The View from the Ground: George Floyd Protests

A new video shows the LEO who were involved in the death of George Floyd in an incident a few weeks before the death of George Floyd where they arrested and detained the wrong person.
https://www.startribune.com/video-w...ers-roughly-detained-the-wrong-man/600018251/

Video: Weeks before pinning George Floyd, three of the same officers roughly detained the wrong man
The video from May 3, 2020, bears striking similarities to footage showing three of the same officers — Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng — aggressively detaining Floyd.
Three weeks before he planted his knee on George Floyd's neck, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin responded to a report of a woman being held hostage by armed men in a South Side apartment.

Along with officers Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Luis Realivasquez, Chauvin marched into the building as a Black man named Adrian Drakeford walked out. Drakeford was carrying an object the officers later said they thought to be a knife. Without a word, they tackled him to the ground outside the apartment building.

His brother Lee Drakeford started recording with his cellphone as he and Adrian's girlfriend, Kamaria Layton, pleaded that the officers were making a mistake.

"He didn't do nothing!" cried Layton.

Chauvin watched calmly and silently, tapping an object against his leg, as Kueng and Lane worked the handcuffs onto Adrian's wrists. Realivasquez eyed the crowd starting to amass and pulled a can of chemical irritant from his utility belt.

"Back up!" he ordered, shaking the can.

The video from May 3, 2020, obtained by the Star Tribune, bears striking similarities to footage showing three of the same officers — Chauvin, Lane and Kueng — aggressively detaining Floyd. As the officers handcuffed Adrian, bystanders begged them to show mercy. As with Floyd, the officers ignored the pleas. A few weeks later, Chauvin, Lane and Kueng would be fired and criminally charged in Floyd's death, bringing an abrupt end to Chauvin's history of rough encounters with civilians.

Adrian Drakeford was no hostage taker. The 27-year-old had no connection to the 911 call, other than living across the hall from where the woman said she was being held.

The policemen never found the 911 caller or determined whether she was still in danger. Instead, they detained Adrian and arrested one of his brothers, Terrance, who arrived on the scene and protested their treatment of Adrian. Lee — the one recording — ran away when they tried to detain him, too.

Adrian was released with no charges. Terrance was charged with obstructing the legal process. After reviewing the case, the Minneapolis City Attorney dropped the misdemeanor "in the interest of justice."

"It's not the style of policing you want to see any law enforcement practice," said Andrew Gordon, deputy director for community legal services at Minneapolis nonprofit Legal Rights Center, who represented Terrance. "Their interest is not necessarily about investigating a crime. … Their interest is to put these kids in their place."

Kueng and Lane were in their first few months on the force. This was part of their field training.

The video
When the video begins, Lane and Kueng have already pinned Adrian to the ground in front of the apartment in the 2400 block of Oakland Avenue.

"Ya'll see this? He literally walked out the door," shouted a bystander.

"Y'all are honestly throwing men to the ground?" another chimed in.

In an interview, Adrian said the officers tackled him from behind. He thought he was being attacked or robbed at first and struggled to breathe when they held him down.

The officers later acknowledged the object in his pants was a knife sharpener, not a knife. Adrian said in an interview his car had been broken into the night before, and he'd called 911 to report it.

"He been calling all day!" said Lee.

Lane and Kueng pulled Adrian to his feet. Chauvin looked on and walked with them to the squad. Lee continued to ask the officers for their badge numbers.

"He came out with a knife, dude," said Realivasquez.

"I didn't come out with no knife!" retorted Adrian as the officers pushed him into the squad.

"He didn't come out with no knife! I was watching," said Lee. "Ya'll just snatched him up."

Lee asked the officers why they had come, and they said they'd been called to "apartment number one." Adrian lived in unit three.

Adrian's other brother, Terrance, pulled up to the apartment with his girlfriend. There is no video to explain why the officers arrested Terrance, but in their reports, the officers say they "assisted [Terrance] down to the ground" after he shouted "foul language" and asked if they were "here to kill more Black people."

"When he said this I observed that there were children in the area and was [sic] listening to his foul language," the report states.

In an interview, Terrance said he was protesting the officers' treatment of his brother but that he was walking away when they arrested him.

A group of neighbors had gathered and were shouting at the officers. Among them, said Terrance, was the man who lived in the apartment the police had come to investigate. "They took me to jail and they didn't even investigate the guy they were there for," Terrance said.

The officers eventually released Adrian, acknowledging in reports he'd committed no crime: "After further investigation it was determined that Adrian Drakeford was not involved in this call. This whole call was unfounded because everyone on scene at this address was uncooperative."

