Today saw the sentencing of Derek
Chauvin, the police officer who
last year murdered George Floyd.
Going into it, nobody's really sure
exactly what sentence he would get
considering the stance of the
criminal justice system on police
officers who kill while on duty.
That said,
here is what was announced.
>> Stands for count one, the court
commits you to the custody
the Commissioner of Corrections for
a period of 270 months, that's 270.
That is, ten year addition to the
presumptive sentence of 150 months.
This is based on your abuse of
a position of trust and authority,
and also the particular cruelty
shown to George Floyd.
You're granted credit for
199 days already served.
Pay the mandatory surcharge is $78
to be paid from prison wages.
You're prohibited from possessing
firearms, ammunition, or explosives
for the remainder of your life.
Provide a DNA samples
as you're required by law,
register as a predatory
offender as required by law.
And then you will receive a copy of
the order and
also the attached memorandum
explaining the court's analysis.
>> So that is the big news, 22 and
a half years of which he will
have to serve at least two-thirds,
meaning that in theory within 15
years he could be released
from prison.
And so there's a lot else going on
here that I want us to talk about,
but I do want to get your responses
to what the sentence
ended up being.
Bearing in mind of course that he
is not done with
his time in the legal system.
There's other federal charges,
other cops who are involved in
situation, we'll be going through
their own process as well.
But Adrienne wanted to start with
you, when you heard the numbers
what was your response?
>> Well, the reality is that no
amount of time is going to be
sufficient to give justice here for
George Floyd and his murder.
At the same time,
I do fully appreciate that judge
Cahill did give an additional
10 years on top of that.
Essentially what the sentencing
guidelines set that bar to be as 12
and a half years, so
now making that 22 and a half.
I think that that was a strong
showing as much as the prosecution
wanted 30 years and also that
the Floyd family wanted 40 years.
22 and a half it's pretty
significant especially when we're
looking at a situation where
a police officer has murdered
a citizen in the line of duty.
But still, it wouldn't really
matter in terms of actual justice
as nothing will compensate for
the loss of George Floyd.
>> Yeah, David? >> I agree 100%
with Adrienne.
I mean, based on other murder
trials that have covered it seems
like this was about right 22 and
a half months.
I was really glad that the judge
mentioned that Chauvin had abused
his authority as a police officer,
that was very important.
I was also glad to see that he
recognized the cruelty of those
nine minutes and 29 seconds.
I mean, so look, to Adrienne's
point, nothing's going to bring
back George Floyd nothing's
going to satisfy his now seven year
old daughter who keeps wondering
what happened to her father.
But I'm glad that this wasn't
a light sentence and it was fairly
significant and fairly heavy in
the grand scheme of things.
>> I was doing some research and I
was looking at people had compiled
all of the cops who have actually
successfully been sentenced for
this sort of activity and
the list is not long.
It's 11 cops in the last 16 years.
Out of all of those hundreds and
hundreds, and hundreds, and
hundreds of killings 11 have been
convicted for murder for
on duty killings.
What's interesting is that
the average sentence is 21.7 years,
almost exactly what he ended up
getting.
Going back 16 years this
is about where they end up,
which is interesting.
There's been variance of course,
there was one individual who got
40 years, some have had less.
And so I guess this is comparable.
It's just such a rare occurrence,
it's hard to even remember when
they happened.
But I agree with you Adrienne to,
the extra ten years definitely
makes us more significant assuming
that two-thirds ratio, is going
to end up coming into play.
Without that, it would have been
a very short sentence of indeed.
Certainly long for any of us to be
spending in prison, but the idea
that he would potentially be out,
two avatar sequels from now seems
hard to imagine.
Now at least it is a good chunk of
the remainder of his life,
even if he will be out during
the lifetimes of the surviving
family members of George Floyd.
>> Yes, most, certainly.
The thing I think that we will have
to see how it plays out is
those existing federal charges of
indictments against him for
that assault on the teenager,
who he was conducting an arrest and
ended up hurting that child.
