CHAUVIN IN SOLITARY OVER FEARS FOR HIS SAFETY

Derek Chauvin is being held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day in Minnesota’s only maximum-security prison after he was convicted of murdering George Floyd and led out of a courtroom in handcuffs, according to authorities.

Chauvin, 45, the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes last May, was sent to the prison, in Oak Park Heights, a suburb of St. Paul, after the verdict was read Tuesday. He has been placed in an isolated wing of the prison because of fears for his safety, said Sarah Fitzgerald, a spokeswoman for the state prison system.

Chauvin, who is being held as he waits to be sentenced, will be alone in his cell for all but one hour each day, during which he is allowed to exercise. Even then, he will be kept away from all other prisoners and remain under the watch of prison guards inside the unit.

Although prison officials say Chauvin is being isolated for his own safety, prisoners often are sent to the wing, known as the Administrative Control Unit, as a punishment.