From Ohio's Black and alternative digital news leader: Former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin gets 22-1/2 years in George Floyd's murder, his sentencing occurring on the birthday of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, whom Cleveland police gunned down in 2014....Protests were held nationwide, including in Cleveland, the Cleveland rally led by Rice's mother, Samaria Rice, and Black Lives Matter Cleveland....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black and alternative digital news leaders
Pictured are former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin (second from left, Chauvin's Black murder victim George Floyd (far left), Cleveland activist Samaria Rice, and Rice's late son,Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old Black boy whom a White Cleveland cop gunned down in November of 2014 in less than two secondsCLEVELAND, Ohio-Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, the nation's most infamous former cop who was convicted earlier this year of second degree murder and other charges in the death last year of 46-year-old George Floyd, was handed a 22 -1/2 year sentence on Friday as activists in Minneapolis and in cities across the country protested in response, including on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.
Led by Black Lives Matter Cleveland and Samaria Rice, the mother of 12-year-old police killing victim Tamir Rice, Cleveland's rally drew a small but anxious crowd and was billed as a George Floyd rally on Tamir's birthday, which was also on Friday.
After leading chants, the older Rice called for the U.S. Department of Justice to re-open the investigation into her son's vicious murder in November of 2014 and is fighting against the reinstatement of former Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann, who was fired for lying on his employment application but not for the two-second murder of a Black boy who was carrying a toy gun at a city park and recreation center on the city's largely White west side of town.
Chauvin, 45, was held to a different standard than the average White cop that goes free after gunning down or otherwise killing unarmed Blacks like in Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Chicago, New York City, LA, and so many other majority Black major American cities. He was convicted on all three counts in April and housed in a minimum security prison until sentencing. He did not react when he was sentenced on Friday before Judge Peter Cahill, who last month agreed with prosecutors that aggravating factors in Floyd's death warranted going above the guidelines.
Under Minnesota law, he faced up to 40 years in prison for second-degree unintentional murder conviction, 25 years for third-degree murder, and 10 years for second-degree manslaughter. Prosecutors had asked for 30 years while Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson, wanted probation and less prison time for his client.
Sentencing guidelines suggested a sentence of 15-30 years and Minnesota law requires that he serve at least two-thirds of his sentence.
Activists, Black leaders and Civil Rights organizations across the nation and Floyd's family and the family's attorneys say the sentence was in the least unfair, and racist.
Floyd family attorney Benjamin Crump, who was the lead lawyer that brought home a $27 million wrongful death settlement for Floyd's family, said Floyd may be dead at the hands of an unmerciful White cop, but his spirit lives on.
“The legend will still live on. George isn’t here but his spirit is still here. Breonna Taylor is not here, but her spirit is still here. Eric Garner isn’t here but his spirit is still here,” Crump said.
Chauvin has two federal indictments pending and did not speak or show remorse at sentencing, and his attorneys say he will appeal.
May 25th marked the one-year anniversary of the murder of Floyd, who was Black, by Chauvin, who murdered him by holding his leg on his neck for more the nine minutes following an arrest, and as by-standers looked in disbelief and videoed the celebrated incident on their cell phones.
Floyd left behind two children.
Three other non-Black officers at the scene, all three of whom await trial on charges of felony aiding and abetting and were fired relative to the incident as Chauvin was, did nothing to stop the gruesome attack. Like Chauvin, they have also been indicted federally and have all three pleaded not guilty.
They face a trial tentatively scheduled for March 2022.
Hundreds of people, led by Floyd's surviving family members, Floyd and Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter activists, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, gathered for the rally in front of the courthouse in downtown Minneapolis where the Chauvin was tried after his murder and other convictions in April, many carrying signs with pictures of Floyd, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and other Black men and women killed in encounters with police
The jury deliberated for just 10 hours before reaching its unprecedented verdict. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement after the jury verdict that the justice department’s federal civil rights investigation into the death of George Floyd “is ongoing." And Minnesota Gov Tim Waltz said that "it's an important step towards justice for Minnesota, trial’s over, but here in Minnesota, I want to be very clear, we know our work just begins." NAACP President Derrick Johnson also released a statement celebrating the verdict. Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the nation's first Black vice president and a former prosecutor and state attorney general, spoke out after the verdict in the celebrated case, Harris calling it justice delivered and Biden saying "no one should be above the law and today's verdict sends that message." Harris said that the pain in the Black community relative to the police murder of George Floyd and so many other Blacks like him still lingers. "Today we feel a sigh of relief" said Vice President Harris during a press conference after the guilty verdict in the state's case. "Still it cannot take away the pain." Even the national president of Chauvin's police union celebrated the verdict in the case of a cop gone bad whose peers and supervisors became key witnesses for the prosecution at his trial, a trial that legal experts said was won from the beginning with a video of the entire incident taken by a by-standard. "We were one of the first organization's to step forward and say this just doesn't look right." said Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police. Arrested on a forgery charge over a $20 bill, Floyd pleaded for his life and cried out that he could not breathe when Chauvin murdered him over a year ago before an astonished crowd of people, some in the crowd hollering for him to ease up on his excessive force against Floyd, but to no avail. He was pronounced dead an hour later at an area hospital. Protests, some punctuated with hostile riots, immediately broke out in Minneapolis and quickly spread to over 2,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, including in Cleveland.
Black Lives Matter activists led Cleveland's protest last on May 30 in 2020 where angry protesters rioted and tore up downtown Cleveland, destroying businesses, burning up police cruisers, and writing graphic graphite laced with profanity on landmark federal and state buildings. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a criminal justice reform bill, remains pending in Congress. Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black and alternative digital newspaper in Ohio. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS. |
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