‘culpable negligence’ led to Floyd’s death.

The preliminary results of the autopsy found ‘no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation’ and that Floyd had underlying health conditions including ‘coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease’.

It concludes that Floyd died from the ‘combined effects’ of him ‘being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system’.

Chauvin faces up to 35 years in prison if convicted – a 25 year maximum sentence for murder and a 10 year maximum sentence for manslaughter. 

Calls are now mounting for the other three officers to be charged over Floyd’s death, with protesters in Minneapolis taking to the streets chanting ‘One down, three to go’ and ‘all four got to go’ following the news.   

In widely circulated footage, Floyd was seen on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back as Chauvin pinned him to the pavement until he lost consciousness and later died.    

Floyd family attorney Ben Crump, who was among the first to call for criminal charges to be laid against Chauvin in the wake of Floyd’s death, said the move is ‘a welcome but overdue step on the road to justice’ and demanded he be tried for murder in the first degree. 

‘We expected a first-degree murder charge. We want a first-degree murder charge. And we want to see the other officers arrested,’ Crump said in a statement. 

‘We call on authorities to revise the charges to reflect the true culpability of this officer. The pain that the black community feels over this murder and what it reflects about the treatment of black people in America is raw and is spilling out onto streets across America.

‘While this is a right and necessary step, we need the City of Minneapolis – and cities across the country – to fix the policies and training deficiencies that permitted this unlawful killing – and so many others – to occur.’

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who had publicly called for Chauvin’s arrest earlier this week, called the decision to charge him an ‘essential first step.’ 

‘For our black community who have, for centuries, been forced to endure injustice in a world simply unwilling to correct or acknowledge it: I know that whatever hope you feel today is tempered with skepticism and a righteous outrage,’ Frey added.  

US Attorney General William Barr meanwhile said he is ‘confident justice will be served’, calling the videos of Floyd’s death ‘harrowing to watch and deeply disturbing.’

The Justice Department and FBI are investigating whether federal civil rights laws were broken.

The charges come after three days of riots and protests that erupted across Minneapolis – and several states – demanding justice for 46-year-old Floyd that have left the city in ruins and led the state of Minnesota to take over the response. 

Protesters have been running rampant for the past three nights in a show of outrage that has seen a suspected looter shot dead in the street, a Minneapolis police precinct stormed and set alight, and the city up in flames as businesses and stores were looted and torched. 

Amid fears that the chaos is entering a fourth night, the twin cities of Minnesota imposed curfews starting at 8p.m. tonight in efforts to bring the rioting and destruction under control. 

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey announced a nighttime curfew barring anyone other than essential workers and public safety personnel from being in public places across the city from 8p.m. through to 6 a.m. local time and lasting for the weekend. 

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter followed suit with a matching citywide curfew as he declared a state of emergency for the city, after 170 businesses were destroyed when protests turned violent Thursday night. 

The city of Roseville – which shares borders with both of the twin cities – followed with its own emergency declaration and curfew.   

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Friday admitted an ‘abject failure’ by law enforcement in trying to control crowds Thursday night.  

On Thursday, as tensions in the city boiled all day, the National Guard started putting in motion plans to intervene to help local law enforcement agencies that were struggling to cope with the mounting threat. 

But they weren’t given the order to act quickly enough, according to officials who spoke at a press conference on Friday, and it led to a night of chaos that climaxed with the Third Police Precinct being set on fire.  

President Trump had threatened to ‘assume control’ of Minneapolis with military intervention, warning ‘thugs’ ‘when the looting starts the shooting starts’, in a tweet that was flagged by Twitter for ‘glorifying violence.’

Trump tried to clarify his comments following Chauvin’s arrest in another tweet saying he intended to call for peace on the streets to avoid further deaths. 

‘Looting leads to shooting, and that’s why a man was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday night – or look at what just happened in Louisville with 7 people shot. I don’t want this to happen, and that’s what the expression put out last night means…. 

‘It was spoken as a fact, not as a statement. It’s very simple, nobody should have any problem with this other than the haters, and those looking to cause trouble on social media. Honor the memory of George Floyd!’

The message followed an earlier tweet in which Trump urged to ‘REVOKE 230!’ after signing an executive order Thursday seeking to strip social media giants of their legal protections, potentially exposing them to a flood of lawsuits. 

