Derek Chauvin is sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for killing George Floyd after a store clerk suspected he gave a counterfeit $20 bill.
Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill sentenced the previous Minneapolis police officer to 22 1/2 years in prison on Friday for the May 2020 murder of George Floyd. Chauvin was convicted in April on charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.
Floyd’s family members including his seven-year-old daughter Gianna and Chauvin’s mother Carolyn Pawlenty read reports on account of the prosecution and the defense ahead of the sentencing. A previous request by Chauvin’s defense team for a new trial was rejected on Friday by Judge Cahill.
George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African American man murdered by a police officer (Derek Chauvin ) during an arrest after a store clerk speculated he may have used a counterfeit $20 bill in Minneapolis. Derek Chauvin, one of four police officers who arrived on the scene, knelt on Floyd’s neck and back for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. With this, Floyd died and after his death, protests against police brutality, particularly towards black people, immediately spread across the United States and globally. As he was dying, he kept saying, “I can’t breathe” which was used as a rallying cry during the following protests.
Born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Floyd grew up in Houston, playing football and basketball throughout high school and college. He was a hip-hop artist and served as a mentor in his religious community. Between 1997 and 2005, he was sentenced for eight crimes. He served four years in prison after accepting a plea bargain for a 2007 provoked robbery in a home invasion.
In 2014, he moved to the Minneapolis area, residing in the nearby suburb of St. Louis Park, and worked as a truck driver and bouncer. In 2020, he lost his job as a truck driver, and then his security job during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The City of Minneapolis settled a wrongful death lawsuit with Floyd’s family for $27 million. Chauvin was convicted on two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter on April 20, 2021, and on June 25, 2021, was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison. The trial of the other three officers at the scene of his death is scheduled to begin on March 7, 2022.
George Floyd, who was murdered: