Following the news that a former Minneapolis police officer had been sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, attorney Ben Crump said that the sentencing should not be the exception but the norm.
“This is the longest sentence that a police officer has ever been sentenced to in the history of the state of Minnesota. But this should not be the exception when a Black person is killed by brutality by police. It should be the norm,” Crump said.
He said the sentencing on Friday “represents an opportunity to be a turning point in America.”
However, he noted that the sentencing did not represent true justice for Black Americans.
“We have to remember real justice in America will be Black men and Black women and people of color will not have to fear being killed by the police just because of the color of their skin. That would be real justice,” Crump said.
The Rev. Al Sharpton said during a presser with George Floyd’s family that Chauvin’s sentence was longer than they had expected.
“We got more than we thought only because we have been disappointed so many times before,” Sharpton said. “Twenty-two and a half years is longer than we’ve ever got but shorter than what we should have gotten in the past.”
During the presser, Crump also took an opportunity to call on the Senate to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
The lead negotiators for a congressional police reform bill, Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Rep. Karen Bass (R-Calif.), announced on Thursday that they had “reached an agreement on a framework addressing the major issues for bipartisan police reform.”
However, it’s unclear what the deal includes.
In May 2020, Chauvin killed Floyd after pinning him down with his knee for more than nine minutes. Footage of the incident circulated quickly and sparked an increase in nationwide protests against police brutality and the treatment of Black Americans.