Minnesota pet owners warned not to release fish into wild, where they wreak havoc on native species
Authorities in Minnesota have appealed to aquarium owners to stop releasing pet fish into waterways, after several huge goldfish were pulled from a local lake.
Officials in Burnsville, about 15 miles south of Minneapolis, said released goldfish can grow to several times their normal size and wreak havoc on indigenous species.
Continue reading...Minnesota attorney general secured conviction and sentencing of former police officer who murdered George Floyd last year
The Minnesota attorney general who secured the conviction and sentencing of Derek Chauvin said on Sunday Congress must pass stalled policing reform named for George Floyd, the African American man the former officer murdered in May last year.
Related: ‘I have begged for justice’: key moments from the Derek Chauvin sentencing
Continue reading...Judge Peter Cahill has sentenced Derek Chauvin, the white former police officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck until he died, to 22 and half years in prison.
The judge acknowledged 'the deep and tremendous pain' felt by the Floyd family and others, but he said the sentence was not based on public opinion
Continue reading...The department has seen decades of reform efforts, but activists say racism and violence are too ingrained to eliminate
As Derek Chauvin crushed George Floyd’s neck under his knee, slowly killing him, a police officer who had just joined the force repeatedly asked Chauvin if they should adjust Floyd’s position. Chauvin, a 19-year-veteran of the department, refused.
That precise interaction – an experienced officer training younger officers to act violently – was not a one-time failure, but a “systemic” problem within the Minneapolis police department, according to RT Rybak, who served as Minneapolis mayor for 12 years.
Continue reading...Derek Chauvin has been convicted of murder for killing George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes, a crime that prompted waves of protests in support of racial justice in the US and across the world.
The jury swiftly and unanimously convicted Chauvin of all the charges he faced – second- and third-degree murder, and manslaughter – after concluding that the white former Minneapolis police officer killed the 46-year-old Black man in May through a criminal assault, by pinning him to the ground so he could not breathe.
Continue reading...Crowds gathered outside a courtroom in Minneapolis reacted in jubilation when jurors returned a verdict of guilty on all three charges against the former police officer Derek Chauvin, on trial for the klling of 46-year-old George Floyd
Continue reading...Analysis: The testimony against the ex-officer was damning – it was clear this case was different from so many that had come before
The trial saw 44 witnesses and 15 days of testimony. And, in the end, less than a day to decide that Derek Chauvin, the white former Minneapolis police officer, was guilty of murdering George Floyd.
It is a landmark moment not just in the history of US policing and criminal justice, but around the world. George Floyd’s death came to embody the struggle for racial justice and equality in so many ways they are impossible to condense: from forceful calls for police reform in Minneapolis and new legislation in Washington, to a reckoning on the history of British imperialism in the UK and a resurgence in activism over Indigenous deaths in custody in Australia.
Continue reading...George Floyd’s death at the hands of a white police officer touched off a new civil rights uprising that rippled across the world
The jury’s guilty verdict on the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd signaled the conclusion of a historic police brutality trial and a key moment for policing and for the battle for racial equality in America.
Observers have talked about this case being so significant that it will stand as a watershed between the way law enforcement was held to account in the US before George Floyd was pinned by the neck under Chauvin’s knee, and after.
Continue reading...Educators use physical restraint thousands of time a year and critics say the practice is used as a routine discipline tool, especially against Black children
America is waiting on a verdict in the closely watched murder trial of Derek Chauvin in Minnesota, which has focused on the former Minneapolis police officer’s use of “prone restraint” that prosecutors say contributed to the death of George Floyd.
The manner of Floyd’s death led to a national reckoning on police brutality and racism, but it has also highlighted how the practice of restraining children remains commonplace in Minnesota schools, and in other districts across the country.
Continue reading...The Derek Chauvin murder trial heard closing arguments on Monday before the jury began considering a verdict over the death of George Floyd that is anxiously awaited by millions of Americans.
Related: Daunte Wright and George Floyd: another chapter in America’s recurring tragedy
Continue reading...Outcome is expected to resonate nationwide, particularly in cities that have seen continuing demonstrations over police violence
Protests against police killings flared across the US this weekend, from Minneapolis to Chicago to Portland, as Americans wait for a verdict in the trial of the white police officer charged with murdering George Floyd last year.
