Former Minneapolis Police Officer Derick Chauvin has been sentenced in the case of George Floyd.

AP– Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, whose dying gasps under Chauvin’s knee led to the biggest outcry against racial injustice in the U.S. in generations.

The punishment — which fell short of the 30 years that prosecutors had requested — came after Chauvin broke his more than yearlong silence in court to offer condolences to the Floyd family and say he hopes more information coming out will eventually give them “some peace of mind.”

With good behavior, Chauvin, 45, could be paroled after serving two-thirds of his sentence or about 15 years.

Outside the courthouse, a crowd of about 50 people clasped hands and placed their hands on each other’s shoulders. The reaction was subdued as people debated whether the sentence was long enough—some cursed in disgust.

“Let us not feel that we’re here to celebrate,” said civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton. “Justice would have been George Floyd, never having been killed. Justice would have been the maximum. We got more than we thought only because we have been disappointed so many times before.”

Watch Sharpton address the small crowd with a bullhorn. Curiously, no other speaker needed a bullhorn to make themselves heard. Sharpton, like a typical showman, can’t go anywhere without his props.

In imposing the punishment, Judge Peter Cahill went beyond the 12 1/2-year sentence prescribed under state guidelines, citing “your abuse of a position of trust and authority and also the particular cruelty” shown to Floyd.

Philonese Floyd, the exquisitely dressed, multi-millionaire brother of George Floyd, who pulled down an incredible $14.7 million in Go Fund Me donations, told the crowd to remember to vote, reminding them of how they elected Barack Obama, their first black president.

Only 7 months later after Floyd’s brother collected the $14.7 million, the Minneapolis City Council approved a whopping $27 million settlement for Philonese and the Floyd family. It was touted as “the largest pre-trial civil rights wrongful death settlement in U.S. history.”

Floyd’s Black-victim-chaser lawyer Ben Crump released the following statement:

“This historic agreement, the largest pre-trial settlement in a civil rights wrongful death case in U.S. history, makes a statement that George Floyd’s life mattered and by extension that Black lives matter. It sends a message that the unjust taking of a Black life will no longer be written off as trivial, unimportant, or unworthy of consequences.”

Philonese told the crowd of supporters that the legend of his habitual criminal brother will live on, as he thanked everyone for continuing to fight.

Mega-millionaire black-victim-chasing lawyer Benjamin Crump called on the U.S. Senate to “immediately” pass the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act after Chauvin’s sentencing: “This should not be the exception when a Black person is killed by brutality by police. It should be the norm.”

Watch the live video here:

 

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