Prosecutors in the upcoming murder trial of Derek Chauvin want to show jurors video of a 2017 arrest in which they say the former Minneapolis police officer jammed his knee into the back of a 14-year-old boy for several minutes while ignoring his pleas that he couldn't breathe.
In a memorandum filed late Monday in Hennepin County District court, assistant state Attorney General Matthew Frank said the body camera footage showed that "when faced with a suspect who does not immediately comply with his demands, Chauvin intentionally uses a level of unreasonable force to accomplish subdual and restraint," countering a defense claim that Chauvin used reasonable force on George Floyd three years later.
In his response, Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson, argued that the force used in incidents cited was in keeping with department's then-policy on dealing with uncooperative suspects.
"The similarities between the State's proffered acts, which were noncriminal incidents of Mr. Chauvin acting in his duties as a Minneapolis Police officer, and the charged offenses are merely: They involved Mr. Chauvin effecting, or assisting in, the arrest of a suspect; all involved resistance from or a struggle with a suspect; some involved Mr. Chauvin using his body weight to control an arrestee; some involved a neck restraint," Nelson wrote. "This is simply insufficient to show a marked similarity between the proffered incidents and the charged offenses."
Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill has yet to rule on Monday's memorandum or other motions citing other alleged bad acts, known as Spreigl evidence, against Chauvin and his three co-defendants: Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng.
The trial is set to start on March 8.
The latest prosecution memorandum is a follow-up to an earlier filing that mentions the incident with the boy, which was based on written reports filed by Chauvin and other officers at the scene. But, Frank argues, body camera video of the encounter tells a different story.
In their earlier filings, prosecutors sought to introduce evidence from seven prior incidents involving Chauvin to show a pattern of excessive force to restrain suspects long before he encountered Floyd. They also cited one prior episode involving Kueng — a rookie at the time of Floyd's death — and nine involving Thao.