The city of Minneapolis agreed Thursday to pay nearly $9 million to settle lawsuits filed by two people who said former police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into their necks years before he used the same move to kill George Floyd.
John Pope Jr. will receive $7.5 million and Zoya Code will receive $1.375 million. The settlements were announced during a meeting of the Minneapolis City Council.
Both lawsuits stemmed from arrests in 2017 — three years before Chauvin killed Floyd during an arrest captured on video that sparked protests worldwide, prompted a national reckoning on racial injustice and compelled a Minneapolis Police Department overhaul. The lawsuits stated that if the city had acted sooner to discipline Chauvin, “history could have been stopped from repeating itself with George Floyd.”
Bob Bennett, the attorney for Pope and Code, noted in a statement that other officers failed to intervene or report Chauvin, and police leaders allowed Chauvin to “field train and indoctrinate dozens of young MPD officers to his ways without fear of discipline or negative sanction and to continue his predatory ways for years.”
Council member Elliott Payne said what happened to Code and Pope were reminders of what happened to Floyd and rekindled those emotions.
“And it’s actually not a Derek Chauvin problem. It’s an institution problem,” Payne said. He hoped the settlements “bring some closure to this era and is a stark reminder of the work we have lying ahead.”
Code, who has a history of homelessness and mental health problems, was arrested in June 2017 after she allegedly tried to strangle her mother with an extension cord. Pope was 14 in September 2017 when, according to his lawsuit, Chauvin subjected him to excessive force while responding to a domestic assault report.
Both lawsuits named Chauvin and several other officers. The lawsuits alleged police misconduct, excessive force, and racism — Pope and Code are Black; Chauvin is white….
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