He faced up to 40 years in prison for second-degree murder, up to 25 years for third-degree murder, and up to 10 years for second-degree manslaughter.
Sentencing
Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill said on Friday the sentence was not based on emotion or sympathy but said we need to recognize the pain of the Floyd family.
Chauvin had offered his condolences to Floyd s family but did not apologize for his actions last year that caused Floyd s death. I do want to give my condolences to the Floyd family, Chauvin said.
He said he was unable to speak further due to other ongoing litigation.
“Let us not feel we are here to celebrate because justice would have been George Floyd never having been killed,” Rev. Al Sharpton said in the wake of the sentencing of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
Celebrities reacted to the sentencing on social media. Filmmaker Ava DuVernay called Chauvin a murderer. Derek Chauvin is a murderer. A murderer who watched multiple people plead for the life of the man he killed in broad daylight. A murderer who placed the full weight of his body on another human being’s neck and felt the life drain out of him. Derek Chauvin is a murderer, she wrote. Bad Feminist author Roxane Gay suggested the sentence wasn t enough, reminding that George Floyd is still dead. My goodness. 270 months in prison for Derek Chauvin, can never own firearms again, must register as a predatory offender upon release, she wrote. It s just a conflicted emotional response in that it s rare for a police officer to receive this kind of sentence but I don t know that there is a satisfying or acceptable sentence for this kind of crime.