A petition advocating for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin to receive a pardon from President Donald J. Trump has amassed approximately 50,000 signatures.
It was started by Ben Shapiro, whose The Case of Derek Chauvin docuseries on Chauvin’s conviction for the 2020 death of George Floyd launches on Tuesday.
Shapiro argues that Chauvin’s conviction “represents the defining achievement of the Woke movement in American politics,” citing the “massive overt pressure on the jury to return a guilty verdict regardless of the evidence or any semblance of impartial deliberation.”
“George Floyd was high on fentanyl. He had a significant pre-existing heart condition. He was saying he could not breathe before he was even out of the car. Derek Chauvin, for large segments of the widely circulated video of the encounter, had his knee on George Floyd’s shoulder or back, not on his neck; this was confirmed by the autopsy, which showed no damage to George Floyd’s trachea,” the petition notes, stressing that there was “no accusation at trial that Derek Chauvin targeted George Floyd for his race.”
Evidence emerged in December suggesting Floyd was alive when he reached the hospital on the day of his death.
Floyd’s death ignited some of the worst riots in U.S. history as Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists and others looted, set fires, and killed several people across the country in 2020.
Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) frontman Elon Musk has said a pardon for Chauvin is “something to think about,” and leading conservative figures such as Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA have backed the initiative.
Chauvin is serving a 21-year federal sentence, which a presidential pardon could terminate. However, his 22-and-a-half-year state sentence from 2021 would remain in place.
Chauvin’s appeals against his state conviction were denied by the Supreme Court in 2023.
The same year, he was stabbed 22 times by another prisoner, resulting in serious injuries.
