US: Derek Chauvin pleads not guilty for beating, kneeling on teenage boy

By Andy Roesgen

CHICAGO, United States (AA) - Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, convicted of murdering George Floyd, pleaded not guilty on Thursday to violating the federal civil rights of a teenage boy, on whom Chauvin allegedly knelt and beat during a 2017 arrest.

Chauvin took part in a pretrial motion by video conference from the prison where he is serving about 22 years for the murder of Floyd, for which he was convicted in April.

The case involving the teenage boy started when the boy's mother called police, after she accused him of assaulting her. Police body camera footage of the arrest showed the boy refusing to get off the floor, then Chauvin beating the boy with a flashlight multiple times, causing his ear to bleed. Later, Chauvin put the boy in a choke hold, causing him to lose consciousness, then knelt on the boy's back for 17 minutes until paramedics arrived. The boy complained that he was in pain and could not breathe.

It was three years later, in May of 2020, when Chauvin was seen on bystander cell phone video with his knee pressed against George Floyd's neck for over nine minutes, as Floyd pleaded "I can't breathe". What started as a routine police interaction ended in Floyd's death and touched off world-wide protests against police brutality, as well as a racial firestorm in America.

Similar to Floyd's case, Chauvin wrote in a police report that the teenage boy "displayed active resistance to efforts to take him into custody" by "flailing his arms around" and pointed to the boy's size and weight as a reason to use force.

Earlier this week, the 45-year-old Chauvin and the three other officers involved in the Floyd's death pleaded not guilty to federal civil rights charges in the Floyd case. And the three other officers will be also be tried for aiding and abetting Chauvin in the death of Floyd.