Terrance, the only one charged with a crime, was released from jail on bail a couple of hours later. The Minneapolis City Attorney's Office dropped the charges on May 12.

Twelve days later, Chauvin pinned Floyd down for more than nine minutes while Kueng and Lane held down his legs. Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd's death; Kueng, Lane and officer Tou Thao face charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter. Realivasquez was not involved. A Minneapolis Police Department spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

"The timeline here is troubling," said Gordon. "The same officers are involved in the murder of George Floyd, using some of the same techniques and the need and desire to control people."

Gordon wonders why the wrongful detainment of the Drakefords and failure to investigate the 911 report — in addition to the litany of misconduct complaints leveled against Chauvin throughout his career — didn't raise red flags and lead someone in a position of power to intervene on how these officers approached their jobs.

"This is not the first decision point where someone could have done something," said Gordon. "This was maybe the last one."

 

More history of Derek Chauvin.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/us/derek-chauvin-george-floyd-past-cases.html
‘Don’t Kill Me’: Others Tell of Abuse by Officer Who Knelt on George Floyd
New firsthand accounts accuse Derek Chauvin, the police officer who pressed his knee into George Floyd’s neck in Minneapolis, of using similar tactics on detainees over the years.

Nearly three years before the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd as he cried out that he couldn’t breathe last May, Zoya Code found herself in a similar position: handcuffed facedown on the ground, with Mr. Chauvin’s knee on her.

The officer had answered a call of a domestic dispute at her home, and Ms. Code said he forced her down when she tried to pull away.

“He just stayed on my neck,” ignoring her desperate pleas to get off, Ms. Code said. Frustrated and upset, she challenged him to press harder. “Then he did. Just to shut me up,” she said.

Last week, a judge in Minnesota ruled that prosecutors could present the details of her 2017 arrest in their case against the former officer, who was charged with second-degree unintentional murder in Mr. Floyd’s death.

Ms. Code’s case was one of six arrests as far back as 2015 that the Minnesota Attorney General’s office sought to introduce, arguing that they showed how Mr. Chauvin was using excessive force when he restrained people — by their necks or by kneeling on top of them — just as he did in arresting Mr. Floyd. Police records show that Mr. Chauvin was never formally reprimanded for any of these incidents, even though at least two of those arrested said they had filed formal complaints.

Of the six people arrested, two were Black, one was Latino and one was Native American. The race of two others was not included in the arrest reports that reporters examined.

Discussing the encounters publicly for the first time in interviews with The Marshall Project, three people who were arrested by Mr. Chauvin and a witness in a fourth incident described him as an unusually rough officer who was quick to use force and callous about their pain.

The interviews provide new insight into the history of a police officer whose handling of Mr. Floyd’s arrest, captured on video, was seen around the world and sparked months of protests in dozens of cities.

Mr. Chauvin, who was fired, has said through his attorney that his handling of Mr. Floyd’s arrest was a reasonable use of authorized force. But he was the subject of at least 22 complaints or internal investigations during his more than 19 years at the department, only one of which resulted in discipline. These new interviews show not only that he may have used excessive force in the past, but that he had used startlingly similar techniques.

All four people who told of their encounters with Mr. Chauvin had a history of run-ins with law enforcement, mostly for traffic and nonviolent offenses.

Ms. Code’s arrest occurred on June 25, 2017. In a court filing, Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric J. Nelson, said the officer acted properly in the case, responding to “a violent crime in a volatile situation.” He said that “there was nothing unreasonable or unauthorized about Mr. Chauvin’s actions.”

As he tied her, she said, she told the other officer, “You’re learning from an animal. That man — that’s evilness right there.”

Ms. Code’s mother had accused her of trying to choke her with an extension cord, according to the arrest report. Ms. Code said in an interview that her mother was swinging the cord around, and that she merely grabbed hold of it.

She said she had left the house to cool off after the fight and when she returned, Mr. Chauvin and his partner had arrived. In the prosecutors’ description, based on Mr. Chauvin’s report and body-camera video, Mr. Chauvin told Ms. Code she was under arrest and grabbed her arm. When she pulled away, he pulled her to the ground face first and knelt on her. The two officers then picked her up and carried her outside the house, facedown.

There, prosecutors said, Mr. Chauvin knelt on the back of the handcuffed woman “even though she was offering no physical resistance at all.”

Ms. Code, in an interview, said she began pleading: “Don’t kill me.”

At that point, according to the prosecutors’ account, Mr. Chauvin told his partner to restrain Ms. Code’s ankles as well, though she “was not being physically aggressive.”

You’re choking me,’ a club patron protested
Misdemeanor domestic assault and disorderly conduct charges filed against Ms. Code were ultimately dropped.

