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A group of minority correctional officers took preliminary steps to sue the Minnesota county where Derek Chauvin was initially held in jail on Friday, multiple local news outlets reported over the weekend.
The Minneapolis-based attorney representing the officers' case raised discrimination charges against Ramsey County in complaints filed to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.
According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which obtained a copy of complaints, eight correctional officers of color employed by the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center said they were prohibited from interacting with Chauvin when he was taken into custody on May 29. One complaint reportedly recounted a supervisor at the detention center telling an officer that they posed a potential "liability" due to the nature of Chauvin's charges.
"I understood that the decision to segregate us had been made because we could not be trusted to carry out our work responsibilities professionally around the high-profile inmate — solely because of the color of our skin. I am not aware of a similar situation where white officers were segregated from an inmate," wrote one officer in a statement included with the complaint filing, according to Star Tribune.
St. Paul's ABC-affiliate station KSTP said the Ramsey County jail's superintendent gave officers the orders to keep away from Chauvin and relocated them to work on different floors in its report about the recent filing. KSTP, which also obtained copies of the documents, reported that the charges also included comments about Ramsey County leadership, which "has chronically failed to promote the interests of employees of color."
Newsweek reached out to the attorney's office, Minnesota Department of Human Rights, and representatives from Ramsey County, for comments but did not receive replies in time for publication.
Chauvin, a white former Minneapolis Police Department officer, was held at Ramsey County Adult Detention Center for two days before he was transferred to Hennepin County Jail, followed by the Minnesota Correctional Facility. He was arrested for his involvement in the case of 46-year-old George Floyd, a Black man who died while Chauvin knelt on his neck for close to nine minutes during an arrest. The incident was captured in a video that quickly went viral online.
Alongside three other former Minneapolis police officers involved in Floyd's death, Chauvin was fired from the department shortly after. He was initially taken into custody on charges of third-degree murder and manslaughter that was later elevated to second-degree.
The three additional officers, Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Kiernan Lane, were arrested and charged with aiding and abetting a little more than one week later, following widespread protests seeking accountability. Lane was released on $750,000 bail from Hennepin County Jail two days later. Kueng was released after posting bail on Friday. Chauvin remains in custody with bail set at more than $1.2 million.
