Thread by @ericuman

I want to tell you a story about body cameras and *Derek Chauvin*

What Chauvin did to George Floyd, kneeling on his neck, was his move.

He had done to others.

It was all recorded by body cams.

But the footage was kept secret.

And Chauvin was left unpunished

[short THREAD]

In June, 2017, Chauvin arrested a young Black woman named Zoya Code.

Chauvin dragged the handcuffed Code outside her home and slammed
her to the ground.

Then pressed his knee into her neck for nearly five minutes.

“Don't kill me," Code begged.

Three months later, Chauvin did it again.

First, he hit a 14-year-old boy repeatedly with his flashlight.

He choked him.

Then Chauvin knelt on his neck for 15 minutes as the boy’s
mother, begged, ‘‘Please, please do not kill my son!’’

In Minneapolis, as in almost all cities, it’s the police who decide who can see what and when.

What the police decided in these cases was to release nothing.

Nor was he punished. Chauvin had 22 complaints against him over the years. Resulting in discipline once.

So Chauvin was still a police officer on May 25, 2020 when he stopped George Floyd.

Chauvin had his body-worn camera on then too.

But the police didn’t release it.

Instead, they released this description.

The police did eventually release footage from another officer that day.

It was heavily redacted.

A police spokesman explained: "body cam footage is not public data."

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/n…

The world first saw Chauvin’s body-cam footage of him killing Floyd nearly a year later — at Chauvin’s murder trial.

But even after Chauvin’s conviction, police and Minneapolis continued fighting the release of footage from the other incidents.

*That* footage — of Chauvin assaulting a boy and young woman years before he murdered Floyd — only came out this year *six years after the incidents* and only after a court order.

This is what the lawyer, @RK4Justice, in those two cases told me…

In refusing to release footage, the police have pointed to a law that gives them the leeway to do just that.

Where'd that law come from?

Well, three of the four legislators who wrote the final language had long been police officers themselves.

revisor.mn.gov/bills/bill.php…

As for Chauvin, who was recently attacked in federal prison, he has previously declined to comment on the cases.

Chauvin’s tale is part of a much larger one.

It's about how police across the country have undermined the promise of body worn cameras.

It’s the cover story of this weekend’s @NYTMag:



Done with @umarfarooq_

Thank you.propublica.org/article/how-po…

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