Police officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck before his death charged with 3rd-degree murder

• Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who was filmed on Monday kneeling on George Floyd's neck, was arrested and charged with murder on Friday.
• A widely shared 10-minute video showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck for about eight minutes. Floyd was pronounced dead at a hospital that evening.
• Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. No other police officers are in custody.
• Floyd's death has sparked mass protests in Minneapolis and across the nation, with demonstrators calling for an end to police brutality.

Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who was filmed on Monday kneeling on George Floyd's neck before he died, was arrested and charged with murder on Friday.

"The officer who has been identified as Derek Chauvin in the death of Mr. Floyd has been taken into custody," John Harrington, the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, told reporters on Friday afternoon.

Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said in a press conference on Friday afternoon.

"This is by far the fastest we've ever charged a police officer," Freeman said, adding that it usually takes about nine months.

No other police officers are in custody. Freeman said that he wouldn't comment on the situations of the three other officers who were involved but that they could face charges.

In a press conference earlier Friday, Harrington called Floyd's death a "murder," according to the Star Tribune reporter Liz Sawyer. The murder charge news was first reported by local reporters and outlets, including the Star Tribune and CBS Minnesota.

In a 10-minute video that's been shared widely, Chauvin could be seen kneeling on Floyd's neck for about eight minutes. Floyd, 46, was pronounced dead on Monday evening. His death has sparked mass protests in Minneapolis and around the nation, with demonstrators calling for an end to police brutality.

The police were responding to a grocery-store employee's report of someone using counterfeit bills to buy cigarettes. Surveillance video of the moments before Floyd was taken into custody showed that he didn't resist arrest.

Floyd could be heard in the 10-minute video repeatedly telling the officers, "I can't breathe." He showed no signs of life when an ambulance arrived and was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Chauvin was one of four Minneapolis police officers fired after Floyd's death.

Floyd's family wants a first-degree murder charge

Floyd's family issued a statement following news of Chauvin being charged, calling for more serious charges.

"The arrest of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the brutal killing of George Floyd is a welcome but overdue step on the road to justice. We expected a first-degree murder charge. We want a first-degree murder charge," the family said through their attorney, Ben Crump.

"And we want to see the other officers arrested. We call on authorities to revise these charges to reflect the true culpability of this officer. The pain that the black community feels over this murder and what it reflects about the treatment of black people in America is raw and is spilling out on to the streets across America."

The family called on Minneapolis and cities across the US to change their policies and trainings to help deaths like Floyd's never happen again. The also called for other officers to be charged.

"For four officers to inflict this kind of unnecessary, lethal force — or watch it happen — despite outcry from witnesses who were recording the violence — demonstrates a breakdown in training and policy by way of the city," the family said. "We fully expect to see other officers who did nothing to protect the life of George Floyd to be arrested and charged soon."

Chauvin had a history of complaints

The Star Tribune reported earlier this week that kneeling on a suspect's neck was no longer allowed in most Minnesota law-enforcement agencies, though in Minneapolis certain officers can still use the maneuver.

In Minneapolis, under the police department's use-of-force policy, officers are still allowed to deescalate a situation by putting a knee on a suspect's neck, but only those who have been trained on how to do so without putting direct pressure on the person's airway.

Chauvin, 44, had been with the Minneapolis Police Department for 19 years until his firing earlier this week. He had worked with the force as all officers were retrained on the maneuver.

Before Floyd's death, Chauvin had been involved in several use-of-force incidents and was the subject of 10 complaints and 17 internal-affairs investigations.

In 2008, Chauvin shot and injured a man during a domestic-assault call after the man grabbed for an officer's gun, the Star Tribune reported.

Communities United Against Police Brutality, a watchdog nonprofit based in Minneapolis, reported in 2018 that Chauvin was one of six officers who responded to a 2006 stabbing call that resulted in a 42-year-old man named Wayne Reyes being shot and killed; the police said he had pulled a shotgun on the officers.

This story is developing. Check back for updates.

• Read more:
• Use-of-force experts say George Floyd's arrest was 'horrific' and 'blatantly inconsistent with good police procedure'
• George Floyd's girlfriend says the sight of Minneapolis burning would 'devastate' him, and calls for calm
• George Floyd and Derek Chauvin worked at the same nightclub in Minneapolis for the whole of 2019, but may not have known each other
• Minneapolis' mayor, Jacob Frey, hit back at Trump after the president called him 'very weak' and threatened that looters could get shot