Potential vice presidential pick Amy Klobuchar is drawing criticism for her inability to have charges brought against the officer involved in George Floyd’s death while serving as a county prosecutor in 2006.
Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, the officer seen kneeling on Floyd’s neck in a now-viral video, was involved in the fatal shooting of Wayne Reyes, 42, along with six other officers. Reyes was brandishing a shotgun at police following a police chase, according to a report by Communities United Against Police Brutality.
The shooting occurred while Klobuchar was a prosecutor with Hennepin County, but the case did not go before a grand jury until after she had left office, according to the Star Tribune. The grand jury failed to return indictments against any of the officers involved.
This was not the only shooting in Chauvin’s disciplinary record. He has had three shootings during his career and 17 complaints against him in total. Only one resulted in disciplinary action.
Klobuchar, who is being vetted as one of Joe Biden’s possible picks for vice president, has a history of not prosecuting cops in more than two dozen officer-involved fatalities that took place during her time as a prosecutor, according to the Star Tribune.
“I will be more than talking about this. I spent the day with my community, which is the right thing to do. But these allegations are a bold-faced lie,” Klobuchar told New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi in a series of tweets on Friday.
Klobuchar refused to withdraw her bid to become Joe Biden’s vice president amid the controversy, instead telling Nuzzi that “Joe Biden’s gonna make a decision on VP and I know he’ll make a good one.”
NEW: I asked Amy Klobuchar to respond to the calls for her to drop out of the running to be Joe Biden’s VP amid scrutiny of her record as prosecutor in MN, when she declined to prosecute police. She said, “Joe Biden’s gonna make a decision on VP and I know he’ll make a good one.”
— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) May 29, 2020
