A federal judge sentenced the former police officer to 21 years on July 7, 2022, for federal civil rights violations in the killing of George Floyd. Photo / AP
A US judge has sentenced Derek Chauvin to 21 years in prison for violating George Floyd’s civil rights, telling the former Minneapolis police officer that what he did was “simply wrong” and “offensive.”
US District Judge Paul Magnuson sharply criticised Chauvin for his actions on May 25, 2020, when the white officer pinned Floyd to the pavement outside a Minneapolis corner store for more than nine minutes as the black man lay dying. Floyd’s killing sparked protests worldwide in a reckoning over police brutality and racism.
“I really don’t know why you did what you did,” Magnuson said. “To put your knee on a person’s neck until they expired is simply wrong … Your conduct is wrong and it is offensive.”
Magnuson, who earlier this year presided over the federal trial and convictions of three other officers at the scene, blamed Chauvin alone for what happened. Chauvin was by far the senior officer present as police tried to arrest Floyd while responding to a 911 call accusing him of using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes. And Chauvin rebuffed questions from one of the other officers about whether Floyd should be turned on his side.
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