Twitter would flagged the president’s incendiary tweet hours after he announced the order.   

Walz told reporters earlier that Trump’s tweets were ‘not helpful’. 

‘I did speak to the President. At that point in time, it was in the process where I said we were going to assume control of this and it was unnecessary,’ he said. 

Governor Walz said the state would take over the response and asked citizens to show respect and dignity to those who are suffering.

‘Minneapolis and St. Paul are on fire. The fire is still smoldering in our streets. The ashes are symbolic of decades and generations of pain, of anguish unheard,’ Walz said, adding. ‘Now generations of pain is manifesting itself in front of the world – and the world is watching.’

The governor cited a call he received from a state senator who described her district ‘on fire, no police, no firefighters, no social control, constituents locked in houses wondering what they were going to do. That is an abject failure that cannot happen.’  

‘We have to restore order…before we turn back to where we should be spending our energy – making sure that justice is served,’ he said. 

‘We cannot have the looting and the recklessness that went on [last night].’ 

His comments came the morning after protesters torched a police station that officers abandoned during a third night of violence. 

Livestream video showed protesters entering the building, where intentionally set fires activated smoke alarms and sprinklers. 

The governor faced tough questions after National Guard leader Major Gen. Jon Jensen blamed a lack of clarity about the Guard´s mission for a slow response. 

Walz said the state was in a supporting role and that it was up to city leaders to run the situation. 

Walz said it became apparent as the 3rd Precinct was lost that the state had to step in, which happened at 12:05 a.m. Requests from the cities for resources ‘never came,’ he said.

‘You will not see that tonight, there will be no lack of leadership,’ Walz said 

On Friday morning, nearly every building in the shopping district around the abandoned police station had been vandalized, burned or looted. 

National Guard members were in the area, with several of them lined up, keeping people away from the police station.

Dozens of volunteers swept up broken glass in the street, doing what they could to help.

Dozens of fires were also set in nearby St. Paul, where nearly 200 businesses were damaged or looted. 

Protests spread across the US fueled by outrage over Floyd’s death, and years of violence against African Americans at the hands of police. 

Demonstrators clashed with officers in New York and blocked traffic in Columbus, Ohio, and Denver. 

In Southern California, nine people were arrested after rocks were thrown at businesses, vehicles and officers during a protest in Fontana where about 100 people moved up and down a thoroughfare and blocked traffic. 

Police said an unlawful assembly was declared and the crowd was ordered to disperse but some persisted.  

Elsewhere in the region, demonstrators gathered outside Los Angeles police headquarters but there was no repeat of Wednesday evening’s action in which protesters blocked freeways and attacked two Highway Patrol cruisers.

Chaos also spread over in New Mexico where four people in Albuquerque were taken into custody near a protest after gunshots were fired from a vehicle. There were no reports of injuries from the gunshots and it wasn’t clear whether that incident was related to the protest. 

Albuquerque police used a helicopter and tear gas to disperse a crowd of people after several police cars had windows broken out during an confrontation with ‘an angry mob.’ Department spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said no injuries were reported. 

In New York City, NYPD officers were seen brawling on the ground with protesters as at least 70 people were arrested in the Big Apple. 

Protesters in Ohio smashed the windows of the statehouse in downtown Columbus and raided the building and demonstrators damaged a police cruiser in downtown Los Angeles. 

Over in Kentucky, seven people were shot in downtown Louisville during a protest demanding justice for black woman Breonna Taylor who was shot dead by cops back in March, as the Floyd case reignited tensions between cops and the African-American community.   

President Trump waded in on the escalating violence in Minneapolis in the early hours of Friday as he warned he would step in and take over if officials fail to bring the rioting under control. 

He blasted the ‘Radical Left Mayor’ Frey saying he needs to ‘get his act together’ while slamming protesters for ‘dishonoring the memory’ of Floyd and warning ‘when the looting starts, the shooting starts’.

‘I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis. A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right…..,’ the president tweeted.  

‘These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!’

Speaking in the early hours of this morning, Mayor Frey fired back at the president and said: ‘Donald Trump knows nothing about the strength of Minneapolis.’

