Minneapolis reacts to Chauvin sentencing with hope, hesitation

Some hope Chauvin sentence will spur reform as they wish he had received more than 22.5 years for Floyd murder.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, US — With a shaved head, dressed in civilian clothes and wearing a blue medical mask, former police officer Derek Chauvin arrived in a downtown Minneapolis courtroom for sentencing Friday afternoon. As a small group gathered in a grassy plaza outside the Hennepin County Courthouse to listen to the sentencing, breaking out in intermittent chants of “no justice, no peace”, others did the same from George Floyd Square just more than four miles (6.4km) away in South Minneapolis where Floyd was murdered last year. After an hour of victim impact statements from several Floyd family members, Chauvin’s mother, and a brief statement from Chauvin himself, Judge Peter Cahill handed down a 22.5-year sentence, minus the 199 days already served, for the second-degree murder charge for which Chauvin was convicted in April.