George Floyd Case: Chauvin Convictions, Settlement, and Reforms

The George Floyd case began on May 25, 2020, when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds during an arrest over an allegedly counterfeit $20 bill, killing him. It ended, in criminal terms, with Chauvin convicted of murder in state court and of federal civil rights violations, the three other officers on the scene convicted as well, a $27 million civil settlement paid to Floyd’s family, and a wave of state and local policing reforms whose federal counterpart never became law.

What Happened on May 25, 2020

Shortly after 8 p.m. on Memorial Day, Minneapolis officers responded to a 911 call from Cup Foods at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue. A clerk reported that a customer had used what appeared to be a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes. Officers confronted Floyd, handcuffed him, and tried to place him in a squad car. After he was pulled back out, Chauvin pinned him face-down on the pavement and pressed a knee into his neck.¹

Chauvin held that position for nine minutes and 29 seconds. Floyd, handcuffed, repeatedly said he could not breathe. Three other officers were present. Tou Thao kept bystanders back. J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane helped hold Floyd down. None intervened, and none provided medical aid.¹ Floyd was taken by ambulance to an emergency room and pronounced dead at 9:25 p.m.²

The encounter was recorded on a cellphone by Darnella Frazier, then 17 years old. She posted the video, it spread, and a Washington Post-Ipsos poll in June 2020 found that 79% of Americans had seen it.³ The Pulitzer Prize board later awarded Frazier a special citation for the recording.⁴

Cause of Death

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide, with the cause listed as “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” The report also noted arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease, fentanyl intoxication, and recent methamphetamine use as significant conditions. The office noted that its manner-of-death finding is a public health function and “not a legal determination of culpability or intent.”⁵

An independent autopsy commissioned by Floyd’s family concluded that the death was caused by asphyxia from neck and back compression.² The tension between these findings, restraint versus underlying health and drugs, defined the criminal trials that followed.

Derek Chauvin’s State Murder Conviction

Minnesota charged Chauvin with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. Trial began March 29, 2021, before Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill.

Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell built the state’s case around the bystander video and body-camera footage, telling jurors: “You can believe your eyes, that it’s homicide — it’s murder.” Dr. Andrew Baker, the Hennepin County medical examiner, testified along with seven additional medical experts who attributed Floyd’s death to asphyxiation.⁶

Defense attorney Eric Nelson argued that Floyd’s heart disease, high blood pressure, and fentanyl use caused his death, and that a hostile crowd affected Chauvin’s judgment. Retired officer Barry Brodd testified that Chauvin’s actions were “justified” and “objectively reasonable,” though on cross-examination he acknowledged the known risk of positional asphyxiation.⁷

On April 20, 2021, the jury found Chauvin guilty on all three counts. In June 2021, Judge Cahill sentenced him to 22 and a half years in state prison.⁸

Chauvin’s Federal Civil Rights Case

On December 15, 2021, Chauvin pleaded guilty in federal court to two civil rights violations before U.S. District Court Senior Judge Paul Magnuson. The first count covered the willful deprivation of Floyd’s constitutional right to be free from unreasonable force and to receive medical aid, resulting in death. The second involved a separate 2017 incident in which Chauvin used unreasonable force against a 14-year-old, causing bodily injury.⁹

On July 7, 2022, Judge Magnuson sentenced Chauvin to 21 years in federal prison, to run concurrently with his state sentence. Because of parole-eligibility differences between the two systems, the federal sentence will keep him incarcerated slightly longer than the state sentence alone would have.¹⁰ The plea agreement bars him from any law enforcement work after release.⁹

Chauvin’s Appeals and Current Status

The Minnesota Court of Appeals unanimously upheld Chauvin’s second-degree unintentional murder conviction on April 17, 2023. On November 20, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal of the state conviction.¹¹

A federal appeals court has twice denied Chauvin’s rehearing requests. In November 2023, he filed another motion to overturn his federal guilty plea, arguing that evidence from a Kansas forensic pathologist, Dr. William Schaetzel, had been withheld and would show he did not cause Floyd’s death. Legal observers have called the effort a long shot.¹² If his appeals fail, he is not scheduled for release until 2038.¹³

On November 24, 2023, while held at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona, Chauvin was stabbed 22 times with an improvised knife in the prison law library. Staff performed life-saving measures, and he was reported in stable condition at a hospital.¹⁴ The attacker, John Turscak, a 52-year-old inmate serving a 30-year racketeering sentence and a former FBI informant, told investigators he targeted Chauvin as a high-profile inmate and timed the attack for symbolic connection to the Black Lives Matter movement and the “Black Hand” symbol of the Mexican Mafia. He was charged with attempted murder and related counts.¹⁵ Chauvin was later transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution in Big Spring, Texas.¹³

The Other Three Officers

In February 2022, a federal jury found Thao, Kueng, and Lane guilty of violating Floyd’s civil rights. Kueng and Thao were convicted of depriving Floyd of medical care and failing to intervene to stop Chauvin. Lane was convicted on one count. Kueng received three years in federal prison, Thao three and a half years, and Lane two and a half years.¹⁶

Lane and Kueng each pleaded guilty in state court to aiding and abetting manslaughter. Lane received three years, Kueng three and a half, both served concurrently with their federal sentences. Thao rejected a plea deal, went to trial before Judge Cahill, was convicted of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, and received four years and nine months, also concurrent.¹⁷

All three have since been released. Lane left federal prison in August 2024. Kueng was released in January 2025, with supervised release concluding in March 2026. Thao was released on November 3, 2025, and remains on supervised probation until June 2027.¹⁸

The $27 Million Civil Settlement

In July 2020, Floyd’s family filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Minneapolis and the four officers, challenging police policies, training, and the use of neck restraints.¹⁹ On March 12, 2021, the Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved a $27 million settlement. Family attorney Ben Crump described it as the largest pretrial settlement in a police civil rights wrongful death case in U.S. history. Most of the funds went to the family, with $500,000 set aside for community improvement efforts in the neighborhood where Floyd was killed.²⁰

Police Reforms After Floyd’s Death

Floyd’s killing produced legislative and policy responses at every level of government, though the pace and scope have varied.

