CBS News reports that Kellie Chauvin, wife of the police officer who killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for nearly 9 consecutive minutes, has filed for divorce.
Sekula Law Offices, the law firm representing Mrs. Chauvin, posted this on Facebook:
This evening, I spoke with Kellie Chauvin and her family. She is devastated by Mr. Floyd’s death and her utmost sympathy lies with his family, with his loved ones and with everyone who is grieving this tragedy. She has filed for dissolution of her marriage to Derek Chauvin.
While Ms. Chauvin has no children from her current marriage, she respectfully requests that her children, her elder parents, and her extended family be given safety and privacy during this difficult time.
According to International Business News, Mrs. Chauvin was born in Thailand in 1974, and spent the first several years of her life in a refugee camp before her family moved to Wisconsin. She entered in an arranged marriage in 1991, and had 2 children before leaving that first husband after a decade for alleged abuse. In 2018, she became the first woman of Hmong descent to be crowned Mrs. Minnesota. She met the man who killed George Floyd when he came in on a work shift while she was working at Hennepin County Medical Center — by which he already had an established record of violent conduct that went unpenalized — and married him in 2010.
The Chauvins also own property in Orange County, Florida — where the officer who killed George Floyd cast his voting ballots in 2016 and 2018, despite presumably being a Minnesota permanent resident in order to serve as a police officer (although only 8 percent of Minneapolis police actually live in Minneapolis). The Chauvins’ Florida property was allegedly used as an AirBNB as well; the officer who killed George Floyd was apparently a licensed realtor while also serving as a police officer.
It is not unheard of for a police officer facing criminal charges for violent misconduct that ended up killing someone to divorce their spouse as a strictly legal maneuver to protect their assets from any financial consequences, forcing the public to foot the bill. But as of now, there’s no clear indication or evidence that Mrs. Chauvin is acting under such pretenses; indeed, having been a victim of domestic violence herself, it’s not irrational to think that the shocking video of her husband killing George Floyd would be a valid motivation for divorce. (There’s even less evidence, that I have seen, to support the probably-racist conspiracy theories on YouTube that Mrs. Chauvin is somehow related to Tou Thao, the police officer who stood by and watched as George Floyd was killed.)
Who Is Kellie Chauvin? Wife Of Ex-Minneapolis Cop Arrested In George Floyd’s Death Seeks Divorce [James Patterson / International Business Times]
Kellie Chauvin biography: 13 things about USOA’s Mrs. Minnesota 2019 [CONAN Daily]
Wife of Derek Chauvin, officer charged with murder in George Floyd’s death, files for divorce [Sophie Lewis / CBS News]