The earliest incident in which prosecutors said Mr. Chauvin used excessive force took place on Feb. 15, 2015, when he arrested Julian Hernandez — a carpenter who was on a road trip to Minneapolis to see a band at the El Nuevo Rodeo nightclub. Mr. Chauvin worked as an off-duty security officer there for almost 17 years.

The arrest report filed by Mr. Chauvin said Mr. Hernandez tried to leave the club through the wrong door, and Mr. Chauvin stopped him and escorted him down a stairwell. Mr. Hernandez said in an interview that he had been drinking, but felt like Mr. Chauvin was pushing him down the stairs.

Outside, Mr. Hernandez said, “things escalated.”

Mr. Chauvin’s report said that Mr. Hernandez tried to turn around as he was preparing to handcuff him, so he pushed him away “by applying pressure toward his Lingual Artery” at the top of the neck.

Mr. Hernandez said the officer told him “you just need to leave,” and he remembered thinking that he was trying to leave but was not being allowed to do so. As Mr. Chauvin pushed him into a wall and grabbed him by the throat, Mr. Hernandez recalled thinking, “You’re choking me.”

Mr. Hernandez said he tried to sue the department, but no lawyer would take his case. He was charged with disorderly conduct, but under a court agreement he avoided punishment by staying out of trouble for a year, records show.

Mr. Nelson, the officer’s lawyer, said in a court filing that there was no evidence that Mr. Chauvin acted improperly in “dealing with a resistant, aggressive arrestee by himself.”

Under the judge’s order, only Ms. Code’s arrest, among the six cases showing what may have been excessive force, can be used at Mr. Chauvin’s trial. Prosecutors also sought to include two additional cases they said showed just the opposite — that Mr. Chauvin knew how to use reasonable force to properly restrain a person.

The judge’s order will allow them to use one of those cases: an incident in which the police department commended Mr. Chauvin and other officers for taking lifesaving steps in placing a restrained, suicidal man on his side so he could breathe. Mr. Chauvin even rode with the man to the hospital, according to prosecutors.

According to the attorney general’s office, the arrest showed that he knew how important it was to avoid breathing problems in detainees. When he did not put Mr. Floyd in a similar side position, prosecutors contend, he understood that it could jeopardize his life.

Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer objected to any of the previous arrests being admitted at his trial, which is set to begin in March. He argued that Mr. Chauvin’s actions “were not crimes,” but rather part of Mr. Chauvin’s job as an officer, and that a police supervisor at each arrest scene reviewed his use of force and concluded that it comported with department standards.

The Minneapolis Police Department did not respond to queries about past complaints against Mr. Chauvin. Critics say the department has a long history of accusations of abuse, but never fully put in place federal recommendations to implement a better system of tracking complaints and punishing officers. Only a handful over the years have faced firing or serious punishment.
cont.

 

COnt.

‘I can’t breathe,’ the man said
In another case prosecutors highlighted to try to establish a pattern of excessive force, a man said he landed in the hospital overnight after an encounter with Mr. Chauvin. The man, Jimmy Bostic, had made a purchase at the Midtown Global Market in April 2016 and was waiting for a ride when private security guards asked him to leave. A different shop owner had accused him of panhandling, the arrest report said. Mr. Bostic argued, and Mr. Chauvin was called in.

Mr. Chauvin escorted Mr. Bostic outside, writing in the arrest report that Mr. Bostic had threatened to spit on the owner.

“I closed distance with” Mr. Bostic, Mr. Chauvin wrote, “and secured his neck/head area with my hands.”

Mr. Bostic said in an interview that as Mr. Chauvin and the private security guards attempted to put him in cuffs, he yanked his arm back.

“The next thing I felt was arms just wrapped around my neck,” he said. “I started telling him, ‘Let go, I’m having trouble breathing. I have asthma. I can’t breathe.’”

Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer, in a court filing, said the officer “acted reasonably” and followed police policy in restraining Mr. Bostic, who he said was refusing orders and making threats.

After he was released from police custody at the scene, Mr. Bostic said, emergency medical workers took him to a hospital. Suffering from an asthma attack, he said, he stayed for over a day. A disorderly conduct charge against him was ultimately dropped.

“Looking back on Mr. Floyd, that could have been me,” said Mr. Bostic, who is now in state prison on an unrelated burglary conviction. “And I would no longer be alive right now to even tell my story.”

Monroe Skinaway, a 74-year-old Minneapolis resident, was a chance witness to another incident prosecutors cited that occurred in March 2019. He said in an interview that he had called the police after he spotted his grandson’s stolen car parked at a South Minneapolis gas station.

