Who is Jeff Titus? Oak Park Heights warden to monitor Derek Chauvin as suicide risk amid threats by inmates
Derek Chauvin's bail was revoked on Tuesday night after he was found guilty of all three charges against him. He was handcuffed and taken away after Judge Peter Cahill revoked his bail; he is expected to be sentenced in eight weeks time for the murder of George Floyd.
The 45-year-old former Minneapolis Police officer was found guilty at the end of a three-week-long trial and the jury spent ten hours to reach their unanimous verdict. The verdict was read at 4 pm local time and Chauvin was taken to the cells in Hennepin County Government Center as this was where the trial was held.
Later in the day, he was transferred to Oak Park Heights, a level five maximum-security prison in Minnesota that is located just 25 miles east of Minneapolis, on the border with Wisconsin. The prison holds the record for having no prisoner ever escape successfully from the facility. While it is not clear if this will be the prison that Chauvin will serve his sentence in, it has been speculated that this would be a likely pick for the former police officer.
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Who is Jeff Titus?
Jeff Titus is Oak Park Heights' warden and will be responsible for monitoring Chauvin as he is considered to be at risk of suicide, according to reports. It must be noted that as a former police officer, he will be at risk from other inmates as well and the correctional facility will do well-being checks on inmates every 30 minutes or less.
Titus grew up in Austin, Minnesota, and started his career as a correctional officer in 1994 when he joined the Department of Corrections at the Moose Lake facility. In an interview that was quoted by the official Twitter account of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, he said, "I’ve worked my way through many different positions and attained a Bachelor of Science degree in corrections and sociology."
Meet Jeff Titus, the new warden at MCF-Rush City. Titus started his career as a corrections officer in 1994. https://t.co/gkvWDZOKza
— MN Dept. of Corrections (@MinnCorrections) April 26, 2017
Before Oak Park Heights, Titus worked at the Rush City facility which was a level four prison. Speaking of his department, Titus had said, "The mission of the Department of Corrections is to help offenders reintegrate back into the community." He also added that he believed 96 percent of imprisoned men in the state will return to the community and said, "The focus is to get offenders ready to be released back into the community or getting them reduced to lower custody programming, as well as to help them achieve opportunities in education and industry."
The charges against Chauvin include second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter and it has been speculated that he would be sentenced to a maximum of up to 75 years in prison. It must also be noted that according to the Minnesota guidelines, the presumptive sentence for Chauvin, who has no criminal history would be similar to that of murder in the third and unintentional murder in the second. Which could be 12 years and six months. The judge's discretion allows sentencing of anywhere between ten years and eight months to 15 years.
However, were the judge to rule that aggravating factors are present, and departs from the above guidelines, a maximum of up to 40 years would be possible ruling for second-degree murder, 25 years for third-degree murder, and 10 years for second-degree manslaughter.