Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged with second-degree murder in connection with George Floyd’s death, reportedly agreed to plead guilty to third-degree murder late last year but former Attorney General William Barr rejected the deal.
Chavin’s case will go to trial in March and it is expected to garner national attention, give that Floyd’s death while in Chauvin’s custody, sparked national anti-racism and anti-police brutality protests. According to charging documents, Chauvin is alleged to have knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes, choking off Floyd’s supply of oxygen, leading to Floyd’s death by asphyxiation.
Several other officers are also charged in connection with the incident, though only Chauvin is charged with Floyd’s murder.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported Thursday that the case almost did not go to trial. Last summer, as “soldiers prepared to take to the streets” to control riots and destruction that followed protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Chauvin “agreed to plead guilty to third-degree murder.” But as a condition of the deal, Chauvin requested to serve out his term in federal prison and he wanted a guarantee that he would not face federal civil rights charges, triggering Attorney General William Barr’s involvement in the case.
“As part of the deal, officials now say, he was willing to go to prison for more than 10 years. Local officials, scrambling to quell the community’s swelling anger, scheduled a news conference to announce the deal,” the Star-Tribune noted.
“But at the last minute, according to new details laid out by three law enforcement officials, the deal fell apart after William Barr, the attorney general at the time, rejected the arrangement,” the outlet continued. “An official said Barr worried that a plea deal, so early in the process and before a full investigation had concluded, would be perceived as too lenient by the growing number of protesters across America. At the same time, Barr wanted to allow state officials, who were about to take over the case from the county prosecutor who has had tense relations with Minneapolis’s Black community, to make their own decisions about how to proceed.”
The Star-Tribune notes that the trial is likely to become a flashpoint, testing whether “anything has changed” since the case of Eric Garner, who died after a New York police officer put him in a prohibited chokehold, and Minneapolis is preparing for both peaceful demonstrations and civil unrest, similar to the kind that rocked the city in the wake of Floyd’s death.
According to MinnPost, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is already planning to activate the National Guard to help keep the peace and has already announced a “$35 million fund to reimburse police and sheriff’s departments who help out metro cops and state responders” if extra help is necessary.
“Some office workers in downtown Minneapolis have already been told not to come to work during the weekslong trial because of heavy security,” the New York Times added. “The National Guard will be deployed, transforming the city center into a military zone, with Humvees and armed soldiers monitoring checkpoints.”
The trial is set to begin jury selection on March 8.