As he answered police questions about the car, Mr. Skinaway said, he saw a young man wandering nearby, asking officers to give him a ride. Mr. Skinaway said the man seemed “off.”

The man, named in the arrest report as Sir Rilee Peet, 26, followed one officer to his squad car. After Mr. Peet refused to take his hands out of his pockets, the officer tried to grab him, and they scuffled, the police report said.

That is when the other officer, identified in the report as Mr. Chauvin, sprayed Mr. Peet with Mace. Mr. Chauvin restrained him by the neck and pinned him facedown on the ground by kneeling on his lower back, according to the prosecutors’ description of body-camera video.

Mr. Skinaway said he remembers seeing the officer on top of Mr. Peet, but also something not mentioned in Mr. Chauvin’s account in the arrest report. Mr. Skinaway said the officer put Mr. Peet’s head, facedown, in a rain puddle. Other officers were present as well, he said.

“He said, ‘I can’t breathe — can I just put my head up?’” Mr. Skinaway said. “And they just held his face in the water, and I couldn’t see a purpose for that.”

Mr. Skinaway said he was about seven feet away as he watched Mr. Peet struggle for air, bubbles surfacing as he tried to breathe. He estimated that the officer kept Mr. Peet in the puddle for two to three minutes. Whenever Mr. Peet managed to turn his head for air, Mr. Skinaway said, the officer grabbed him by his long hair and put his head back in the water.

When he spoke by phone with a reporter, Mr. Skinaway said he did not know the officer’s name or that there was a connection with the Floyd case, but the details he described match those noted in the police report and prosecutors’ account.

Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer, Mr. Nelson, said in a court filing that the officer had acted according to police policy. “It was after midnight in South Minneapolis, and a man who refused to remove his hands from his pockets repeatedly approached the officers after being told not to,” he said. The filing said Mr. Peet’s actions had created concern for the officers’ safety.

Mr. Peet was charged with misdemeanor obstruction of the legal process and disorderly conduct, but it is unclear from court records what happened to the charges. The records show Mr. Peet has a history of court-ordered treatment for mental illness. In a phone call, Mr. Peet told a reporter that he did not recall the encounter.

Some of those whom Mr. Chauvin arrested said that learning the same officer had been involved in Mr. Floyd’s death made them regret they had not pushed harder to hold the officer and the department accountable.

“I don’t have nothing against cops, I got relatives that are cops,” said Mr. Hernandez, the carpenter arrested at the nightclub. “But he should have never been on the force that long.”

 

I was just thinking that today marks a year since the abandonment and looting of the Minneapolis Third Precinct. It was also the worst night of rioting following the death of George Floyd with several buildings burned down. While there has been a lot of recovery it will still be years for things to get back to where they were.

In the meantime since the death of George Floyd and the days of rage that followed there have been several more killings of unarmed black men and women by LEO with many under questionable circumstances. While the conviction of Derek Chauvin on all counts is progress this country still remains very divided and distrustful. In Minneapolis we've seen crime surge with most horrifically the shooting of three children in separate events the last two weeks. The Defund the Police movement is still not clear what exactly is going to happen and that has led to more uncertainty.

 

The City of Minneapolis moved in early this morning to open up access to the intersection of Chicago Ave. and 38th St. known as George Floyd Square. They were working with a community group called AGAPE but have gotten pushback from others including George Floyd's sister that no warning was given and those who didn't want it opened. Other groups have set up new barriers and it's unclear if there is any consensus about what to do with the intersection.

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2021...group-begin-clearing-intersection-to-traffic/
George Floyd Square: Intersection Briefly Reopened Before Community Pushback
Some Barriers Return To Intersection After Pushback From Protesters

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — The future of the intersection where George Floyd died is still unclear Thursday after attempts to reopen faced pushback.

The intersection of East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue — now known to many as George Floyd Square — was where Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who has been convicted and is awaiting sentencing. The intersection has been a place of memorializing Floyd, but has also experienced issues of crime.

The reopening came as a surprise to many of those who live nearby, including the civilian volunteers who have been guarding the area after they blocked it off from police.

At 4:30 a.m., Minneapolis Public Works crews, working with a community group called The Agape Movement, began clearing out the intersection at East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue. According to city spokesperson Sarah McKenzie, Agape led the effort and crews took “great care to preserve artwork and artifacts.” The now-iconic raised fist statue will remain.

Agape has been active in the area for some time and has been a presence in the area after Floyd’s death. They say their goal is to bridge the gap between the community and law enforcement. Steve Floyd, Agape’s senior advisor, says they wanted to make sure these changes were made in a respectful way, and that the community members wanted the reopening.

