MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Four former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd’s civil rights pleaded not guilty Tuesday in a federal hearing that included arguments on several pretrial motions, including requests to hold separate trials.

A federal grand jury indicted Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao in May for allegedly depriving Floyd of his rights while acting under government authority on May 25, 2020, as Floyd, 46, was held face-down, handcuffed and not resisting in a restraint that was captured on bystander video. His death led to worldwide protests and calls for change in policing.

All four of the men appeared at the hearing remotely via videoconference. Chauvin, wearing a plain T-shirt, appeared from a small room in the state’s maximum security prison, where he is serving a 22 1/2-year sentence for murder in Floyd’s death. The other three men appeared remotely alongside their attorneys.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Tony Leung asked each man separately how he would plea, and each clearly responded: “Not guilty.”

The hearing also addressed roughly 40 pretrial motions, though many were similar. Most of the motions were routine, such as agreeing when names of witnesses would be disclosed. But Leung heard oral arguments on two issues, and ordered attorneys to file additional written arguments on those motions.

Attorneys for Lane and Kueng asked the judge to remove language from the indictment that says their clients had been police officers since December 2019. Earl Gray, Lane’s attorney, said his client was still in training and remained under supervision for months. Gray said Lane was working his fourth shift without supervision when he encountered Floyd. Tom Plunkett, Kueng’s attorney, said his client was on his third shift without supervision. Both attorneys said language in the indictment that indicates otherwise would be unfair.

“Common sense dictates that a law officer with four days on the job would be less apt to intervene,” Gray argued.

Prosecutor Manda Sertich said the men were officers as of December 2019 — they graduated from the police academy and were sworn in.

Kueng, Thao and Lane are also asking that their federal trials be separated from Chauvin’s, saying they would be unfairly prejudiced if they went to trial alongside him.

Plunkett wrote in court documents that evidence against Chauvin would confuse the jury and deprive Kueng of his right to a fair trial. Gray argued in court that “everybody knows Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder” so a jury would have a hard time presuming the other former officers’ innocence.

Attorney Robert Paule argued that much of the evidence against Chauvin would not come into play against his client, Thao. Paule also argued that since it appears Lane and Kueng intend to use their lack of experience as a defense, Thao, who had been an officer for more than eight years, should be tried alone.

Leung gave no indication of how he would rule. He said this case has video evidence, which shows what each defendant did or did not do. He also said separating trials in federal court is not common, but it does happen. He asked prosecutors why the men should be tried together.

Sertich said the state’s case against the men was separated due to space restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but federal court has more space. She also said jurors will know about Chauvin’s murder conviction whether he is sitting in the courtroom with the other three former officers or not.

As Floyd was being arrested, he repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe as Chauvin pinned him to the ground. Kueng and Lane helped restrain Floyd; Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back, and Lane held Floyd’s legs, according to evidence in state court. Thao held back bystanders and kept them from intervening during the 9 1/2-minute restraint.

While all four officers are charged broadly with depriving Floyd of his rights while acting under government authority, the indictment breaks down the counts. A count against Chauvin alleges he violated Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure and unreasonable force by a police officer.

Thao and Kueng are charged with violating Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure by not intervening to stop Chauvin as he knelt on Floyd’s neck. All four officers are charged with depriving Floyd of his rights when they failed to provide medical care.

The four former officers were also charged in state court, where Chauvin was convicted in April of murder and manslaughter. The other three former officers face state trial next March on aiding and abetting counts.

Chauvin is also charged in a separate federal indictment alleging he violated the civil rights of a 14-year-old boy in 2017.

Meanwhile, the federal government is investigating policing practices in Minneapolis. The investigation known as a “pattern or practice” — examining whether there is a pattern or practice of unconstitutional or unlawful policing — includes a sweeping review of the entire police department. It may result in major changes to policing in the Minnesota city.

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When reporters tackle the topic of policing, they often focus their coverage on highly newsworthy events, such as last year’s police killing of George Floyd.

What’s often lacking in local coverage, though, is the typical ways communities interact with the police, said ProPublica’s Topher Sanders, a co-author of the award-winning investigation on pedestrian violations “Walking While Black.” When reporters examine these daily interactions over time, they begin to understand how policing really works in their area.

