World News | City of Minneapolis to pay Chauvin $8.9M for pre-Floyd actions

WASHINGTON, April 13 (AP) — The city of Minneapolis agreed Thursday to pay nearly $9 million to settle a lawsuit brought by two people who say former police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd had his knee on their necks years before.

John Pope Jr. will receive $7.5 million and Zoya Code will receive $1.375 million. The settlements were announced at a meeting of the Minneapolis City Council.

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Both lawsuits stem from the 2017 arrest — three years after Chauvin was captured on video during the arrest of Floyd — sparking global protests, sparking a national reckoning over racial injustice and forcing the Minneapolis The Leith Police Department has undergone a complete overhaul. If the city had acted earlier to discipline Chauvin, “history could have avoided repeating itself with George Floyd,” the lawsuit said.

Bob Bennett, an attorney for Pope and Code, noted in a statement that other officers did not intervene or report Chauvin, and that police leaders allowed Chauvin to “train and indoctrinate dozens of young MPD officers on-site, without fear of being disciplined or negatively sanctioned and continuing his predatory ways for years.”

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What happened to Code and Pope reminded people of what happened to Floyd and rekindled those emotions, said committee member Elliott Payne.

“It’s not really a Derek Chauvin problem. It’s a system problem,” Payne said. He hopes the settlement “brings some closure to this era and a clear reminder of our future of work.”

Code, who has a history of homelessness and mental health issues, was arrested in June 2017 after she allegedly tried to strangle her mother with an extension cord. Pope was 14 years old in September 2017, and Chauvin used excessive force on him in response to a domestic assault report, according to his lawsuit.

Both lawsuits name Chauvin and several other officials. The lawsuits allege police misconduct, excessive force and racism — Pope and Codex are black; Chauvin is white. They also said the city knew Chauvin had a record of misconduct but did nothing to stop him. Criminal charges in both cases were eventually dropped.

Body camera recordings show that Chauvin used many of the same tactics against Pope and Codex that he did against Floyd, the lawsuit said. Chauvin was sentenced in 2021 to 22 1/2 years in prison on one state murder charge for killing Floyd by pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes as he begged him not to breathe Freud. The city also paid $27 million to Floyd’s family.

She was in handcuffs when Chauvin slammed her head to the ground and pressed his knee on the back of her neck for 4 minutes and 41 seconds, Code’s lawsuit said. The second officer did not intervene and a responding sheriff approved the force, the suit said.

Pope’s lawsuit alleges his mother was intoxicated when he called the police because she was upset that he and his 16-year-old sister were not plugged into their cell phone chargers, leading to a physical altercation. Chauvin allegedly hit Pope in the head at least four times with a large metal flashlight. It said he then placed the pope in a suffocation state before pinning him to the floor and placing his knee on the pope’s neck.

“Chauvin would continue to keep John in a prone position for more than 15 minutes, while John was completely subdued and did not resist,” the complaint said. “During those minutes, John repeatedly shouted that he could not breathe.”

The complaint said at least eight other officials took no steps to intervene. Chauvin is said to have made no mention of hitting Pope with a flashlight in his report, or keeping Pope immobilized for so long. Chauvin’s sergeant reviewed and approved his report and use of force “despite first-hand knowledge that the report was false and misleading,” the lawsuit says.

Chauvin acknowledged many of Pope’s allegations when he pleaded guilty in December 2021 to federal charges of violating the civil rights of Floyd and Pope. In July, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison for those charges.

Chauvin is serving time in a federal prison in Arizona. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)