EXPLAINER: Chauvin heads to federal prison for Floyd's death

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is about to swap solitary confinement at Minnesota's only maximum security prison for an unknown future at a federal prison where, despite his national notoriety for killing George Floyd, he'll probably be safer.

Chauvin will be sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in St. Paul after pleading guilty in December to federal civil rights charges. He's already serving 22 1/2 years for his conviction in state court on murder and manslaughter charges. His plea deal on the federal charges calls for a sentence of 20 to 25 years, and for serving the sentences concurrently in federal prison.

Inmates qualify for parole earlier in the Minnesota prison system than they do in the federal system, so the agreement means Chauvin will spend at least a couple more years behind bars than he would have for the state murder conviction alone. But it avoids the life sentence he faced on the federal charges, and gives him the potential for a safer environment with a bit more freedom.

Chauvin, who is white, killed Floyd by pinning the unarmed Black man to the pavement with his knee for 9 1/2 minutes, despite the Black man’s fading pleas of “I can’t breathe.” Floyd’s killing in May of 2020 sparked protests worldwide and forced a national reckoning over police brutality and racism.

WHERE IS HE NOW?

For his own safety, Chauvin, 46, has been held since his conviction in “administrative segregation” at the state's maximum security prison at Oak Park Heights. He's been largely confined to a 10-by-10-foot room, which he’s been allowed to leave for an average of one hour a day for exercise.

His attorney, Eric Nelson, wrote in a request for a 20-year sentence late last month that Chauvin still “spends much of his time in solitary...