*The courthouse where former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin will be tried for murdering George Floyd is being heavily reinforced to block out the public.
Here’s more from TMZ:
Construction crews have been hard at work over the past week fortifying downtown Minneapolis with de facto forcefields, including areas where protests and unrest are expected as Chauvin’s murder trial gets underway.
The blockade’s going up around the Hennepin County Courthouse, the Minneapolis City Hall building and the Hennepin County Jail — and it includes concrete barriers, non-scalable fencing and barbed wire down below.
Chauvin’s murder trial is set to kick off next week.
READ MORE: LAPD Responds to Valentine’s Day Meme Mocking Death of George Floyd
Minneapolis installed barbed wire and concrete barriers around the courthouse where the ex-cop charged for killing #GeorgeFloyd will go on trial.
Derek Chauvin faces 40 years for 2nd-degree murder.
The city is also deploying 3,000+ police and National Guard troops pic.twitter.com/0lBNLnf19A
— AJ+ (@ajplus) March 1, 2021
Chauvin is currently facing charges of second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for the May 25 death of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man. Chauvin was charged with 3rd-degree murder after he was captured on video in May pressing his knee on the neck of Floyd for almost 10 minutes before he died.
In October, Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill, who is handling the murder case, dismissed the third-degree murder charge, saying prosecutors did not have probable cause to support that charge, which is a crime committed without premeditation or intent to kill. The judge said the evidence supports taking a second-degree murder charge to trial. If convicted, it could lead to decades in prison.
Per MSN, Cahill upheld a manslaughter charge against Chauvin and all six charges against three other officers who were a part of Floyd’s arrest team. Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao. Kueng and Lane helped restrain Floyd, Cahill noted, while Thao kept bystanders at bay.
The outlet also wrote “In his ruling, Cahill said a third-degree murder charge was appropriate in cases in which a defendant’s actions were “eminently dangerous to other persons” and were not specifically targeted at the person who died.”
The Minnesota Court of Appeals is now deciding whether to reinstate a third-degree murder charge against Chauvin and the other three former officers involved in Floyd’s killing, ABC News reports.
Chauvin is being tried separately from Lane, Kueng and Thao, who are scheduled to go on trial in August.
It is expected that the four accused killers will all be acquitted.
We Publish News 24/7. Don’t Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!