And then in addition to that,
also the federal charges for
taking the lives of George Floyd.
Deprivation of live charge can come
with significant penalties as well.
And so we will really see how this
plays out.
But we do know that at least
the people the in Minneapolis are
throwing the book at Derek Chauvin.
And they will likely continue to do
so when they get to federal court
and are facing those federal
charges unless he accepts some type
of we do.
>> Yeah, I want to just mention
though, I've been like a lot
of people I was processing what I
thought about but
also trying to get an impression
of what a lot of other
people think about the sentence.
And I watched a clip of Van Jones
talking about
how frustrated he was.
He says he knows of many people who
have gotten 15 years for nonviolent
victimless drug possession crimes
and things like that,
which is certainly true.
And the thing for me that's really
influenced, think, in my evaluation
of this, which I assume is playing
subconsciously or consciously for
a lot of people is, there's been so
much that's happened since Chauvin
murdered George Floyd.
And yet so
little of it other than maybe this
sentence really feels like it's
been affected by what happened.
Most of the conversation about
the future of police is a backlash
to any attempt to change their
funding levels, that feels like the
dominant, like cultural narrative.
Is how dare you could all be so
mean to the cops coming out of
last year?
We had any number of different
instances of police brutality,
including lethal police brutality
that we've been witness to over
the past few months.
So it doesn't seem at
least anecdotally,
perhaps statistically that the case
is influencing cops' behavior.
It just doesn't necessarily feel
like after so much energy and
passion and
outrage was on display over
the last year in response to this,
that it's had anything proportional
that in terms of progress.
I don't know,
maybe this since it's so rare that
cops actually get convicted at all.
Maybe this is something, but
it still feels so
like it's coming up so
short compared to all of that.
I don't know, any thoughts?
>> Part of the emptiness that I
feel is look,
I'm glad that whenever a police
officer is brought to justice and
it's happened so rarely that
accountability is a good thing, but
that's only a small step, right?
I mean, even a basic step that has
been talked about in several state
legislatures and
in congress of creating a national
database of cops who violate their
own procedures get suspended or
fired from their own departments,
so they can't get another job in
law enforcement.
We don't have that database.
So I mean, there was just
an example of another terrible cop
in Florida who's has lost the job
something like ten times, how is
that possible in this day and age?
Well, I know that if I've got
a driver's license that is somehow
suspended or I've got points on it,
it's going to be difficult for
me to go to a new state and
transfer my driver's license.
Why is it that a police officer who
gets fired from his department of
reprimand is able to go to another
state another county and get this
job that doesn't make any sense.
And I think, until some of those
concrete steps are taken to
try to weed out, the officers that
we can predict are the ones who may
be engaged in something like this,
there will be an empty feeling and
a feeling, that not much has really
happened to assure progress.
>> Yeah, any last thoughts
Adrienne?
No, I absolutely agree.
The fact is that the needle hasn't
moved much since last summer,
yes we had a lot of protests yes we
had issues coming out.
There was some change in
the private sector, both in terms
of the public sector and it comes
to law enforcement in particular.
A little bit of the budget may have
shifted, but really,
nothing has changed significantly.
If not there just seems to be more
use of video cameras in recording
police interactions, but nothing
that really impacts policing when
it comes to reform and what not.
And we're seeing kind of this
distraction is focus on critical
race theory.
When all of these things, when we
package them up and the voting
rights restrictions filibuster and
policing reform this all is one
big ball of white supremacy and
the desire to keep it going.
>> You're 100% right.
And I should have of course
mentioned that, the biggest
thing that seems to be coming out
of all of us after everything is,
don't teach kids about racism.
What a sick response?
Sick for the movement that's
pushing that and the media,
the empire that's pushing for that,
and the politicians that
are cynically using it.
But just to be a part
of a country where that
has any chance of working, and
in deed appears to be working,
it's just a sick, sick thing.