LAST UPDATE | 29 May 2020
A MINNEAPOLIS POLICE officer has been arrested and charged with murder and manslaughter over the death of George Floyd.
Minnesota’s Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said state investigators arrested Derek Chauvin this afternoon.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said this evening that Chauvin has been charged with murder and manslaughter.
His arrest comes after three days of protests, which escalated in violence as demonstrators torched a police precinct that had been abandoned by officers.
A video in which officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, kneels on Floyd’s neck until he slowly stops talking and moving later went viral. The demonstrations began on Tuesday after Floyd died the previous day.
Chauvin, whose driveway was splattered with red paint and the graffiti “murderer”, has not spoken publicly since Floyd’s death. He and the three other officers involved in Floyd’s arrest were fired on Tuesday.
Minneapolis City Council records showed that Chauvin moonlighted as a bouncer at a downtown Latin nightclub and was among a group of six officers who opened fire on a stabbing suspect in 2006 after a chase that ended when the suspect pointed a sawn-off shotgun at them.
The suspect, Wayne Reyes, was hit multiple times and died, and a grand jury decided the use of force was justified.
Two years later, Chauvin shot Ira Latrell Toles as he was responding to a domestic dispute.
Online city records also showed that 17 complaints have been filed against Chauvin during his 19-year service.
Sixteen complaints were closed with no discipline, and the remaining complaint generated two letters of reprimand, with one apparently related to the use of a squad car dashboard camera.
The records do not include any details on the substance of the complaints.
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