Derek Chauvin Sentenced to 21 Years in Federal Prison in George Floyd Civil Rights Case

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced on Thursday to 21 years in a federal prison for the federal charge of violating George Floyd’s civil rights.

Fox News reports that Chauvin pleaded guilty in December to the civil right’s violation stemming from the arrest of Floyd on May 25, 2020, which resulted in the former officer pressing his knee on the back of Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes. Officers had been called to the scene over accusations that Floyd had used counterfeit money.

Derek Chauvin was found guilty of three criminal charges on April 20, 2021: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. At the time, he was sentenced to 22 and a half years.

Thursday’s sentence will run concurrent with his state convictions, with Chauvin looking at a life sentence if hadn’t accepted the federal plea agreement on the civil rights charges, according to Fox News.

When Chauvin entered his plea on the federal civil rights charges, he admitted that kept his knee on Floyd’s neck, which resulted in the man’s death.

Chauvin admitted he “willfully deprived Floyd of his right to be free from unreasonable seizure, including unreasonable force by a police officer.”

The death of George Floyd resulted in the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020 which caused upwards of 30 deaths, multiple injuries, and over 1 billion dollars in damage nationwide.

The Minneapolis BLM chapter said “we are never going to be satisfied” following the Chauvin verdict in 2021.

Three of Chauvin’s fellow officers who were present that day, Tou Thao, J. Alexander Keung, and Thomas Lane, were convicted in February of federal civil rights charges as well.