Derek Chauvin

October 14 will mark the birthday of two very different American martyrs. On that day in 1973, George Floyd was born. And, as everyone knows only too well, he died in 2020 after being placed under arrest by a Minneapolis police officer. Twenty years later Charlie Kirk was born on the same October day. The nation is still coming to terms with his assassination while speaking to students on the Utah Valley University campus two weeks ago. Floyd’s death was the result of a tragic mistake; officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder, but on the basis that he killed Floyd unintentionally. Kirk was struck down by an assassin with an explicitly political motive.

Five years ago, we watched a man die under the knee of a police officer. The footage of George Floyd gasping for breath wasn’t just horrifying – it was galvanizing. For a brief moment, America stood still, and it felt like we all agreed: this was wrong. This shouldn’t have happened. And something needed to change. But instead of coming together, we fell apart. What should’ve been a rare moment of national consensus turned into yet another front in the culture war. The left veered toward revolution, and the right veered toward denial. And somewhere in the wreckage of hashtags, riots, cable news rants, and billion-dollar DEI schemes, the real moral clarity of that moment was lost. Let’s start with the obvious: what happened to George Floyd was a tragedy.

Five years ago this month, anarchists set on fire my adopted town of Minneapolis in the wake of Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd. Now, as President Donald J. Trump has made a triumphant return to the Oval Office, some of the blogosphere are calling for him to pardon Chauvin for his crimes. Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, of the United States Constitution grants the President the “Power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”  President Trump should respect the verdict of the people and protect his own legacy by rejecting the ignoble calls to absolve the fired officer of his guilt.

A federal jury in St. Paul, Minnesota found guilty on all counts the three fired officers who failed to intervene as Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes on May 25, 2020, leading to Floyd’s death in police custody. On that Memorial Day evening, Officers J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane first confronted Floyd for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill at the Cup Foods convenience store in Minneapolis. As they handcuffed Floyd and attempted to place him in a squad car, they were joined by Chauvin and Tou Thao. After officers were unable to place Floyd in the squad car, Chauvin, Kueng and Lane restrained Floyd on the ground for over nine minutes as a growing crowd recorded the events unfolding in public view. Floyd stopped breathing at the scene.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced to over 22 years in prison by Judge Peter Cahill on Friday for the murder of George Floyd. Prosecutors had asked the imposing punishment be closer to 30 years. State guidelines recommend a 12-and-a-half-year sentence for a first-time offender. Cahill went beyond the guidelines, citing Chauvin’s ‘abuse of a position of trust and authority and also the particular cruelty’ to Floyd. A 22-year sentence tends to be associated with more grizzly offenders. Last year, 17-year-old Jered Ohsman was sentenced as an adult by a Hennepin County District Court — the same court that sentenced Chauvin — for killing 39-year-old Steven Markey during a botched robbery.

The trial of Derek Chauvin continues to generate headlines — weeks after the former Minneapolis police officer’s April 20 conviction of the murder of George Floyd. This week the story is about juror number 52, who appears to have added considerable weight to Chauvin’s argument that his trial was not fair. Among Chauvin’s current motions is one asking the trial judge Peter Cahill to recall the entire jury for interrogation over possible juror misconduct. He may have a case. Brandon Mitchell — juror number 52 — stepped forward to identify himself and make the media rounds. He is a 31-year-old black Minneapolis high school basketball coach.

‘Let them kill each other’ is now the message coming from the White House, the activist left and mainstream media pundits in the wake of the police shooting death of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant. After several hours of speculation, Bryant was shown on police body camera footage attacking multiple people with a long kitchen knife outside a residence. Bryant was shot when she charged a girl up against a vehicle with the knife. The officer fired four times, mortally wounding Bryant, who was pronounced dead at the hospital. Twitter activists, cable news hosts and even the White House should have admitted their error in jumping to the conclusion that this incident was somehow linked to Derek Chauvin being found guilty of the murder of George Floyd.

The jury rendered guilty verdicts on all three charges against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin — second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter — after 10 hours of deliberations. He will be sentenced on the second-degree murder charge that was the most serious of the three. The charges were brought in an atmosphere of mob justice on May 29 and June 3, 2020, within days of the death of George Floyd on May 25. Indeed, the charges were filed in response to the demands of the mob while the Twin Cities were burning down at its hands.

Americans now know to expect riots. Minnesota has been dreading more carnage for weeks as the Derek Chauvin trial approaches its climax. For people intent on violence, the facts of any case are by the by. All that matters is the race of the victim. In the Minneapolis suburbs the rage broke out early, after Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old African American man, was shot by police officer Kimberly Potter. The video went inevitably viral — and everybody knew what was coming. The protests started instantly and haven’t stopped. A man carried a severed pig’s head on a stake. By the sixth day, Little Trees air fresheners hung from the police department's chain link fence — a nod to the alleged reason Wright was pulled over.

As I write, jury selection for the murder trial of Derek Chauvin is about to begin in Minneapolis. You remember Derek Chauvin, right? He is the (former) policeman charged with the murder of St George Floyd, race martyr (also drug addict, woman abuser, and career criminal). Chauvin and his three colleagues disgusted civilized opinion last spring when a bystander’s video clip of Officer Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck was released. Nine minutes. Chauvin kept Floyd pinned to the ground for some nine minutes. ‘I can’t breathe,’ Floyd can be heard crying. An ambulance eventually came to whisk Floyd off to hospital. Too late. Floyd died, murdered by the brutish policeman who cruelly, gratuitously, asphyxiated him by kneeling on his neck, cutting off his air supply.