Tina Lawson, the mother of Beyoncé Knowles, is unimpressed with the prison sentence handed down to Derek Chauvin, the former officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd.
“Very Disappointing! ! My Godson was sentenced to 20 years for 2 ounces of marijuana he has been In Jail for 11 years,” Lawson wrote in an Instagram post. “This man convicted of three charges He Murdered This man on TV before the world. And will only serve 15 ! The system has to change!”
In April, Chauvin on charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for his role in Floyd’s death.
The country watched on in horror as a video, captured by a 17-year-old bystander, showed Floyd kneeling on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds… until he stopped breathing.
Under Minnesota law, Chauvin will have to serve at least two-thirds of his sentence or 15 years. The sentence handed to Chauvin exceeds the Minnesota sentencing guideline range of 10 years and eight months to 15 years for the crime.
But many feel his sentence was not tough enough.
Last June, Lawson’s daughter called for justice to be delivered to Floyd and his family.
“We’re broken and we’re disgusted. We cannot normalize this pain. I’m not only speaking to people of color. If you’re white, black, brown and anything in between, I’m sure you feel hopeless by the racism going on in America right now,” Bey said in a video shared to her 18 million Instagram followers.
“No more senseless killings of human beings. No more seeing people of color as less than human. We can no longer look away. George is all of our family and humanity. He is our family because he is a fellow American,” she continued.
“There have been too many times that we’ve seen these violent killings and no consequences,” she said. “Yes, someone’s been charged, but justice is far from being achieved.”