‘Weakness is refusing to take responsibility for your own actions. Weakness is pointing your finger at someone else during a time of crisis,’ he said.  

‘Is this a difficult time period? Yes, but you’d better be damn sure that we’re going to get through this.’

Frey said he understood the ‘pain and anger right now in our city’, but added that ‘what we have seen over the last several hours and the past couple of nights in terms of looting is unacceptable’. 

The mayor revealed it was him who had decided to evacuate the Third Precinct after determining that there were ‘imminent threats to both officers and public’. 

‘The symbolism of a building cannot outweigh the importance of life, of our officers or the public. We could not risk serious injury to anyone,’ he said. ‘Brick and mortar is not as important as life.’ 

Minneapolis city officials issued a warning for protesters and residents to flee the scene of the Third Police Precinct as gas lines were cut because ‘other explosive materials are in the building’. 

‘If you are near the building, for your safety, PLEASE RETREAT in the event the building explodes,’ the city government wrote in a Twitter update shortly before midnight.  

Protesters broke into the police precinct at around 10pm, smashing up windows and setting fires inside. 

As flames engulfed the building, protesters gathered out the front chanting ‘I can’t breathe’ – some of the last words Floyd said before he died. 

Minneapolis Police released a statement saying that officers had fled the scene: ‘In the interest of the safety of our personnel, the Minneapolis Police Department evacuated the 3rd Precinct of its staff. Protesters forcibly entered the building and have ignited several fires.’ 

EXCLUSIVE: Pageant-winner wife of white cop accused of killing George Floyd during forgery arrest was charged for writing a bad $42 check – and raved about her husband in resurfaced interview that ‘under all that uniform, he’s just a softie’  

The wife of the white police officer who was seen kneeling on George Floyd’s neck during a fatal forgery arrest had previously been charged herself for writing a bad check, DailyMail.com can disclose. 

DailyMail.com has learned Chauvin’s wife Kellie, a former Mrs. Minnesota America winner, was charged with writing a bad $42 check in February 2005.

And despite multiple letters sent to her home about the bad check, she hadn’t paid the owed money by July of that year, leading to a criminal complaint being filed against her.

Kellie, who at the time was married to her late ex-husband Kujay Xiong, eventually paid the money and the case was dismissed. 

Kellie had raved about her husband in an interview from 2018, telling the Pioneer Press: ‘Under all that uniform, he’s just a softie.’

Kellie gave the interview as part of a press push for her bid for beauty contest Mrs. Minnesota America 2018.

She won the contest in October that year and went to Las Vegas in 2019 to compete for the national round of the beauty pageant.

Chauvin met his future wife when he brought a suspect in for a health check before an arrest, returning to the hospital shortly after their initial meeting to ask her out.

Kellie had worked as a radiologist at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, which is the same hospital where Floyd was pronounced dead.

She told the outlet: ‘He’s such a gentleman. He still opens the door for me, still puts my coat on for me. After my divorce, I had a list of must-haves if I were ever to be in a relationship, and he fit all of them.’

The former radiologist, who now works as a realtor with Re/Max Results, told the paper she fled Laos with her family as a child and came to America as a refugee.

She said she had two children, including a son, George Xiong, with her first husband, who is now dead. The realtor married Chauvin around 2010.

On Thursday evening it was revealed Floyd had actually worked with Chauvin as security guards at the El Nuevo Rodeo club, the cub owner confirmed.

‘Chauvin was our off-duty police for almost the entirety of the 17 years that we were open,’ Maya Santamaria told KSTP-TV.

Santamaria said that she is not sure if the two men knew each other since there were some two dozen security guards, including off-duty officers, working at her club on any given night.

But she revealed there were occasions when they would have been working at the same event. 

‘They were working together at the same time, it’s just that Chauvin worked outside and the security guards were inside.’

According to Santamaria, Chauvin had a tendency to flash his temper and overreact to situations.

‘He sometimes had a real short fuse and he seemed afraid,’ she said.

‘When there was an altercation he always resorted to pulling out his mace and pepper spraying everybody right away, even if I felt it was unwarranted.’  

The outcry has now reached his front door, as angry protesters drew in chalk on the road and sidewalk outside the couple’s $260,000 home in Oakdale: ‘A murderer lives here’.