Who is Derek Chauvin and why is 'Pardon Derek Chauvin' trending on the internet?

'Black Lives Matter' was a movement started in the year 2013 to highlight the racism, discrimination and inequality faced by black people and voice out the importance of anti-racism. The primary focus of the movement was on police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people.While the movement had been in motion for years, it really gained momentum and a voice of thousands in 2020 when the death of an African-American man named George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis when he was in police custody. The incident sparked nationwide racial justice protests in the United States since the Civil Rights Movement.The protests led to the arrest of the police officer Derek Chauvin, who later pleaded guilty in the federal court to two violations of a federal civil rights statute.Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, was part of the team of officers who arrested Floyd on May 25th, 2020, after a store clerk alleged that he made a purchase using a counterfeit $20 note. In a video that later went viral on the internet, and was filmed by a witness, Chauvin could be seen kneeling on Floyd's neck while his co-workers J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane applied pressure to Floyd's torso and legs, respectively.Another police officer, Tou Thao, could be seen standing by as the incident happened. Chauvin kept the pressure on Floyd's neck till there was no pulse found, even when passers-by could be seen yelling for him to stop and move him into the police vehicle. Though he was taken to the Hennepin County Medical Center emergency room, Floyd was pronounced dead the same day.Chauvin, who was seen attacking Floyd, was tried and convicted on two counts. He pleaded guilty to wilfully depriving Floyd from his constitutional rights, leading to bodily injuries and death and he agreed that the appropriate sentence-basing for his crime was a second-degree murder, as he had exercised unreasonable and excessive force that resulted in Floyd's death, even though he was aware of the consequences of his actions.According to his plea agreement, Chauvin has been facing a sentence of between 20 and 25 years imprisonment.People across most social media platforms have been posting in favour of pardoning Derek Chauvin for his crime. This is because recently, Trump pardoned two Washington, D.C. police officers convicted in the 2020 killing of Karon Hylton-Brown, a Black man. Thus, now speculation of him possibly pardoning Chauvin is being raised on social media, even though in March Trump denied receiving any such request.Social media users have been mentioning the fact that at the time of his death, Floyd was "3 times the limit on Fentanyl with a 75% blockage in an artery and no signs of strangulation or bruises" as mentioned in a post. Most of them have been claiming that George Floyd died of a drug overdose and thus Chauvin should be pardoned for his crime."George Floyd died of a drug overdose. Free Derek Chauvin," posted a person on X "Democrats imprisoned Derek Chauvin to send a message. He's been a political prisoner for years and should be released and compensated," wrote another.Even prominent personalities such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene have posted in support of pardoning Chauvin, writing, "I strongly support Derek Chauvin being pardoned and released from prison. George Floyd died of a drug overdose."The social media trend has also brought the Black Lives Matter movement back into the limelight, and the way the movement gained eminence with Floyd's murder.