Derek Chauvin had previously used neck restraints -- one suspect was 'rendered unconscious': prosecutors

New court filings suggest that the physical tactics fatally employed against George Floyd were part of a pattern of conduct.

"Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who held his knee at George Floyd's throat for over nine minutes and is now charged with his murder, allegedly used a similar neck restraint at least four other times, including during a 2019 arrest in which a male suspect was 'rendered unconscious' because of the tactic, according to prosecutors," The Washington Postreported Friday. "That episode was listed in a new court filing here as one of eight cases from Chauvin’s 19-year history on the Minneapolis force that prosecutors say they plan to cite as evidence of a pattern of excessive force, including at least four times Chauvin allegedly restrained suspects 'beyond the point when such force was needed.'"

Chauvin is being tried in Hennepin County.

"The filing came as Chauvin made his first in-person court appearance in the Floyd murder case, joining the three other former police officers implicated in the 46-year-old Black man’s death," the newspaper reported. "A short while later, the three former officers who are out on bail — [Tou] Thao, Thomas K. Lane and J. Alexander Kueng — were surrounded and pursued by angry protesters as they left the courthouse and walked down a street that had been closed to traffic for security reasons. 'Murderers!' some yelled."

Prosecutors allege that in 2017, Chauvin “kicked an intoxicated male in the midsection and then applied a neck restraint on the male until the male was rendered unconscious.”

Read the full report.