“We’re talking about the everyday occurrences, the things that really begin to create rifts between the community and the police,” he said in a Center for Health Journalism webinar this week.

One year after Floyd’s death, Sanders joined Frank Edwards, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Rutgers University, and Andrea Headley, an assistant professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, to discuss the latest efforts to advance police accountability, the research supporting them, and how reporters can best cover this evolving story.

Clear patterns in police killings

Since Floyd’s death, police in the United States have killed more than 1,100 people, said Edwards, a sociologist who studies social control, the welfare state and race.

Black men have an “exceptionally high risk” of dying from police — a one in 1,000 lifetime chance, about two and a half times more likely than white men, he said. The risk is also disproportionately higher for American Indian/Alaskan Native and Latino men, and it’s especially pronounced during young adulthood, especially for men.

“When we look at inequalities and in the likelihood of being killed by police, we see clear patterns across race and gender,” he said. “This is a pattern of violence clearly structured by age, by sex and by race.”

The negative health effects go beyond the risk of death, he said. Living in highly policed neighborhoods creates stressors that permeate the entire community and contribute to health problems such as high blood pressure and obesity. Living in neighborhoods where there has been a police killing can also have “tremendous mental health consequences,” as people live in a perpetual state of hypervigilance and relive the traumatic experience, he said.  

While data on policing can be fragmented and incomplete, Edwards recommended resources such as the Center for Policing Equity, the Stanford Open Policing Project, and Mapping Police Violence.

What reform research tells us

Police reform efforts have a long history in the United States, and recommendations are often repeated over the years, said Headley, a visiting scholar at the National Police Foundation.

“To me, it really begs the question of evaluating whether or not they work,” she said.

But there’s still little conclusive research on many of these strategies, she said. And some efforts might work well in one particular area but not improve all desired outcomes.

For example, some research shows implicit bias training can improve officer knowledge but has no impact on police enforcement outcomes or disparities. Community policing has a positive impact on public satisfaction and the perception of police legitimacy but has a limited effect on crime reduction, research shows. While crisis intervention training is “promising,” there is limited evidence on its ability to deescalate situations, avoid the use of force, and aid conflict resolution, she said.  

There is, however, evidence to suggest that hiring women can lead to less use of force and lower levels of force. And some research links more officers of color with decreases in crime complaints, arrests and use of force when compared to white officers, she said. There’s mixed evidence on body cameras with some research showing effectiveness in reduced use of force, arrests and complaints while other research suggests cameras make no difference by those measures.

In addition to calls for reform policing, there are also calls to defund policing, investing those resources in communities’ social services, health, economic, and educational opportunities instead. Some research suggests community-based programs — such as improved access to mental health services and expanded substance abuse treatment centers — can lead to crime reductions. But the jury is still out on  the overall “cost-benefit tradeoffs” associated with these shifts in funding, she said.

A powerful case study  

The “Walking While Black” project — reported by Sanders and Kate Rabinowitz of ProPublica, and Benjamin Conarck, then of the Florida Times-Union — originated from a viral video of a young Black man threatened with jail time after jaywalking. Conarck initially covered the events in a daily story.  

Sanders was intrigued and reached out to Conarck. Together, they started digging into the data to see just how common these kinds of police interactions were.

Instead of asking police departments for data — a request that likely would have been met with resistance, he said — the reporters turned to Florida’s statewide database of all infraction citations. When they started asking police departments questions about the disproportionate number of Black folks receiving these tickets, Sanders was given responses such as: “We’re doing this to save lives.”

To evaluate that claim, the reporters cross-referenced the locations where tickets were issued to the places where pedestrians were most often killed. Black census tracks had more pedestrian tickets, even when there weren’t correspondingly higher pedestrian deaths.

The database, along with the names of people and the locations of the tickets, helped the reporters find personal stories to bring the data to life. Lawyers were also a good source for finding people who had contested their tickets.

The reporting team also studied the traffic laws and used Google street view to see whether crossing the street in some locations really violated the law. Often, cops didn’t know the nuances of the law. About 60% of the pedestrian tickets in the four largest counties fell into this category of “bad tickets.”

While data is instrumental, Sanders also stressed the importance of developing cop sources. These are essential in understanding how the rank and file see these issues, and how they’re executing the commands they’re given, he said.