Closing arguments are expected in the Derek Chauvin trial on Monday. The most serious charge the former Minneapolis officer is facing in Floyd’s death is second-degree murder, but the jury might choose to find him guilty on third-degree murder or manslaughter, or acquit him altogether.
Continue reading...The latest instance of a Black man killed by a police officer added fuel to the fire already burning in Minneapolis
It was shortly after midday on Thursday at the New Salem Missionary Baptist church in Minneapolis. In front of a towering stone facade, Katie Wright stood at the pulpit, almost dwarfed by the plexiglass lectern and mass of microphones in front of her. She shuddered with grief, held by members of her family.
Five days earlier, her son, Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old father of one, had been shot and killed by a single bullet fired by a white police officer in the city suburb of Brooklyn Center. Four nights of unrest had followed with hundreds of protesters clashing with police dressed in riot gear, pelting crowds with teargas and rubber bullets.
Continue reading...Thousands marched in Chicago where 13-year-old Adam Toledo was killed while about 100 arrested in Brooklyn Center
After a heated week of police violence, protests erupted in several US cities on Friday, at times turning tense.
In the wake of the killings of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old shot by police after being pulled over, and unarmed 13-year-old Adam Toledo, thousands took to the streets to demonstrate, sometimes into the night.
Continue reading...After a dramatic final week, all that is left is closing statements and jury decisions
The prosecution took 10 days to lay out its case against Derek Chauvin. The former Minneapolis police officer’s defense to the charges of murdering George Floyd barely lasted two.
The relative brevity of Chauvin’s case might reflect a confidence on the part of the defense that the evidence against him is easily picked apart or at least shaky enough to raise reasonable doubt with the jury.
Continue reading...The family of Daunte Wright expressed their grief and shock after he was shot dead by a white police officer in Minnesota last Sunday. His mother, Katie Wright, said it was impossible for her to imagine justice for her son's death. 'We're never going to be able to see our baby boy again,' she said. Wright's father, Aubrey, said: 'He was a good kid. And the way he was killed, he did not deserve that. Can you blame my son for being scared of the police?'
Both sides will make closing arguments on Monday and the case over the death of George Floyd will then go to the jury
Derek Chauvin declined to testify in his murder trial over the killing of George Floyd as the defence wrapped up its case after just two days of testimony.
Chauvin invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination as he sacrificed the chance to explain to the jury why he kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes and for his lawyers to paint a more sympathetic picture of the police officer. But he also avoided a minute interrogation of his actions and thinking by the prosecution’s cross-examination.
Continue reading...Former police officer Kimberly Potter was charged with second-degree manslaughter on Wednesday after fatally shooting the 20-year-old Black motorist Daunte Wright, officials said.
The white former suburban Minneapolis police officer was arrested earlier in the day in relation to the shooting dead of Wright during a traffic stop on Sunday in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis.
Continue reading...Dr David Fowler, testifying for the defense, also said vehicle exhaust may have played a part in Floyd’s death
A leading forensic pathologist has told the Derek Chauvin trial that George Floyd was killed by his heart condition and drug use.
Dr David Fowler, testifying for the defence, also introduced the idea that vehicle exhaust may have played a part in Floyd’s death by raising the amount of carbon monoxide in his blood and affecting his heart.
Continue reading...Protesters were dispersed by police with flashbangs and gas grenades in the third night of demonstrations and unrest after the death of a black man shot by a white police officer during a traffic stop. The two officers who stopped Daunte Wright, 20, resigned two days after his death in Brooklyn Center on Sunday.
Across town, at Hennepin county courthouse, relatives of Daunte Wright and George Floyd talked about the two cases of fatal police violence. ‘The world is traumatised, watching another African American man being slain,’ said George Floyd’s brother
Continue reading...Police chief had said that officer Kim Potter meant to fire her Taser but fired her service weapon by mistake, killing the 20-year-old
Kim Potter, the white Minnesota police officer who fatally shot the Black resident Daunte Wright during a traffic stop, and her chief of police, Tim Gannon, resigned on Tuesday.
Their resignations come after two nights of protests in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center over Sunday’s killing of Wright, who was unarmed when he was pulled over for a traffic violation on Sunday.
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