Darnella Frazier—the Minnesota teenager who captured the infamous video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes—revealed Tuesday night that her uncle was killed as an innocent bystander in a high-speed police chase.
Frazier, who is now 18, wrote in a Facebook post that her uncle, Leneal Lamont Frazier, 40, died when his vehicle was struck by a Minneapolis Police car pursuing another vehicle.
Minneapolis Police Department spokesperson John Elder confirmed to Forbes that a crash involving three vehicles occurred early Tuesday morning.
Elder said the collision unfolded while police were attempting to catch a driver in a stolen vehicle believed to be taken during a carjacking that was also linked to robberies at multiple businesses.
The officer who hit Frazier’s vehicle was identified Wednesday as Brian Cummings, who the Minneapolis Star-Tribune highlighted is facing a 2019 lawsuit along with another Minneapolis Police officer who have been accused of causing further mental harm by using Tasers during an August 2017 mental health crisis call.
Frazier, who wrote in the post that police took an “innocent life trying to catch someone else,” questioned why there was a high-speed car chase on a residential road.
The Minnesota State Patrol and the MPD will begin investigations into the crash, including looking into whether the squad car had its emergency lights on and siren activated as department policy requires.
The suspect the police were trying to catch in the car chase was still at large as of Tuesday afternoon.