May 30, 2020 | 11:42am
Chauvin, 44, is being held in the Ramsey County Jail on $500,000 bail after he was charged Friday — in Hennepin County — with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, the Star-Tribune reported.
The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension explained the jail choice late Friday, several hours after Chauvin was charged.
Ramsey County lies directly east of Hennepin County and has about 550,000 residents — less than half of Hennepin’s 1.25 million.
“The BCA communicated with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, which was dealing with potential threats to their facilities at the time of the arrest,” spokeswoman Jill Oliveira told the Star Tribune. “They directed us to book him into the Ramsey County jail.”
Chauvin is the first white officer in Minnesota to be criminally prosecuted in the death of a black civilian, the newspaper reported. The maximum sentence for third-degree murder is 25 years; the maximum for second-degree manslaughter is 10 years.
