Run along now.
DOJ reopens investigation into killing of George Floyd: report
A federal grand jury has been empaneled to consider charges against Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on George Floyd's neck.
Biba Adams
February 24, 2021
https://thegrio.com/2021/02/24/chauvin-federal-grand-jury/
The Justice Department is investigating the actions of former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin.
According to a new report from The New York Times, a grand jury has been empaneled to consider federal charges against Chauvin, who, along with three other former Minneapolis officers, has trials pending in Minnesota — his in March, for second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
The federal investigation will automatically trigger if Chauvin is acquitted or if there is a mistrial in the state trial. He could be charged with violating George Floyd’s civil rights.
Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes on May 25, 2020, resulting in his death; Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao helped him restrain the prone Floyd and kept onlookers distanced. The incident, which was captured on bystanders’ video, sparked a summer of global protests against U.S. police violence.
The federal charge of violating a person’s civil rights is not based on race, but the idea that Chauvin “willfully” violated Floyd’s constitutional rights, particularly the right to due process. According to the report, the federal grand jury is focused particularly on Chauvin’s actions. He was the senior officer on site.
NYT article link as well : With New Grand Jury, Justice Department Revives Investigation Into Death of George Floyd
As the state murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former officer charged in the death of George Floyd, approaches, the federal government has accelerated its own investigation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/us/george-floyd-death-investigation-doj.html
More from NYT article:
"Three days after Mr. Floyd died, Erica MacDonald, the outgoing U.S. attorney in Minnesota, said that her office and the Justice Department’s civil rights division would investigate whether the officers violated federal law, calling the case a “top priority.”
But the attorney general at the time, William P. Barr, said at a news conference that “as a matter of comity,” the department “typically lets the state go forward with its proceedings first,” a statement that put to rest the possibility that a charging decision would come before the election.
Nevertheless, Mr. Barr made clear that the video was harrowing. “When you watch it, and imagine that one of your own loved ones was being treated like that, and begging for their lives, it is impossible for any normal human being not to be struck in the heart with horror,” he said.
As The New York Times recently reported, three days after Mr. Floyd died on May 25, Mr. Chauvin was ready to plead guilty to third-degree murder and go to prison for more than a decade. But the offer fell apart after Mr. Barr, at the last minute, rejected the deal, which had been contingent on the Justice Department’s agreement not to bring additional federal charges in the future. Last summer, a federal grand jury in Minneapolis, which has since expired, began hearing evidence and testimony about Mr. Floyd’s death.
The department has previously opened up investigations into several high-profile assaults and killings of Black people by police officers — including the killings of Eric Garner on Staten Island, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. — but it has rarely charged officers in those cases.
Former Justice Department officials say that is in part because the department has only one charge it can bring in these cases — that in the course of policing, an officer willfully deprived someone of his or her civil rights — and that the charge is difficult to prove.
While it is easier to show that an officer’s use of force deprived someone of his or her civil rights, determining whether it was “willful” has been a challenge, said Jonathan M. Smith, a former official in the Justice Department’s civil rights division who now serves as executive director of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.
“Willfulness is the highest intent standard under criminal law — that the person set out to act with the purpose of depriving someone of their rights,” Mr. Smith said. “You need to prove that the law enforcement officer actually knew that he was going to violate someone’s rights and acted with that purpose in mind. It’s akin to proving first-degree murder.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/us/george-floyd-death-investigation-doj.html
No questions from the jury per Fox.