After the release of graphic footage showing the violent arrest of George Floyd, who subsequently died, there has been a scramble to find more information on Derek Chauvin—the Minneapolis police officer responsible.

In a chilling echo of the Eric Garner case, the video shows Floyd continually pleading for relief, saying, "Please, the knee in my neck, I can't breathe, sir." Chauvin, meanwhile, refused to move even after Floyd went quiet, leading concerned bystanders to ask him to check the man's pulse. The video shows Chauvin's monstrous indifference, and it makes sense that people want to ascribe that behavior to a personal fault that might have kept him off the police force. But apart from some publicly available records of police incidents, there is little information on who Derek Chauvin is.