Judge’s ruling opens door to longer prison term in Floyd’s killing
MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota judge has ruled that there were aggravating factors in the death of George Floyd, paving the way for the possibility of a longer sentence for Derek Chauvin, according to an order made public Wednesday.
In his ruling dated Tuesday, Judge Peter Cahill found Chauvin abused his authority as a police officer when he restrained Floyd last year and that he treated Floyd with particular cruelty. He also cited the presence of children and the fact Chauvin was part of a group with at least three other people.
Cahill said Chauvin and two other officers held Floyd handcuffed, in a prone position on the street for an “inordinate amount of time” and that Chauvin knew the restraint was dangerous.
“The prolonged use of this technique was particularly egregious in that George Floyd made it clear he was unable to breathe and expressed the view that he was dying as a result of the officers’ restraint,” Cahill wrote.
Even with the aggravating factors, legal experts have said Chauvin, 45, is unlikely to get more than 30 years when he is sentenced June 25.
Chauvin, who is white, was convicted in April of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck for about 9 ½ minutes as the Black man said he couldn’t breathe and went motionless. Floyd’s death, captured on bystander video, set off demonstrations around the country and beyond as protesters demanded changes in policing.
Review of extremism: The Justice Department has begun an internal review to determine how to remove any extremists from within federal law enforcement following the arrest of current and former police officers for their involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday.
Garland, in response to a question during a Senate hearing on domestic extremism, described a review that was in its early stages and is complicated by the need to avoid violating the First Amendment rights of Justice Department employees.
The deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, “has met with the heads of all of our law enforcement agencies to determine how we can carefully vet our own employees,” he told the Senate Appropriations Committee.
It was a notable disclosure considering that the Justice Department is charged with enforcing federal civil rights laws and oversees the FBI, which is the lead agency in charge of investigating the growing threat posed by violent domestic extremists.
Ahmaud Arbery case: Attorneys for a white father and son charged with chasing and killing Ahmaud Arbery asked a judge Wednesday to allow evidence of the slain Black man’s past problems to be presented when their clients stand trial for murder.
Prosecutors argued that Arbery’s criminal record and other prior problems should be kept out of the trial, saying they are irrelevant to the defendants’ decision to arm themselves and ultimately shoot a man who was trying to run away.
Travis McMichael and his father, Greg McMichael, pursued the 25-yearold Black man in a pickup truck after they spotted him running in their neighborhood Feb. 23, 2020. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the chase and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times at close range with a shotgun.
US-China dispute: The Biden administration is considering sanctions over China’s alleged use of forced labor in production of solar panels and other components in renewable energy, climate envoy John Kerry told lawmakers Wednesday.
Kerry’s comments at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing sought to defuse one of the main arguments that congressional Republicans have cited against President Joe Biden’s push for a climatefriendly makeover of the U.S. economy: China’s manufacturing dominance risks implicating buyers of Chinese-made solar panels, batteries and other green-energy tech in that country’s human rights abuses.
Much of the world’s polysilicon, used in photovoltaic cells for solar panels, comes through China’s Xinjiang province, where China is waging a sustained campaign against Chinese Muslims and ethnic minorities.
That includes detention of more than 1 million people, who rights groups, news organizations and governments say are forced into labor in factories and other workplaces.
China’s foreign ministry last month called the accusations “lies and false information concocted by anti-China forces.”
US Embassy cuts: Under Kremlin orders, the U.S. Embassy has stopped employing Russians, forcing the embassy to cut its consular staff by 75% and limit many of its services.
The order went into effect Wednesday, bringing the sharply deteriorating U.S.-Russia relationship to an intensely personal level.
Because of the cuts, the embassy in Moscow can offer only very limited services, such as considering “life-and-death” visa applications.
That leaves Russian businessmen, exchange students and romantic partners adrift because they won’t be able to obtain visas.
Even Americans will be unable to register their newborns or renew their passports.
The United States once had three other consulates in Russia — in Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok and St. Petersburg — which somewhat eased the travel burden for people seeking visas.
But those consulates have closed or stopped providing visas amid diplomatic spats in recent years, in what Alexis Rodzianko, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, called “a visa war.”
Tesla backseat driver: A motorist was arrested after an officer observed him in the backseat of a Tesla traveling on a San Francisco Bay Area freeway, the California Highway Patrol said.
Param Sharma, 25, was arrested for alleged reckless driving and disobeying a peace officer, the highway patrol said in a statement Tuesday.
Multiple 911 calls Monday evening reported a person seated in the backseat of a Tesla Model 3 without anyone in the driver’s seat while the vehicle traveled on Interstate 80 across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
A highway patrol motorcycle officer spotted the Tesla, confirmed the solo occupant was in the backseat, took action to stop the car and saw the occupant move to the driver’s seat before the car stopped, said the statement from the highway patrol, known as CHP.