Delegates to the Minnesota Republican Party\u2019s convention held a moment of silence over the weekend for Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, six years after he murdered George Floyd and touched off a national reckoning over policing and race.<\/p>\n
The decision brought searing criticism from Democrats, who accused the Republicans of disrespecting the courts and Mr. Floyd\u2019s memory. In recent years, some conservatives have sought to reshape the narrative<\/a> around Mr. Floyd\u2019s killing and have pushed President Trump to pardon Mr. Chauvin for his federal conviction.<\/p>\n Christopher Rocco, a delegate from St. Paul who goes by the name Rocco, proposed the moment of silence on Saturday morning, describing Mr. Chauvin to his fellow delegates as someone \u201cwho should get a state retrial, who should get a federal pardon.\u201d Audio of the exchange was recorded by The Minnesota Reformer, a local news outlet.<\/p>\n When a voice vote was held on a motion for a moment of silence or prayer, many people in the room could be heard yelling aye. The nays were far quieter.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t even close,\u201d said State Representative Danny Nadeau, who presided over that portion of the convention, where about 2,300 delegates gathered in Duluth to make endorsements in state elections.<\/p>\n Mr. Rocco said he had decided to seek recognition of Mr. Chauvin after coming to the conclusion that the former officer had not received a fair trial in state court. <\/p>\n Mr. Rocco said that he did not have any personal connection to Mr. Chauvin, and that no candidate or member of the Republican Party\u2019s leadership had asked him to make the motion.<\/p>\n \u201cI made that decision to do that, to stand up for someone who doesn\u2019t have the ability to stand up for himself anymore \u2014 someone who, in my opinion, faced injustice,\u201d Mr. Rocco said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n Mr. Nadeau said he chose to make the moment of silence last only a few seconds, \u201cthe minimum amount necessary.\u201d Before starting the session that morning, he said he had told Mr. Rocco that he would prefer he not pursue a moment of silence.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a good look, in my opinion,\u201d said Mr. Nadeau, whose district is in suburban Minneapolis.<\/p>\n Democrats noted that the decision to recognize Mr. Chauvin came within days of the anniversary of Mr. Floyd\u2019s death.<\/p>\n \u201cThey cannot run from this,\u201d said the Minnesota attorney general, Keith Ellison, a Democrat who prosecuted Mr. Chauvin in state court in 2021. \u201cThey either are OK with what happened or they\u2019re going to denounce it. I haven\u2019t seen one person denounce it. I haven\u2019t seen one person say, \u2018That was a bad, ugly thing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Floyd, who was Black, was killed in 2020 when Minneapolis police officers, including Mr. Chauvin, responded to a call that Mr. Floyd had used a counterfeit bill. Mr. Floyd defied the officers\u2019 efforts to put him into a squad car, and in the ensuing struggle Mr. Chauvin knelt on Mr. Floyd\u2019s neck for nearly 10 minutes as he pleaded to be released and eventually stopped breathing. Horrified bystanders, filming on their cellphones, captured videos that were quickly seen around the world.<\/p>\n Mr. Chauvin, who is white, was convicted of murder<\/a> in state court and pleaded guilty<\/a> to a civil rights crime in federal court. He is serving a prison sentence of more than 20 years.<\/p>\n Asked about the moment of silence by a reporter for WCCO Radio<\/a>, Alex Plechash, the chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party, said that \u201cthere are a lot of people, I think, that believe that Derek Chauvin was improperly convicted and not treated well.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Plechash said in an emailed statement that it had been \u201ca spontaneous motion brought forward from the convention floor\u201d and \u201cwas not a statement from party leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo be clear, party leadership did not support this motion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Justin Malone, the chairman of the Republican Party of Otter Tail County, said that he was busy getting his delegates seated at the time of the vote and had chosen not to weigh in. He said some delegates seemed caught off guard by the mention of Mr. Chauvin.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was overwhelmingly accepted,\u201d Mr. Malone said of the moment of silence. \u201cThere was not too many people who said no.\u201d<\/p>\n Republicans have struggled to win statewide races in Minnesota over the last two decades, though they have sometimes come close. The party has also at times held majorities in the State Legislature.<\/p>\n Democrats are defending the governorship and a U.S. Senate seat this year, but neither race has an incumbent running.<\/p>\n Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, abandoned his bid<\/a> for a third term early this year after facing criticism for widespread fraud of state social service programs<\/a> that played out under his watch. The Trump administration used that fraud as part of its justification for an immigration enforcement blitz in Minnesota that led to three shootings, thousands of arrests and tense face-offs between federal agents and protesters.<\/p>\n At their convention over the weekend, Republicans endorsed Kendall Qualls, a businessman, for governor, and Adam Schwarze, a military veteran, for Senate. Those endorsements are not binding, and voters can choose those candidates or others in the August primary.<\/p>\n At their convention, Democratic delegates endorsed Senator Amy Klobuchar for governor and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan for Senate.<\/p>\n Before making the motion on the floor of the Republican convention, Mr. Rocco said he had been unsure whether other delegates would agree with him. Even if they did not, he determined, it was worth it to draw attention to the cause.<\/p>\n \u201cI was actually really surprised that the motion passed,\u201d Mr. Rocco said.<\/p>\n The moment of silence for Mr. Chauvin received relatively little coverage from local news outlets in the immediate aftermath of the convention. But as Democrats began drawing attention to it, few Republicans seemed eager to comment.<\/p>\n Reached by phone, Mr. Schwarze declined to comment, saying he was not in the room at the time of the vote. Mr. Qualls\u2019s campaign did not respond to emailed requests for comment, nor did the campaigns of Speaker Lisa Demuth, another Republican seeking the governorship, and Michele Tafoya, a former sportscaster running for Senate.<\/p>\n Mr. Rocco said he understood why many candidates were not expressing public support for his motion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Republicans still have to win the trifecta this year,\u201d he said, referring to control of the governorship and both legislative chambers. \u201cHopefully, they\u2019ll be able to do it. But at the end of the line, they\u2019re going to have to cater to the independents. I mean, that\u2019s how all elections are won.\u201d<\/p>\n Democrats were already seeking to make it a campaign issue.<\/p>\n \u201cRather than a moment of silence to honor the service members killed this year in combat across the globe,\u201d said Jason Heaser, a Democrat seeking Mr. Nadeau\u2019s State House seat, \u201cthey chose a political stunt to honor a man unanimously convicted by a jury of his peers for murder.\u201d<\/p>\n Ernesto Londo\u00f1o contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Delegates to the Minnesota Republican Party\u2019s convention held a moment of silence over the weekend for Derek Chauvin,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":838783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[343659,81213,343660,278892,343661,51,3663,50,1054,52],"class_list":["post-838782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-chauvin","tag-decisions-and-verdicts","tag-derek-1976","tag-floyd","tag-george-d-2020","tag-headlines","tag-minnesota","tag-news","tag-republican-party","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116679766777114717","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}