Derek Chauvin, the police officer convicted of the murder of African-American George Floyd, and his three former colleagues present on the day of the tragedy pleaded not guilty on Tuesday at the start of a new procedure, before federal justice this time .
Derek Chauvin, 45, has never admitted any wrong in the death of the black forty-something, on whose neck he remained kneeling for nearly ten minutes in May 2020 in Minneapolis.
Follow-up of procedures
He is already serving a sentence of 22 and a half years in prison handed down in June after an extraordinary trial in the State of Minnesota. During the hearings, his lawyer hammered out that he had contented himself with following the procedures in force in the police force and that the death of George Floyd was due to health problems combined with the ingestion of drugs, without convincing the jurors .
His three former colleagues, Tou Thao, Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, are to be tried in March for “complicity in murder” also by the Minnesota justice. In parallel, the four men were indicted by the federal justice for “violation of the constitutional rights” of George Floyd.
“Double” pursuits
These “double” prosecutions are authorized in the United States but relatively rare, and reflect the importance of this file at the heart of giant demonstrations against racism and police violence across the United States. It is in this component that they will be presented Tuesday, by video, to a federal judge. The magistrate will read the indictment and the four men are expected to say whether or not they plead guilty.
According to the local press, Derek Chauvin has been negotiating a guilty plea agreement for several weeks which would prevent him from a new trial. At the end of the first, he had offered his condolences to the Floyd family and hinted at this option: “there will be new information in the future, which I hope will be interesting and which will bring you peace of mind. spirit “.