Former Officer Derek Chauvin: Guilty on all charges in death of George Floyd

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of all charges Tuesday in the death of George Floyd.  Chauvin was charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

U.S. Jury Deliberates VOA A U.S. jury resumes deliberations Tuesday in the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of killing George Floyd in one of the country’s highest profile cases in recent years. 

After hearing closing arguments Monday, the group of 12 jurors – met for four hours as they began the process of working toward a verdict.

During Monday’s final arguments, a prosecutor accused Chauvin of killing Floyd, an African American man, by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes. A defense attorney contended that Floyd died partly from drug use and that Chauvin was following his police training in the way he arrested Floyd last May on the curb of a street in Minneapolis. 

Prosecutor Steve Schleicher summed up the case against Chauvin, a white police officer who held down the handcuffed Floyd as he lay prone on a city street and gasped — 27 times, according to videos of his arrest — that he could not breathe.

Defense attorney Eric Nelson, in more than 2½ hours of arguments before the racially diverse 12-member jury, contended that Chauvin followed his police training in restraining Floyd on the pavement of a city street after the suspect initially resisted police efforts to put him into a squad car.    

“No crime was committed if it was an authorized use of force,” Nelson argued.    

“The state has not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt,” the legal standard for a conviction, the defense attorney concluded as he asked the jurors to acquit Chauvin of murder and manslaughter charges.