Former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd after the Jury convicted him on all three counts.
The Jury deliberations were extremely short, taking just a matter of hours to find Chauvin guilty.
He was charged with all three counts against him:
Second Degree Murder
Third Degree Murder
Involuntary Manslaughter
The verdict was met with a mixed reaction, with a sense of bittersweet justice that Chauvin had been convicted, but mixed with the tragedy that an African American man was murdered by the Minneapolis police.
President Joe Biden welcomed the decision and called it a “giant step forward in the march towards justice”.
https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1384660069133033474?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>April
Floyd’s death sparked a wave of Black Lives Matter protest throughout the world last summer and this conviction is undoubtedly a step towards impactful justice.
There is also a renewed call to find justice for a number of other African Americans who have lost their lives at the hands of police officers, including Breona Taylor, who was shot dead in her home last year.
Within just hours of the verdict, a 15-year-old African American girl, Ma’Khia Bryant. was shot and killed by police in Columbus, Ohio.
Chauvin is due to be sentenced in the coming weeks, but estimates suggest that he will serve the rest of his life in prison, with sentences for the three counts potentially totalling around 90 years.
