Who is Amy Klobuchar and what did she say about George Floyd?
Amy Klobuchar is the Senator of Minnesota in the United States who once decided not to prosecute the officer Derek Chauvin involved in George Floyd’s death.
Dereck Chauvin, the officer from Minneapolis who knelt on George Floyd’s neck and appears to have caused his death, is currently in custody and charged by the authorities with murder and manslaughter. The death of Floyd has not only seen overwhelming criticism about the excessive force used by law enforcers against minorities, but also against former Minnesota Senator, Amy Klobucha.
Klobucha's past history with officer Chauvin
Before she became senator and a potential vice presidential pick for Joe Biden, Klobucha spent eight years as the attorney for Hennepin County. In 2006 Derek Chauvin and six other officers fatally shot Wayne Reyes after the 42-year-old waved a gun at the cops. After the case went to the grand jury Chauvin was only placed on leave.
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The shooting occurred during Klobuchar’s tenure, from 1999 to 2006, as the county's attorney and she declined to prosecute the officers involved in the use of excessive force, bringing a lot of criticism for her decision at that time. Chauvin saw at least 10 conduct complaints against him during the 19 years he worked as a law enforcer. Officially he was fired on Tuesday following the Floyd incident, this being recorded on a database for complaints against the police.
The case in October 2006 involved Reyes, who had stabbed other people before attacking the police, as well as some other undisclosed complaints. Klobuchar didn’t prosecute the officers involved while running for Senate that same year. The case was under investigation when she finally won and took office in January 2007.
The Washington Post stated back in March that Klobuchar had decided to decline to bring charges in more than two dozen cases in which people were killed in encounters with the police. She opted to be more aggressive with smaller offenses involving poor and minority communities.
Hennepin County Attorney’s office denied allegations
After the recent news broke, Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said that Klobuchar had “no involvement” in the decision not to charge Chauvin in the shooting of 2006.
“Senator Klobuchar’s last day in office here was December 31 2006, and she had no involvement in the prosecution of this case at all,” the statement obtained by the New York Times read.