“The only way to learn the ins and the outs of how the cops operate is to actually talk to them … not just the top brass for comment,” he said. “That’s the way you really start to learn about these processes.”

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Relief, even if fleeting and momentary, is a feeling that Black Americans have rarely known in America: From slavery to Jim Crow segregation to enduring punishments for living while Black, a breath of fresh air untainted by oppression has long been hard to come by.

Nonetheless, the conviction of ex-cop Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd nearly a year ago allowed many across this city and the nation to exhale pent-up anxiety — and to inhale a sense of hope.

But what might they feel hope for?

The fate of Chauvin — found guilty of murder and manslaughter for holding a knee to Floyd’s neck, choking off his breathing until he went limp last May — showed Black Americans and their compatriots once again that the legal system is capable of valuing Black lives.

Or at least it can hold one white police officer in Minnesota accountable for what many declared an unambiguous act of murder months ago.

“This may be the beginning of the restoration of believing that a justice system can work,” said civil rights leader Martin Luther King III, echoing a sentiment that many expressed Tuesday.

“But we have to constantly stay on the battlefield in a peaceful and nonviolent way and make demands,” he said. “This has been going on for years and one case, one verdict, does not change how systematic racism has worked in our system.”

Alexandria De La Cruz, a Minneapolis mother, brought her 7-year-old daughter to the intersection near where Floyd was murdered, now dubbed George Floyd Square. Along with the hundreds who gathered there — Black, white and otherwise — De La Cruz erupted in cheers after it was announced Chauvin was guilty on all three counts.

“I feel relief that the justice system is working — it’s working today,” De La Cruz said.

Her daughter, Jazelle, sported a hooded sweatshirt that read, “Stop killing Black people.” Perhaps that’s a reminder, her mom said, that there’s still work to do to ensure the feeling of relief isn’t so fleeting this time.

“It’s important to bring her (to the square), so she can see what’s happening to our people, so that she can see what this country really is,” De La Cruz said.

Black Americans have seen similar moments before. In recent years, they followed the convictions of the officers who killed Oscar Grant, Laquan McDonald and Walter Scott. Still, some of these victims’ families continue to press for broader accountability from a policing culture they say has never proved it is meaningfully changed or reformed after the convictions of police officers.

And even as the Chauvin trial moved into its final days, the Twin Cities region and the nation were rocked by yet another police killing of an unarmed Black man. This time it was 20-year-old Daunte Wright, in Brooklyn Center, roughly 10 miles north of Minneapolis.

Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s first Black attorney general, said the jury’s decision was a reminder of how difficult it has been to enact enduring change and prevent the kind of upheaval and civil unrest that ignited the nation and the world last summer.

Furthermore, Ellison pointed out, America has known about and largely ignored the root causes of the upheaval and uneasiness in Black communities. More than a half-century ago, the Kerner and McComb commissions empaneled to study racial unrest warned of the dangers of doing just that.

“Here we are in 2021 still addressing the same problem,” Ellison said. “This has to end. We need true justice. That’s not one case. That is a social transformation that says that nobody’s beneath the law, and no one is above it.”

Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, an online racial justice group, echoed the attorney general.

“We cannot, every single time, have uprisings to deliver justice nor should we have to be in a conversation about holding police officers accountable when they go around killing us,” Robinson said.

So again, what might Black Americans hope for after the outcome of Chauvin’s trial?

It can’t be about simply getting more police in front of a judge and jury, or about locking more of them up, said Miski Noor, an activist with the Twin Cities-based Black Visions Collective.

“That doesn’t actually stop the murders of Black people,” said Noor. “We’re trying to get into a world where lives are not lost, when Black people actually get to live.”

That’s the hope.

As relieved as Floyd’s family members are by the guilty verdicts, none see this as a bookend to the pursuit for justice. And three other former Minneapolis police officers face trial for the role they played in the case.

Brandon Williams, a nephew of Floyd’s, called the verdicts a “pivotal moment for America.”

“It’s something this country has needed for a long time now,” he said. “We need each and every officer to be held accountable. And until then, it’s still scary to be a Black man and woman in America encountering police.”

