Here's Why Derek Chauvin Will Spend The Rest Of His Life In Prison

 

     Derek Chauvin is 45 years old, having served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1996 to 2004, the Metropolitan Police Department from 2001 until 2020 (when he murdered George Floyd), and as a security guard in a number of nightclubs while attending college from 1995, ultimately graduating from Metropolitan State University in 2006.

     While he received three commendations between 2006 and 2009, he also received 18 brutality complaints in 18 years. He kneeled on the neck of a black child for a number of minutes, causing him to go unconscious, and was involved in vehicle chases that killed at least three people. During his stint at a club (ironically at the same time and place as George Floyd), he was reprimanded by his boss for spraying crowds of black people with pepper spray and using police intervention as a first resort.

     Chauvin was in jail from May to October 2020, and he will be in jail until his sentencing. He was convicted of three felony homicide charges carrying a combined maximum of 75 years in prison. The normal sentencing guidelines for this case are 12.5-40 years in prison. However, Derek Chauvin is not the usual murderer.

     The prosecutors are seeking aggravating circumstances for the crowd of children who were traumatized by witnessing Chauvin torture Floyd in addition to Chauvin's history of excessive force, violence, and bigotry. Chauvin is also facing nine gross misdemeanor charges for evading and failing to file $500,000 worth of property and income taxes between 2014 and 2019 (if George Floyd deserved to be killed, in Chauvin's mind, for allegedly passing a counterfeit 20-dollar bill, what does Chauvin think HE deserves?). Gross misdemeanors are not felonies, but they carry the same sentence, and Chauvin could face 50 years in prison for these charges.

     In February 2021, President Biden announced he was pursuing a civil rights investigation into Chauvin, which could potentially earn him 10 years in federal prison for hate crime charges. Chauvin will be sentenced for his murder of George Floyd in mid-June, face trial for the tax charges in late June, and likely face civil rights charges this autumn. The other three officers also face both state and federal charges.

     All told, Derek Chauvin is going to spend life in prison.