Former Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced to a prison term of 22 and a half years Friday on a murder charge stemming from the death of George Floyd in May 2020.
The incident fueled unrest across the United States last summer after video showed the white officer kneeling for an extended period on the black man's neck.
Chauvin, 45, stood trial at a district court in Minneapolis and was convicted by a jury in April of all three charges he faced -- second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Sentencing Chauvin on the most serious charge, the second-degree murder charge which carries a maximum term of 40 years, Judge Peter Cahill added 10 years to the basic guideline of 150 months. The upward departure was based on aggravating factors such as "Mr. Chauvin's particularly cruel treatment of George Floyd," according to the judge's sentencing memo.
Chauvin's lawyer is expected to file an appeal, according to U.S. media.
The 46-year-old Floyd had been accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes at a shop in Minneapolis. After being removed from his vehicle and handcuffed, Floyd resisted efforts to put him into the backseat of a police car, whereupon Chauvin knelt on his neck to pin him to the ground for over nine minutes until an ambulance arrived.
Video footage of Floyd gasping for breath in the encounter before he was declared dead at a hospital reignited protests over the longstanding issues of police brutality and systemic racism in the United States, with major demonstrations linked to the Black Lives Matter movement gaining momentum nationwide even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
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