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Because the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death is being held during the coronavirus pandemic, the courtroom has been overhauled for safety. Gone are the traditional jury box and gallery, replaced with widely spaced seats and desks for a limited contingent of attorneys, jurors and media.

Plexiglas barriers and hand sanitizer are everywhere, and the participants – even the judge – wear masks. The pandemic has upended court systems across the country, delaying jury trials and creating huge backlogs of cases. Video and teleconference hearings have allowed judges to keep the wheels of justice grinding, albeit slowly.

Many courts have installed barriers or moved jury orientation and even trials themselves to bigger spaces such as convention centers to get at least some jury trials going again. In Minnesota, in-person criminal jury trials have been mostly on hold since November. Chief Justice Lorie Gildea last month allowed them to resume effective March 15, with proper safety protocols consistent with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Minnesota Department of Health. Most other proceedings will continue to be held remotely through April 30.

A handful of exceptions have been allowed, including for the trial of Derek Chauvin’s trial, the former Minneapolis officer charged in Floyd’s death. “We are gradually increasing in-person activities in court facilities in a safe and responsible manner that will allow the courts to fulfill our constitutional obligation, while we continue to do all that we can to protect public health and safety,” Gildea said in a statement. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter. Floyd was declared dead May 25 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against the Black man’s neck for about nine minutes, holding his position even after Floyd went limp.

Floyd’s death sparked sometimes violent protests in Minneapolis and beyond, leading to a nationwide reckoning on race and one of the highest-profile trials of a police officer in U.S. history. Citing the need to comply with social distancing and other safety rules, Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill separated Chauvin’s case from that of the three other ex-officers charged in Floyd’s death, who are set for trial in August. Among other things, Cahill concluded in January, no courtroom in the building was big enough to safely accommodate four defense teams and the prosecution team all at once. Prosecutors tried unsuccessfully to persuade Cahill to reconsider his decision to hold two trials.

They argued instead for holding a single joint trial sometime this summer when they hoped enough Minnesotans would have been vaccinated to reduce the risk of any participants getting COVID-19. They submitted an affidavit from prominent University of Minnesota epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, who warned that it could be “extremely dangerous” to try Chauvin this month, with “potentially catastrophic consequences for public heath.” He expressed fear that it could become a “superspreader event,” given the large number of protesters and out-of-town journalists it was likely to draw, especially if more-contagious coronavirus variants cause a spike in cases.

But Cahill provided little explanation for rejecting those arguments, having already ruled that the proceedings would comply with court safety rules, and he kept the case on course for the trial’s opening on Monday. The 18th-floor courtroom Cahill borrowed is the largest in the Hennepin County Government Center, and it has been overhauled for the purposes of Chauvin’s trial. The seating capacity was sharply reduced in the remodeling.

The theater-style seating in what was the gallery was removed to create space. Tall plexiglass dividers separate the judge and court staffers from the limited number of other people in the courtroom. Clear plastic sheets also run down the middle of the defense and prosecution tables. When Chauvin and defense attorney Eric Nelson want to confer, they need to lean back a bit. The normal jury box has been replaced with two rows of office chairs, spaced out, with small desks. There is no space for the general public. Seats are reserved in the back for just one Floyd family member and just one Chauvin family member.

Only two pool reporters are allowed in at a time, plus a member of the Court TV team that’s providing the feed. The constitutional requirement for a public trial is being satisfied by allowing gavel-to-gavel TV coverage, which is rare in Minnesota courts. Cahill has taken pains to keep the identities of the potential jurors secret, prohibiting them from being shown on camera. But he got a surprise Tuesday when a retired judge watching from home texted him to let him know that he could see a reflection of Juror No. 1 in one of the plexiglass panels.

The problem was quickly fixed. Everyone in the courtroom is required to wear a face mask. The main exceptions are when attorneys speak at the podium, which has plastic panes on three sides, and when potential jurors respond to questions. When the judge and the attorneys need to conduct a sidebar discussion, they don’t huddle around the judge’s bench like they normally would. Instead they put on headsets so they can hash out legal or procedural issues out of earshot of jurors. Only four prosecutors and two defense attorneys are in court at any given time; the rest of their teams must participate remotely. So must the defense teams for the three other ex-officers facing trial this summer.

STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press

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