“We went around the community, we went door to door asking the neighbors what they felt, and over 90% of them said that they wanted to see it opened, but they wanted to see it opened safely,” Floyd said. “And we have done it as safely as we possibly could, and we are going to remain out here after it’s over because we are going to build this community.”

Agape tells WCCO that this is just the first phase of the reopening. While barriers were taken down and the intersection was opened to traffic during morning hours, guardians of the area used their cars to block the roads, making the intersection impassable.

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, city officials and members of Agape gathered to explain the process behind the planned reopening.

“In my estimation the majority of people have said we need to begin the healing process,” Councilmember Andrea Jenkins said. “The healing begins with the reconnection of the intersection of 38th and Chicago with the broader city.”

“I know that today feels significant,” Councilmember Alondra Cano said. “We have a lot more work to do.”

Steve Floyd said they expected resistance to the reopening, and the early morning timeframe was chosen to “avoid pushback.”

“We did have a plan that if it was too crazy, we back off,” he said.

With some barriers back up, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said there was no firm timeframe for a full reopening.

“[The intersection] is not and will not go back to what it was prior to May 25, 2020,” Frey said. “We recognize that there is still pain associated with this street and this intersection.”

Steve Floyd said there was broader, three-year plan for the intersection that includes a permanent memorial, and Frey said the city will ensure “the location where George Floyd was murdered never has tires run over it again.”

Community Reacts To Reopening Effort: ‘I Don’t Want Everything To Go Back To Status Quo’

WCCO reporter Christiane Cordero spoke with a mother of three young children, Les Bowden, who lives two blocks from the intersection. She says she has seen some of the beauty from the intersection that’s not as widely-publicized. Bowden reflects the feelings of many in the area’s community, who fear a return to status quo without meaningful change.

“We don’t want to deal with gun violence, but to sit there and say that a closed off street is what’s causing gun violence is absolutely ignorant at best,” she said. “Now that this is gone, I don’t want everything to go back to status quo, especially with the anniversary over, the first trial over. I don’t want my kids to feel like I feel.”

Eliza Wesley is a gatekeeper at the intersection.

“It can open up, but we’re not going anywhere,” she said. “We still out here, southside, boots on the ground. When we started it wasn’t no barricades, we started with bodies and we started at 38th with their cars. They volunteered to put the barricades out here, so they took ’em. So we gonna start back from scratch.”

Jeanelle Austin, one of the caretakers of George Floyd Square, spoke at a press conference Thursday afternoon.

“All we asked for was some restorative justice, that the trauma that the community endured, that the harm would be repaired prior to the reopening of the streets. But instead we were met with more trauma this morning,” Austin said. “The city told us that they would let us know in advance before they reopened the streets. That didn’t happen.”

WCCO reporter Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield spoke with a young man Thursday who said his opinion may be unpopular, so he asked us not identify him or show his face on camera.

“When all of this started at the beginning of the year, it was beautiful, you know what I mean? It was amazing. It was nice to see the community get together, it was nice to see that everyone was just having a good time while supporting something that really matters,” he said. “But now it’s been a year. It’s time to shut down the barriers, it’s time to let people live their lives, it’s time for people to have a normal life, you know what I mean? There are businesses here … these people, they kind of come in and out, they have to struggle to come in and out. You have people guarding it like it’s a military site.”

Some of the guardians say they will stand their ground, while others say they will re-assess, as the future is unclear for this historic site.

Minneapolis police were not involved in process of clearing the intersection.

Frey has previously said that the city is committed to memorializing the legacy of George Floyd at that intersection. He issued a full statement Thursday morning, in conjunction with Minneapolis City Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins and City Council Member Alondra Cano:

“The City’s three guiding principles for the reconnection of 38th and Chicago have been community safety, racial healing and economic stability and development for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and other communities of color.

The Agape Movement brought together community leadership to begin facilitating the phased reconnection this morning, with the City playing a supportive role. We are grateful for the partnership.

We are collectively committed to establishing a permanent memorial at the intersection, preserving the artwork, and making the area an enduring space for racial healing.

Alongside City leadership, we have met on a regular basis with community members to discuss both the short-term path toward reconnecting this area and the long-term plan for the neighborhood with sustained investments to help restore and heal the community.

MORE NEWS:Derek Chauvin Sentencing: State Requests 30 Years; Defense Requests New Trial
Chauvin will be sentenced for Floyd’s murder in a few weeks. The state is requesting 30 years in prison. Chauvin’s lawyers also filed a request on the former Minneapolis officer’s behalf. The defense is asking for probation — prison time equal to what he’s already served — and a new trial.