Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview aired Sunday that there was no evidence that Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd last May was a hate crime.
Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter charges on Tuesday for Floyd’s death, during which the former police officer kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. Chauvin faces up to 40 years in prison and is currently being held in solitary confinement.
When interviewer Scott Pelley asked Ellison whether the murder was a hate crime, the prosecutor replied: “I wouldn’t call it that because hate crimes are crimes where there’s an explicit motive and of bias. We don’t have any evidence that Derek Chauvin factored in George Floyd’s race as he did what he did.”
When Pelley pointed out prosecutors could have charged Chauvin with a hate crime under state law, Ellison said they only charge crimes for which they have “evidence that we could put in front of a jury to prove.”
“If we’d had a witness that told us that Derek Chauvin made a racial reference, we might have charged him with a hate crime. But I would have needed a witness to say that on the stand. We didn’t have it. So we didn’t do it,” he said.
Pelley responded by saying: “The whole world sees this as a white officer killing a Black man because he is Black. And you’re telling me that there’s no evidence to support that?”
Hate crimes are notoriously difficult to prove, making charges extremely rare, Insider previously reported.
“When we speak to law enforcement, they say it’s difficult to prove racism,” one expert said.
Speaking about the trial, Ellison also told Pelley he wasn’t sure the state was going to win until the guilty verdict was read.
Federal prosecutors are now considering charges against Chauvin related to a 2017 incident in which he allegedly knelt on a Black teen for nearly 17 minutes, ABC News reported.
*story by Insider
