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Honoring a murderer.On the morning of Saturday, May 30, 2026, delegates to the Minnesota Republican Party’s state endorsement convention rose and stood in silence.They were not honoring a fallen soldier.They were not remembering a victim of gun violence.They were not pausing for the more than one million Americans who have died of COVID-19.They were observing a moment of silence for Derek Chauvin — the former Minneapolis police officer convicted by a unanimous jury of the second-degree murder of George Floyd.The date was five days after the sixth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder.The location was Duluth, Minnesota — the same state where Floyd took his last breaths on May 25, 2020, with Chauvin’s knee on his neck for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds as he cried out for his mother and told his killers he could not breathe.The facts of what happened at the convention are not in dispute.Delegate Christopher Rocco of St.Paul called for the tribute.Convention chair, State Rep.Danny Nadeau (R-Rogers), put the motion to a voice vote before roughly 2,300 delegates.The ayes rang out clearly and loudly.A brief silence followed.Convention business then resumed.The facts of what Derek Chauvin did are not in dispute either.A Minnesota jury of twelve citizens found him guilty.The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld that verdict.The Minnesota Supreme Court declined to disturb it.The United States Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal.A Hennepin County judge denied his most recent petition for postconviction relief in May 2026 — just weeks before his convention tribute.Every court that has examined the evidence has reached the same conclusion: Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.And yet, the Minnesota Republican Party held a moment of silence for him — and its chair defended the decision.“I am heartbroken and frankly shocked by the Minnesota Republican Party’s decision to hold a moment of silence for Derek Chauvin at their convention — days after the sixth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder.George Floyd’s children lost their father.His siblings lost their brother.His community lost a neighbor and friend.That loss is permanent and irreparable.The jury heard all the evidence.The appeals courts reviewed every claim.Justice was rendered according to our system of law.To honor the man convicted of murdering George Floyd — days after the very anniversary of that terrible day — is an act of profound cruelty to the Floyd family and to every Minnesotan who believes in accountability under law.” — Attorney General Keith Ellison, May 31, 2026 The family responds Travis Cains, spokesman for The Gianna and George Floyd Foundation — the organization founded in the name of George Floyd’s daughter — spoke to TMZ on behalf of the family.His words were unambiguous.“To put a guy on the pedestal and hold a moment of silence for him is insane,” Cains said.“The whole world knows that the public lynching of George Floyd was tragic.” The Foundation, Cains said, remains focused on healing, justice, and community empowerment.The convention tribute made that work harder — not easier.Attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, who represented the Floyd family in their civil rights case, were equally direct.In a statement released Tuesday, June 2, they called the moment of silence an “immoral act” and demanded a retraction and apology.“The audacity of the Minnesota Republican Party to honor an individual who has both been convicted by a jury of his peers for the murder of a fellow human being, while at the same time violated a professional oath to protect and serve his community, is disgusting,” they said.“As the legal team who fought for civil justice for George Floyd and systemic legislative change to improve policing in his name, we are sickened by this lack of respect and urge all who planned and participated in this tribute to deeply reflect on the rule of law.” George Floyd’s children lost their father.That loss, as Attorney General Ellison observed, is “permanent and irreparable.” The convention action reopened that wound deliberately — not incidentally — by timing a tribute to Chauvin five days after Floyd’s murder anniversary, in front of more than two thousand delegates, in a building that houses a political party which aspires to govern all Minnesotans.What party leadership said — and what it reveals The Republican Party of Minnesota subsequently issued a clarifying statement attempting to distance official leadership from the floor action.The party described it as “a spontaneous motion brought forward from the convention floor,” and stated that “a moment of silent prayer should not be mischaracterized as an official policy position.” But the chair’s own words told a different story.Minnesota GOP Chair Alex Plechash, in an interview with WCCO Radio, defended the tribute directly: “There are a lot of people that believe Derek Chauvin was improperly convicted and not treated well.Those people wanted to have a moment of silence in recognition because they felt that way.” Plechash did not condemn the action.He explained and validated it.That is not distance.That is endorsement.Gubernatorial candidate Kendall Qualls — who received the convention’s endorsement for governor, making him potentially the first Black major-party gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota history — deflected when asked whether he would have approved the tribute.“I don’t know.That was probably not the venue to do that, or the timing to do that,” Qualls said on WCCO.He added: “I do have my own concerns about the trial itself and the condition of Derek Chauvin, how he was treated.” He also stated that Chauvin should receive a retrial and a federal pardon.House Speaker Lisa Demuth said she was not in the room when the vote was taken and would prefer honoring fallen law enforcement officers — but declined to say whether she would support a state pardon for Chauvin if elected governor.Congressman Tom Emmer’s response was the most revealing of all.Rather than condemning the tribute, Emmer issued a statement defending it: he called it “a sad day in the State of Minnesota” that coverage of the tribute was considered news, and described the delegates as “hundreds of patriotic Minnesotans” who “peacefully and respectfully recognized a member of law enforcement.” A member of law enforcement.Not a convicted murderer.Not a man whose conviction has been upheld by every court that has examined it.In Emmer’s framing, Chauvin is simply a police officer being honored.George Floyd is absent from the sentence entirely.“This decision dishonors the memory of George Floyd and wounds his loved ones all over again.As the lead prosecutor whose team presented this case to a jury of twelve Minnesotans and then prevailed at every step of the appeals process, I am deeply troubled by what this says about the state of our politics.Minnesota’s families — all of them — deserve better.” — Attorney General Keith Ellison, full statement, May 31, 2026 Not an aberration: a coordinated national campaign to rehabilitate Chauvin It would be convenient — and wrong — to treat the convention tribute as an isolated act of bad judgment by one rogue delegate.The record shows otherwise.What happened in Duluth on May 30 did not emerge in a vacuum.It is the visible expression of a coordinated, well-funded, and nationally organized campaign to rehabilitate Derek Chauvin and, in doing so, to roll back the legitimacy of the Black Lives Matter movement and any accountability for police violence against Black people.The campaign has had prominent architects.In March 2025, Ben Shapiro — founder of the Daily Wire — launched a public petition calling on President Donald Trump to pardon Chauvin for his federal civil rights conviction.Shapiro’s open letter argued that Chauvin’s conviction “represents the defining achievement of the Woke movement in American politics.” Elon Musk amplified the petition on X with a terse resp