Four days after George Floyd died beneath the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, that officer was in handcuffs.
On May 29, 2020, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Michael Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was booked into Ramsey County Adult Detention Center, fingerprinted, photographed — a booking photo that would soon become one of the most reproduced images in American legal history. The charges were filed by Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman in Hennepin County District Court. It was the first time a White police officer in Minnesota had ever been charged in the death of a Black civilian.
Chauvin was accused of killing Floyd during an arrest on May 25, 2020. According to the criminal complaint filed in Hennepin County District Court, Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for approximately eight minutes while Floyd lay prone on the pavement at the intersection of Chicago Avenue and 38th Street in Minneapolis, hands cuffed behind his back. Three other officers — Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane — stood nearby as Floyd repeatedly said he could not breathe. He went silent. He went still. The Hennepin County medical examiner's initial autopsy found Floyd's death a homicide. A second autopsy, commissioned by Floyd's family and conducted by Dr. Allecia Wilson at the University of Michigan, independently concluded the same: Floyd died from asphyxiation caused by officers' restraint.