The Department of Justice is considering charging Derek Chauvin in another case involving a 14-year-old Black boy.
As Minnesota state prosecutors were assembling their case against Chauvin for the death of George Floyd, body-worn camera videos from Sept. 4, 2017 began pouring in. They showed Chauvin striking a Black teen in the head with a flashlight and then pinning him down with his knee for nearly 17 minutes -- allegedly dismissing cries from the boy that the was unable to breathe.
"Those videos show a far more violent and forceful treatment of this child than Chauvin describes in his report [of the incident]," Matthew Frank, one of the state prosecutors, wrote in a court filing at the time, according to ABC News.
The DOJ is now determining on whether or not to file federal charges against Chauvin for the 2017 incident.
"We will assist the DOJ with anything that they need, and the chief has pledged full cooperation with any investigating agency," MPD spokesman John Elder has said.
Months prior to Chauvin’s conviction in the murder of George Floyd, state prosecutors were planning to include the 2017 incident in their case to the jury to prove a pattern of violence, but the judge in the case refused to allow it.
However, court documents filed prior to the judge’s final ruling in the Floyd case, prosecutors said videos of the 2017 incident "show Chauvin's use of unreasonable force towards this child and complete disdain for his well-being."
According to court records, Chauvin and another officer were called to the home where a woman said she’d been attacked by her 14-year-old son and daughter.
Once officers arrived, they ordered the teen to lie on the ground. When he refused, Chauvin hit him in the head with his flashlight, grabbed him by the throat, hit him again with the flashlight, and “applied a neck restraint, causing the child to lose consciousness and go to the ground.”
"Chauvin and [the other officer] placed [the teenager] in the prone position and handcuffed him behind his back while the teenager's mother pleaded with them not to kill her son and told her son to stop resisting," Frank wrote, noting that at one point the teenager's ear began bleeding. "About a minute after going to the ground, the child began repeatedly telling the officers that he could not breathe, and his mother told Chauvin to take his knee off her son."
After eight long minutes, Chauvin moved his knee to the teenager's upper back and left it there for nine more minutes, according to Frank.
The teen survived the attack, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital where he recieved stiches.
Frank said in his court filing that the alleged attack on the teen mirrored the incident with Floyd.
"As was true with the conduct with George Floyd, Chauvin rapidly escalated his use of force for a relatively minor offense," Frank wrote. "Just like with Floyd, Chauvin used an unreasonable amount of force without regard for the need for that level of force or the victim's well-being. Just like with Floyd, when the child was slow to comply with Chauvin and [the other officer's] instructions, Chauvin grabbed the child by the throat, forced him to the ground in the prone position, and placed his knee on the child's neck with so much force that the child began to cry out in pain and tell Chauvin he could not breathe."