Derek Michael Chauvin ( ; born 1976) is an American former police officer who was convicted for the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2020.
On May 25, 2020, Floyd was arrested after a store clerk alleged that he made a purchase using a counterfeit $20 bill. In the course of the arrest, Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for about nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on the street and calling out "I can't breathe". The murder set off a series of protests in Minneapolis, across the United States, and around the world, in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
In early 2021, Chauvin was put on trial for unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter and convicted on all of the charges. He was sentenced to years in prison. Appeals to the Minnesota Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the United States for review were denied.
Early life and education Derek Michael Chauvin was born in 1976. His mother was a housewife and his father was a certified public accountant. During his early years, Chauvin grew up in West Saint Paul. When he was seven, his parents divorced and were granted joint custody of him.
Chauvin attended Park High School in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, but did not finish and later obtained a GED certificate in 1994. He earned a certificate in quantity food preparation at Dakota County Technical College and worked jobs as a prep cook. He served in the United States Army Reserve from 1996 to 2004, including two stints in the military police between 1996 and 2000 (first in Rochester, Minnesota, and later Hohenfels, Bavaria, in Germany). During that time, he also attended Inver Hills Community College from 1995 to 1999, and later transferred to Metropolitan State University, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in law enforcement in 2006.
Career Chauvin applied to the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) in September 2000 and joined the MPD in 2001. While on the force, he was involved in three police shootings, one of which was fatal.
Commendations Chauvin received a medal for valor in 2006 for being one of several officers who fired 43 shots on Wayne Reyes who pointed a shotgun at them, and another in 2008 for a domestic violence incident in which he broke down a door and shot Ira Latrell Toles who reached for Chauvin's gun, according to police. He received a commendation medal in 2008 after he and his partner tackled a fleeing suspect holding a pistol. In 2009, Chauvin received another commendation medal after apprehending a group of gang members while working as an off-duty security guard at a Minneapolis nightclub.
Misconduct episodes Chauvin had 18 complaints on his official record, two of which ended in discipline, specifically letters of reprimand.
On October 29, 2006, Chauvin was one of a group of six officers who opened fire on Wayne Reyes, shooting 43 rounds in four seconds, killing him. Police reported that he had pulled out a shotgun when they stopped his vehicle, responding to a report that he had stabbed his girlfriend and a friend and fled in his truck.Holly Bailey & Mark Berman, Minneapolis struggled with police violence and adopted reforms. 'And yet, George Floyd is still dead.' , Washington Post (May 29, 2020). Reyes was a member of the Leech Lake Ojibwe Band.Jessica Lee, Does This Flyer Accurately Represent Derek Chauvin's Police Actions? , Snopes (February 23, 2021). The officers were placed on administrative leave for one week; a grand jury in 2007 decided against charging any of the officers, determining that the police use of force in the case was justified.
On May 24, 2008, Chauvin was responding to a domestic violence call about 21-year-old Black man Ira Latrell Toles by the mother of his child. After Toles locked himself in a bathroom, Chauvin forced his way in and attempted to hit Toles's head with the butt of his gun. Police reports stated that Toles reached for an officer's gun and then Chauvin shot him twice in the stomach. Toles told The Daily Beast that he fought back in self-defense but was too disoriented to reach the gun.
On August 8, 2011, Chauvin was involved in the shooting of 23-year-old Alaskan Native American man Leroy Martinez in the torso by fellow officer Terry Nutter. Eyewitness accounts contradicted the police's claim that Martinez was armed when he was shot. According to them and Martinez himself, Martinez had already dropped his gun and held his arms in the air but the police shot him nonetheless. The three officers returned to work after a standard three-day administrative leave. After investigating the incident, the then Minneapolis Police Chief Timothy Dolan stated that the police officers acted "appropriately and courageously".
On September 4, 2017, Chauvin was among officers responding to a complaint by the mother of two young children. Videos from the scene were said to show Chauvin hitting a 14-year-old Black boy in the head with a flashlight so hard he required stitches, and then holding him down with his knee for nearly 17 minutes, ignoring the boy's complaints that he could not breathe. In order to avoid prejudice, the judge in the Floyd trial prohibited the prosecutors from raising this episode.
According to the former owner of El Nuevo Rodeo, a Latin nightclub where Chauvin had worked off duty as security, George Floyd was also working there as security, but it was not certain that they knew each other. The owner has been critical of Chauvin since his arrest, describing Chauvin's methods as "overkill" and saying "Chauvin was unnecessarily aggressive on nights when the club had a Black clientele, quelling fights by dousing the crowd with pepper spray and calling in several police squad cars as backup".
