By Aaron Miller-
Cruel ex police officer, Derek Chauvin, has been given a 21-year jail sentence for violating George Floyd’s civil rights.
Chauvin(pictured) will serve the federal sentence at the same time he serves his 22-and-a-half year sentence on state charges of murder and manslaughter.
The former police officer brutally pinned George Floyd to the pavement outside a Minneapolis corner shop for more than nine minutes as he lay dying on May 25, 2020.
Chauvin was told by US District Judge Paul Magnuson what he did was “simply wrong” and “offensive”.
Mr Magnuson said: “I really don’t know why you did what you did.
Federal prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Chauvin to 25 years.
Chauvin, who is white, was convicted on murder and manslaughter charges in Minnesota for kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes.
As part of the plea agreement, Chauvin also pleaded guilty to violating the rights of a then-14-year-old boy black teenager during another arrest that took place in 2017.
According to the indictment, Chauvin held the boy by the throat, hit him in the head with a flashlight, and held his knee on the boy’s neck and upper back while he was handcuffed and not resisting. Like Mr Floyd, the boy was black.
Prosecutors said that unreleased bodycam footage showed Chauvin kneeling on the boy’s back for 17 minutes while he cried out for his mother.
The killing sparked global outrage and a wave of demonstrations against racial injustice and police use of force. Chauvin had ignored the cries of onlookers as he subjected Floyd to an inhumane captivity, suffocating his breath as he lay helpless on the ground.
The federal charges against Chauvin included two counts for depriving Mr Floyd of his rights by kneeling on his neck as he was in handcuffs, and by failing to provide medical care during the May 2020 arrest.
The heartless former cop was unapologetic to Floyd’s family in court. as he wished Floyd’s children “all the best in their life” and that they have “excellent guidance in becoming good adults”.
He will be transferred from solitary confinement at Minnesota’s only maximum security prison to a federal prison.
Chauvin, 46, has been held in “administrative segregation” at the state’s maximum security prison at Oak Park Heights. He has been largely confined to a 10-by-10-foot room, which he has been allowed to leave for an average of one hour a day for exercise.
His attorney, Eric Nelson, wrote in a request for a 20-year sentence last month that Chauvin still “spends much of his time in solitary confinement, largely for his own protection.”
Nelson speculated that Chauvin may never be placed in a prison’s general population because of the risks of him becoming a target as a former officer and the “intense publicity surrounding his case.” But outside experts say he’ll probably mix with other inmates at some point.