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.

[24][25] After the conclusion of the criminal and civil rights cases, Chauvin was transferred in August 2022 from Oak Park Heights Prison in Minnesota to FCI Tucson in Arizona, a medium-security federal facility, to serve his sentence.

[31] Chauvin attended Park High School in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, but did not finish and later obtained a GED certificate in 1994.

[32] He earned a certificate in quantity food preparation at Dakota County Technical College and worked jobs as a prep cook at a McDonald's in Cottage Grove and later at a Tinucci's buffet restaurant in neighboring Newport.

[30][33] He served in the United States Army Reserve from 1996 to 2004,[34] including two stints in the military police between 1996 and 2000 (first in Rochester, Minnesota, and later Hohenfels, Bavaria, in Germany).

[32][35][36] During that time, he also attended Inver Hills Community College from 1995 to 1999,[33][34] and later transferred to Metropolitan State University, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in law enforcement in 2006.

[13] 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.

[13] 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.

[9][37][38] 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.

[62] 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.

[63][64][65] Public outrage over the incident and other issues of racial injustice led to mass protests in Minneapolis, the United States, and across the world.

[70] As part of the failed deal, Chauvin was expected to plead guilty to third-degree murder and agree to a ten-year prison sentence.

[77][78] 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".

[85] 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.

The Minnesota Supreme Court denied Chauvin's request for a public defender, ruling that his financial state rendered him ineligible.

[102] Chauvin's lawyer further stated that the settlement reached between the city of Minneapolis and the Floyd family for $27 million during jury selection amounted to prejudice.

[106] The appeal centered on the claim by Chauvin that he did not receive a fair trial due to pre-trial publicity and that potential civil unrest if he was acquitted may have influenced the jury.

[107] In an interview from prison for a documentary released on November 16, 2023, by the right-wing[108] media organization Alpha News, Chauvin said, "At the end of the day, the whole trial including sentencing was a sham.

[112] At Oak Parks, Chauvin was held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day in an isolated wing of the prison, where he was under constant watch "for fears for his safety".

[115] On May 12, 2021, Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill allowed for the prosecution to seek a greater prison sentence after finding that Chauvin treated Floyd "with particular cruelty".

[116] State prosecutors sought a sentence of 30 years' imprisonment for Chauvin based on the extreme cruelty he exhibited when he murdered Floyd, which "shocked the conscience".

[128] Chauvin, also on May 7, 2021, was also indicted by the same grand jury for violating the civil rights of the 14-year-old boy he arrested in the aforementioned September 2017 incident.

[6] On July 7, 2022, Chauvin was sentenced to 21 years in prison on the charges of violating the civil rights of George Floyd and the boy.

[24][25] In December 2024, US District court accepted Chauvin's demand to have Floyd's tissue remains tested again to check for alternative causes of deaths.

[144] In June 2020, eight correctional officers who work at the jail filed a discrimination complaint against their supervisors with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.

Their attorney said that his clients sued to hold Superintendent Steve Lydon and Ramsey County "responsible for the discrimination that occurred under their watch."

One of the plaintiffs said that while he regularly processed and booked high-profile inmates, he was in the middle of patting down Chauvin when the superintendent told him to stop and replaced him with a white officer.

In a statement provided to the Star Tribune by the sheriff's office, Lydon said he "was trying to 'protect and support' minority employees by shielding them from Chauvin".

[149] Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison denounced the attack, stating that Chauvin "was duly convicted of his crimes and, like any incarcerated individual, he should be able to serve his sentence without fear of retaliation or violence.

[148] The suspect was a former FBI informant and gang member who had been featured in a book about organized crime leader Rene Enriquez.