Minneapolis man: George Floyd's killer ‘tried to kill me’ 12 years ago

On Thursday, The Daily Beast reported that Ira Toles, a man in Minneapolis, alleges that Derek Chauvin, the MPD officer who kneeled on George Floyd until he suffocated, also tried to kill him in 2008.

"When news outlets identified the officers involved, Toles, 33, realized the man responsible for Floyd’s death was the same police officer who barged into his home and beat him up in the bathroom before shooting him in the stomach 12 years earlier while responding to a domestic violence call," reported Pilar Melendez. "'The officer that killed that guy might be the one that shot me,' Toles texted his sister on Tuesday night, according to messages shared with The Daily Beast. 'They said his last name and I think it was him.'"

"Authorities said that just before 2 a.m on May 24, 2008, officers responded to a domestic violence call at an apartment complex on Columbus Ave South. The 911 operator could hear a woman yelling for somebody to stop hitting her, local media reported at the time," said the report. "The 33-year-old said that Chauvin broke into the bathroom and started to hit him without warning. Toles said he returned blows to the officer because 'my natural reaction to someone hitting me is to stop them from hitting me.'"

"According to local news reports, Chauvin shot and wounded Toles after he allegedly reached for an officer’s gun," said the report. "Toles said he doesn’t remember being shot — just 'being walked through the apartment until I collapsed in the main entrance where I was left to bleed until the paramedics came.'" He ultimately recovered from the gunshot wound, albeit with a hole that "never really closed." He was charged with "two felony counts of obstructing legal process or arrest and a misdemeanor count of domestic assault" after being discharged.

Toles denies he ever reached for the officer's gun, as was reported.

"I would assume my reaction would be to try to stop him from hitting me. If his first reaction was hitting me in the face that means I can’t see and I’m too disoriented to first locate his gun and then try to take it from him and for what?" said Toles. "To turn a misdemeanor disorderly situation into a felony situation that could have resulted in me dying? He tried to kill me in that bathroom."

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