Killer Cop Derek Chauvin Still Costing Minneapolis, Minnesota Millions Of Dollars
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin isn't done hurting city residents. He may be imprisoned but he's still costing the city millions of dollars. And these cases aren't related to the brutal act that saw him charged and convicted for murder.
Officer Chauvin did this to himself. He may have been aided and abetted by officers who decided Chauvin's choking of a person to death by placing his knee on the putative arrestee's neck for nearly 10 minutes did not create the sort of incident in which they should intervene. Those enablers are facing their own criminal sentences.
But the image of a white cop pressing a knee to a black man's neck for an extended period of time - and for nearly three minutes after another officer told Chauvin he couldn't detect a pulse - unleashed a summer of powerful protests and ushered in a movement to drastically alter the terms and conditions of being subjected to force deployment by cops.
Since then we've witnessed some positive developments and some disturbing embraces of the pre-Chauvin status quo. But while Chauvin may have been locked up for murdering George Floyd (suspected of nothing else than allegedly passing a fake $20 bill at a local shop), that doesn't mean he's incapable of continuing to make Minnesotans pay for his actions.
Two people who sued former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, seven other officers and the City of Minneapolis over excessive force, racial discrimination and misconduct will receive millions of dollars as part of a settlement agreed upon by the city Thursday morning.
During a closed session of a meeting Thursday, city councilors agreed to settle with John Pope and Zoya Code for a combined price of $8.875 million. Pope will receive $7.5 million, with Code set to end up with $1.375 million.
This looks like a cop with a criminal record. Maybe no criminal charges were ever sustained, but his employer had to know the (litigation) problems Officer Chauvin created. And yet, nothing was done until after he was caught on camera murdering a city resident.
Sure, it's the city paying for this. But the city doesn't generate its own income. It collects taxes. And money that actually might have helped city residents is instead being spent to settle lawsuits generated by a cop the city should have cut loose long before he racked himself up on a murder beef.
While the city has agreed to pay victims of Chauvin millions, it has been much more cagey about the documentation involved with the incidents that lead to a nearly $9 million payout.
A spokesperson says the City of Minneapolis hasn't released the body camera footage for both incidents as of this time, saying it is private data under a state law. However, both Pope and Code may release the video as soon as Thursday due to them being subjects of the footage.
The people who will provide needed transparency are the people who were the victims of Chauvin's unconstitutional acts. They've secured this footage during litigation and they've stated they're willing to release it.
Meanwhile, the city has decided to side with cops by not releasing footage litigants have had for months, if not years. And for what? To protect one of its worst cops?
The city - the employer of the officer formerly known as Officer Chauvin" - ignored these early warning signs, sent its own lawyers out to defend him, and have only paid up because a murder conviction isn't the sort of thing you can easily shrug off, even when you're in the business of stifling accountability.
The allegations are disturbing. One of the recipients of a settlement is John Pope, who was only 14 years old when Chauvin rushed Pope," struck him multiple times with a flashlight, and ended the encounter" by pinning Pope to the ground with his knee on his neck.
All of this leads to the kind of questions no government, at any level, appears willing to answer honestly. This litigation arrived years before Chauvin was charged and convicted. Does it take murder charges to finally admit (at least monetarily) you've been employing a bad cop for years? Or did the city consider Chauvin to be a good cop until it became politically inconvenient to do so?
The city had prior warning. So did his cop shop employer. And yet, neither entity did anything until after Chauvin was convicted on murder charges. If that's the line cops must cross before being written off, Minnesotans are in for a world of hurt - both as victims of police misconduct and as benefactors obliged to let the city buy forgiveness with their money.