Jurors who deliberated for 10 hours over the past two days, have found Police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murder, it has now officially been announced.
Chauvin has been found guilty of second-degree manslaughter, second-degree unintentional murder, and third-degree murder.
Third-degree murder (also called manslaughter) is an unplanned, unintentional killing that is not part of another felony. It can be either be:
- Involuntary (e.g. you fall and push someone off a ledge by accident).
- Voluntary (e.g. you punch someone and unintentionally kill them).
Chauvin will now face sentencing and has been remanded in the custody of the Hennepin County Sheriff.
Floyd, a convicted felon who had previously held up a pregnant woman at gunpoint, has become the ‘poster boy’ for civil rights and far-left groups, while others have used his death to rightly campaign for an end to police brutality.
Left-wing riots from BLM activists and Antifa were expected should a not guilty verdict have been passed, or should he not be charged with murder as opposed to manslaughter, with the store outside of which George Floyd died being closed for business before the verdict was read. “Safety’s more important,” said Billy Abumayyaleh, one of the owners, before the verdict. “As long as we get a guilty verdict, that’s all that matters.”
Speaking outside the court, George’s girlfriend, Courtney Ross, said: “I love him. He was a man with a big heart. He was funny, and silly and prayerful. He was out of this world.”
“Floyd was a big man, he was too big for this Earth. He is over all of us right now.”
“What I know Floyd would want would be all of us, all people would be coming together. This is not a time for separation, no time for us to blame or hurt each other.”
Riots are now expected regardless, with BLM activists and members of the public already taking to social media in their thousands, and many already out on the streets.
Chauvin’s conviction comes amid growing protests over police brutality in America – hijacked by far-left groups and Marxist movements like Black Lives Matter.
No evidence has ever emerged to suggest that the death of George Floyd was racially-motivated.
