MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Minnesota’s county attorneys want to give the state attorney general the authority to handle all cases of police-involved deaths, as is the case against the four former Minneapolis police officers involved George Floyd’s death.
The Minnesota County Attorneys Association voted in transferring that power during an emergency meeting Thursday that included Attorney General Keith Ellison. The attorney general is now leading the state’s case against the officers instead of the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.
State lawmakers would need to pass legislation during this month’s special session to give the attorney general the ongoing authority.
The county attorneys are also calling on the Legislature to provide additional funding to the state Attorney General’s Office and create a unit within Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to investigate police killings of civilians.
“If this is the path the Legislature and governor choose to take, my office will accept the responsibility,” Ellison said. “But it must come with resources sufficient to do the job thoroughly and to do justice in the way Minnesotans have a right to expect.”
Ellison is one of 18 Democratic attorneys general who are asking Congress to grant their offices “clear statutory authority under federal law to investigate and resolve patterns or practices … of unconstitutional policing by local police departments” in their respective states, the Star Tribune reported.
Two days after Ellison formally took over the case, charges against Derek Chauvin, the white officer who held his knee to Floyd’s neck as he cried out for air May 25 until becoming motionless, were increased to second-degree murder, and the three other officers at the scene were arrested and charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
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