In 2023, the City of Minneapolis agreed to pay almost $9 million to settle lawsuits brought against Chauvin by Zoya Code and John Pope Jr., Black residents who both claimed that in 2017, Chauvin had "pressed his knee into their necks" in 2017, the same tactic that killed Floyd in 2020. According to a Minneapolis City Council announcement, Code and Pope were expected to receive $1.4 and $7.5 million, respectively.
In May 2024, a former City of Minneapolis employee filed a lawsuit against the city, accusing Chauvin and another MPD officer of throwing her to the ground during a January 2020 drunk-driving arrest and restraining her with a knee. In January 2025, the lawsuit concluded with the city paying a $600,000 settlement fee.
Murder of George Floyd
On May 25, 2020, Chauvin was one of four officers involved in arresting George Floyd on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill at a market and was the field training officer for one of the other officers involved. Security camera footage from a nearby business did not show Floyd resisting the arrest. The criminal complaint stated that, based on body camera footage, Floyd repeatedly said he could not breathe while standing outside the police car, resisted getting in the car and fell down; he went to the ground face down. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on the street, Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes. After Chauvin placed his knee on Floyd's neck, Floyd repeatedly said "I can't breathe", "Mama", and "please". For part of the time, two other officers knelt on Floyd's back. During the final two minutes Floyd was motionless and had no pulse. Several bystanders took videos which were widely circulated and broadcast. Chauvin and the other officers involved were fired the day following the incident. While knee-to-neck restraints were allowed in Minnesota under certain circumstances, in the days that followed, Chauvin's use of the technique was widely criticized by law enforcement experts as excessive. Public outrage over the incident and other issues of racial injustice led to mass protests in Minneapolis, the United States, and across the world.
Failed plea bargain On May 28, 2020, state and federal prosecutors held a press conference at a regional FBI office in Brooklyn Center, a Minneapolis suburb, to make an announcement in the case against the officers at the scene of Floyd's murder. However, officials at the press conference said they needed more time to review the case. On June 9, it was revealed that state and federal prosecutors had discussed a plea deal with Chauvin and his attorney that would have included state murder charges and federal civil rights charges, but the deal fell apart when United States Attorney General William Barr rejected it. As part of the failed deal, Chauvin was expected to plead guilty to third-degree murder and agree to a ten-year prison sentence. As he would have gone to federal prison, the federal government was involved, but Barr worried that protesters might view the agreement as too lenient and opted for a full investigation.
Arrest and charges
Chauvin was arrested on May 29, 2020. Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman charged him with third-degree murder, and the lesser included offense of second-degree manslaughter, making him the first White police officer in Minnesota to be charged in the death of a Black civilian. Under Minnesota law, third-degree murder is defined as causing another's death without intent to kill, but "evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life". Second-degree manslaughter also does not imply lethal intent, but that the perpetrator created "an unreasonable risk" of serious harm or death.
On May 31, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison took over the case at the request of Governor Tim Walz. On June 3, Ellison amended the charges against Chauvin to include unintentional second-degree murder under the felony murder doctrine, alleging that Chauvin killed Floyd in the course of committing assault in the third degree; Minnesota sentencing guidelines recommend years' imprisonment on conviction of that charge. Bail for Chauvin was set at $1.25 million. Additionally, Ellison also charged the three other officers with aiding and abetting second-degree murder with bail set at $1 million.
On June 23, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said that Chauvin had been trained in the dangers of positional asphyxiation and characterized Floyd's death as murder.
Pre-trial Chauvin was released on conditional bail on October 7, 2020, after posting a bond of $1 million. On October 22, 2020, Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill dismissed the third-degree murder charge, but also denied Chauvin's motion to dismiss the other, more serious murder charges. On November 5, 2020, Judge Cahill ruled that Chauvin and all three of the others charged would be tried together in Hennepin County. However, on January 13, 2021, Judge Cahill reversed his earlier ruling, deciding that Chauvin would be tried separately from the other three officers. On March 11, 2021, Cahill reinstated the third-degree murder charge against Chauvin.
Trial
Chauvin's trial began on March 8, 2021, at the Hennepin County Government Center. It marked the first time that a judge in Minnesota authorized cameras to show a full criminal trial. On April 20, 2021, a jury, consisting of six White people and six people of color, found Chauvin guilty on three counts: unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. He was the first White Minnesotan police officer to be convicted of murdering a Black person. It was only the second time an officer has been convicted of murder in Minnesota, the first being the third-degree murder conviction of Somali-American officer Mohamed Noor in the killing of Justine Damond, a White woman. Following Chauvin's conviction, Judge Cahill revoked Chauvin's bail and he was taken back into police custody.
Appeal