A judge sentenced former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin to 22 years and six months in prison on Friday for the murder of George Floyd during an arrest in May 2020. Floyd’s murder galvanised a national protest movement against racism, reports Reuters.
A jury found Chauvin guilty on April 20 of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the death of Floyd. The verdict was widely seen as a landmark rebuke of the disproportionate use of police force against Black Americans.
Chauvin’s sentence was one of the longest ones to be given to a former police officer for using unlawful deadly force in the United States, said Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office prosecuted the case. Successful prosecutions of police officers in such cases have been rare.
“Today’s sentencing is not justice but it is another moment of real accountability on the road to justice,” Ellison said outside the courtroom, calling on law enforcement leaders around the US to see it as a moment for reform.
Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill said it was important to recognise the pain of the Floyd family.
“I’m not basing my sentence on public opinion,” Cahill said. “I’m not basing it on the attempt to send any messages. The job of a trial court judge is to apply the law to specific facts and to deal with individual cases.”
In a 22-page sentencing memorandum, Cahill gave weight to prosecution arguments that Chauvin acted with cruelty and abused his position of authority, aggravating factors that allowed him to give a harsher sentence than would be indicated by state sentencing guidelines for first-time offenders.
Prosecutors had asked for a 30-year prison sentence, double the upper limit indicated in sentencing guidelines.
Video of Chauvin kneeling on the neck of the handcuffed Floyd for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020, caused outrage around the world and led to one of the largest protest movements seen in the US in decades.