Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is reportedly expected to upgrade charges against Derek Chauvin, the white Minneapolis officer seen in videos kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, the Star Tribune reports.
The report says Chauvin will be charged with second-degree murder. The other three officers who were involved in the arrest “will also be charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder,” the Star Tribune reports.
Ellison is expected to provide an update this afternoon on the state’s investigation into Floyd’s death. According to sources, former officer Derek Chauvin, recorded on video kneeling on Floyd’s neck as he begged for air on May 25, will now be charged with second-degree murder.
The other three officers at the scene — Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane — will also be charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder, according to the sources, who spoke on conditions of anonymity. Chauvin was arrested last Friday and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.
Floyd died on Memorial Day. All four officers involved in the arrest were fired the next day from the Minneapolis Police Department. Chauvin was arrested four days after Floyd died, on Friday, and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.
On Wednesday, Floyd’s family called for the arrest of the other three former police officers.
“We expect all of the police officers to be arrested before we have the memorial here in Minneapolis tomorrow. Because we cannot have two justice systems in America – one for black America, one for white America. We must have equal justice for the United States of America,” said the lead attorney for the Floyd family, Ben Crump.
“Witness Donna Williams who yesterday was the person in the video saying ‘You all are gonna kill him’ likened it to suffocation like a fish out of water, gasping for air,” Crump said. “The independent autopsy performed by the family concluded that George Floyd was starving for air. He needed a breath and the ambulance that came here to pick him up from this very spot was the hearse for George Floyd.”
Crump also announced the results of an independent autopsy that found that Floyd died by “mechanical asphyxiation caused by the knee to neck and two knees to his back.”
And the lawyer said Ellison was working to “do the right thing.”
“Change is going to come in the criminal justice system. I proclaim, with his son as my witness, that change starts today,” Crump said. “We are confident attorney general Keith Ellison is working feverishly to do the right thing to make sure George Floyd’s family achieves justice, holding the officers accountable to the full extent of the law – each and every one of them.”
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