MINNEAPOLIS (CN) — A Minnesota jury convicted Derek Chauvin, the white former Minneapolis police officer, on murder charges for the May 2020 death of George Floyd — a Black man — after kneeling on his neck and chest for over nine minutes in May 2020.
A 12-juror panel of Hennepin County residents found Chauvin guilty of all three charges brought against him: unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Chauvin, dressed in a grey suit and blue tie, appeared nervous as Judge Peter Cahill read the judge's guilty verdict to the court. He was immediately placed in the custody of the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office after the reading.
“I’d like to thank you … for not only jury service, but heavy-duty jury service,” Cahill told the jury.
“I could do nothing but watch, especially in that courtroom, over and over again, as my brother was murdered,” Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd said in an emotional statement. He compared his brother’s death to that of Daunte Wright, who was shot by a Brooklyn Center Police Department officer April 11.
“We’ll get justice. And I told you, we’re gonna fight for you too,” he said to Wright’s family.
Followig the announcement that the jury verdict was forthcoming, the previously near-empty streets filled with people coming to protest or making their way out of downtown. What was previously a small crowd gathered outside the courthouse swelled to a crowd of about 100, chanting slogans like “Say his name -- George Floyd” and “If we don’t get it, shut it down.”
After Cahill read the verdict, the crowd around the courthouse swelled threefold and erupted in cheers and chants. Cars honked horns for blocks around, and local politicians and activists made speeches under the sounds of blasting music and celebratory whoops.
Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office prosecuted Chauvin, gave a speech thanking his team for their “long, hard, painstaking work” but said there was more to be done. “I would not call today’s verdict justice, however,” he said. “Because justice implies true restoration. But it is accountability, which is the first step towards justice, and now the cause of justice is in your hands. And when I say your hands, I mean the hands of the people of the United States.”
“It’s progress from where this city’s come from,” Ceejay Jackson, 50, said. A lifelong Minneapolis resident, he said he was pleased with the verdict, but that it was hard to get too excited.
He held a sign showing an image of Minnesota made up of the names of those killed by police.
“There’s a little more accountability because of media -- without that, this wouldn’t even happen. ...I’m optimistic in that manner, that maybe generations to come won’t have to experience this kind of abuse of authority,” Jackson said.
“I still feel sad, because I know too many people who have already suffered from this kind of abuse, and nothing happened. You know. I’m optimistic, though,” he added.
Another group gathered at George Floyd Square, the part-time block party, full-time memorial autonomous zone at the site where Floyd died on 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in South Minneapolis.
Chauvin now faces up to 40 years in prison, but may not serve that many.
Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines recommend 12 years and 6 months for unintentional second-degree murder, the same sentence for third-degree murder and four years for manslaughter. He will be sentenced in eight weeks.
Prosecutors have, however, moved for several upward sentencing departures.
Their reasons include that Chauvin killed Floyd in front of several minors, one of them a nine-year-old girl, that Floyd’s situation as a handcuffed person in Chauvin’s custody crying out for breath made him particularly vulnerable, that Chauvin treated Floyd with cruelty and that he abused a position of authority in killing Floyd. Prosecutors also argued that the contributions to Floyd’s deadly arrest by Chauvin’s fellow former officers Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng supported an upward departure; all three face aiding-and-abetting charges and are scheduled to go to trial before Cahill in August.