Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is no stranger to the spotlight. He was the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress, back in 2006. After 12 years in the House, including two years as deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, he became the first Muslim American elected to statewide office when he was elected to his current office in 2018. He won re-election last fall in a landmark election for Minnesota Democrats. But handling the prosecution of Derek Chauvin and the other Minneapolis police officers who murdered George Floyd, Ellison says, was in many ways the culmination of his life and career and unlike anything he had encountered before. While a state attorney general wouldn't ordinarily prosecute local crimes, Ellison was appointed as a special prosecutor in the Floyd case by Gov. Tim Walz.
I recently spoke with Ellison — with whom I've been friendly for years — about his new book, "Break the Wheel: Ending the Cycle of Police Violence" for an installment of "Salon Talks." He admitted that with the entire world watching the Floyd case, he did feel an extra sense of responsibility for prosecuting the officers who had killed him. "It sounds weird even for me to say it, but the truth is my whole life I've been prepared for this moment," Ellison explained. "I didn't know it, but I mean, I was in the state legislature, I was in Congress, I came to this. I've been working on police stuff all my life, ever since I was 25 years old."
