As a Prosecutor, Klobuchar Refused To Bring Charges Against Multiple Officers Involved in Fatal Shootings
Democrats rarely get any of the blame when race riots occur, even though they occur by and large in Democrat-run cities.
But Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar has now been put on the hot seat for her actions that some have said led to the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed after a police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes in Minneapolis this week.
The senator used to be in charge of prosecution for the city on Minneapolis when she served as Hennepin County attorney prior to becoming a senator.
When she was in that position, Klobuchar failed to bring charges in over 24 cases where people died in confrontations with police officers.
Shortly after her departure, multiple police officers were accused of using excessive force, including the officer who has been blamed for Floyd’s death, The Guardian reported. The investigation was passed on to her successor, who sent the case to a grand jury that ultimately decided not to charge the officers.
During his 19-year career as a Minneapolis police officer, Derick Chauvin, who was fired on Tuesday, had at least 10 conduct complaints filed against him, according to a database documenting those complaints.
In one, he was involved in the shooting death of a man who had stabbed multiple victims before attacking police.
Chauvin was also involved in the nonfatal shooting of a Native American man in 2011, for which he was placed on administrative leave, as WCCO-TV originally reported.
The majority of police officers are good, honest people who protect and serve their communities in the face of extreme danger and public consternation. But there are instances in which bad cops deserve to be fired and prosecuted. Those cases must be handled appropriately.
We cannot have our nation become a police state in which officers are allowed to do whatever they want with no consequences.
And we also cannot have a state in which police drag business owners out of their establishments and force them to close shop because the government says so, as is currently happening in so many Democrat-controlled states.
A nation in which the state has absolute power may be the dream scenario for some leftists, but it is a nightmare for most Americans.
Whatever her reason, the Democratic senator allowed multiple police officers to go unprosecuted when complaints were made against them, as The Washington Post reported in March.
According to The Post, Klobuchar “aggressively prosecuted smaller offenses such as vandalism and routinely sought longer-than-recommended sentences, including for minors.”
“Such prosecutions, done with the aim of curbing more serious crimes, have had mixed results and have been criticized for their disproportionate effect on poor and minority communities.”
In a city with a Democratic mayor, and with a former prosecutor who is a Democratic darling, the onus falls only on the officers involved.
In a Republican-run city with the same set of circumstances, that would not be the case — and anyone with the ability to reason knows it.
UPDATE, May 29, 2020: When originally published, this story had not been extensively covered in the establishment media. It has now been widely reported on, with Klobuchar appearing on MSNBC to discuss criticisms of her career as a prosecutor.
CORRECTION, June 1, 2020: When originally published, this article made a claim based on numerous reports that Klobuchar refused to prosecute Officer Chauvin during her time as the Hennepin County attorney. However, Klobuchar and the Hennepin County Attorney’s office have denied these reports.
“Sen. Klobuchar’s last day in the office here was December 31, 2006, and she had no involvement in the prosecution of this case at all,” the attorney’s office said in a statement to The New York Times.
“This idea that I somehow declined a case … against this officer is absolutely false,” Klobuchar told MSNBC. “It was handled and sent to the grand jury. When I was county attorney, cases we had involving officer-involved shootings went to a grand jury.”
We have updated this article to remove the incorrect information and to include additional information about Klobuchar’s work as a prosecutor.
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