On Friday, June 25, 2021, Hennepin county judge Peter Cahil sentenced former Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin to 22.5 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, a civilian Black American, on May 25, 2020.
Last year, a jury found Chauvin guilty on three charges – second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter – related to Floyd’s death. Dereck Chauvin’s conviction was a powerful moment in modern American history and came on the weight of overwhelming and harrowing evidence against the ex-police officer.
“The fact that millions of Black Americans woke up on April 21, 2021, fearing that the jury would let Chauvin walk free reveals the trauma caused by years of impunity for a malicious element in policing in the United States,” CNN’s Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu observed.