At the state level, at least 30 states and Washington, D.C., enacted policing reforms in the years that followed. Nine states and D.C. banned chokeholds, and eight more restricted their use. Twelve states and D.C. adopted a “duty to intervene” requiring officers who witness misconduct to act. Fourteen states strengthened or created decertification processes to prevent officers with misconduct records from moving to another department. New York City and Colorado ended qualified immunity for police officers.²¹

At the local level, changes went further. A June 2025 analysis by Stanford’s Center for Racial Justice, covering the 100 largest U.S. cities, found chokehold bans in place at 92% of departments, up from 22%, and duty-to-intervene policies at 95%, up from 29%. Nearly half of departments adopted a “necessary” standard for use of force, stricter than the “objectively reasonable” standard the Supreme Court set in Graham v. Connor.²² Voters in at least 18 localities passed ballot initiatives strengthening civilian oversight.²¹

At the federal level, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act was introduced to address racial profiling, national misconduct reporting, and qualified immunity. It passed the House but stalled in the Senate. Representative Glenn Ivey of Maryland reintroduced it as H.R. 5361 in September 2025 with 130 Democratic cosponsors, and it has not advanced past introduction in the 119th Congress.²³

Minneapolis Under Two Reform Agreements

The Minneapolis Police Department became subject to two separate reform agreements after Floyd’s death. In 2022, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights found the department had engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination. In March 2023, the city and department entered a court-enforceable settlement agreement with the state, mandating “transformational changes” under the supervision of Hennepin County District Court.²⁴ That state agreement remains in force, monitored by an independent evaluator, Effective Law Enforcement ALL, and can only be terminated by the court on a showing of full, effective, and sustained compliance.²⁵

A separate federal consent decree, negotiated under the Biden Justice Department after its own civil rights investigation, was approved by Minneapolis in January 2025. The Trump administration moved to cancel it in May 2025, arguing that federal oversight of local police should be a “rare exception.”²⁶ On May 27, 2025, a federal judge granted the motion and dismissed the federal consent decree.²⁷ Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the department intends to continue abiding by the original federal terms, and Minnesota Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero confirmed that the state court decree “isn’t going anywhere.”²⁴

George Floyd Square

The intersection at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue where Floyd was killed became an informal memorial almost immediately and has been maintained as a community gathering space. In December 2025, the Minneapolis City Council approved a $15.1 million reconstruction project titled “38th & Chicago Re-envisioned,” aimed at replacing aging underground utilities and lead pipes while preserving existing memorials and artwork.²⁸

Construction began on June 8, 2026, with the intersection closed to vehicular traffic through late 2027. The final design maintains two-way traffic with a roundabout but raises the intersection streets to sidewalk level and includes gates for temporary event closures. The design also prohibits vehicles from driving over the exact spot where Floyd was killed. Some community members and activists have said their vision called for more pedestrian-only space than the city adopted.²⁹

1
MPR News. Timeline: What Happened in Minnesota After Police Murdered George Floyd
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ABC News. Timeline: Impact of George Floyd’s Death in Minneapolis
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ABC News. Darnella Frazier Recognized at Pulitzer Prizes for George Floyd Video
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The Pulitzer Prizes. Darnella Frazier
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Hennepin County Medical Examiner. George Floyd Autopsy Report
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The New York Times. Derek Chauvin Trial
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ABC News. Key Takeaways From Derek Chauvin’s Murder Trial, Day 12
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CNN. Derek Chauvin Federal Sentencing
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U.S. Department of Justice. Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin Pleads Guilty in Federal Court
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PBS NewsHour. Derek Chauvin Gets 21 Years for Violating George Floyd’s Civil Rights
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MPR News. Supreme Court Rejects Appeal of Derek Chauvin
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PBS NewsHour. Derek Chauvin Makes Another Bid to Overturn Federal Conviction
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NPR. Ex-Officer Convicted in George Floyd’s Killing Is Moved to New Prison
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CBS News Minnesota. Derek Chauvin Was Stabbed 22 Times in Federal Prison Attack
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OPB. Inmate Who Stabbed Derek Chauvin 22 Times Is Charged With Attempted Murder
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NPR. Two Former Police Officers Are Sentenced for Violating George Floyd’s Civil Rights
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Court TV. Tou Thao Sentenced in George Floyd’s Killing
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Star Tribune. Fired Minneapolis Officer Tou Thao to Leave Prison
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NBC News. City of Minneapolis Considering Settlement With George Floyd’s Family
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NPR. Minneapolis Has Announced $27 Million Settlement With Family of George Floyd
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Brennan Center for Justice. State Policing Reforms Since George Floyd’s Murder
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Stanford Center for Racial Justice. Police Use of Force Policies
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Congress.gov. H.R. 5361 – George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2025
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PBS NewsHour. Justice Department Moves to Cancel Minneapolis and Louisville Police Reform Settlements
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Minnesota Department of Human Rights. Minneapolis Police Department Agreement
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ABC News. Justice Department to Drop Police Reform Agreements in Louisville, Minneapolis
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City of Minneapolis. Minneapolis Consent Decree
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ENR. Minneapolis Launches $15.1M Revamp of George Floyd Square
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MPR News. George Floyd Square Construction Groundbreaking Planned for June in Minneapolis