Washington: Former US police officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 270 months, or 22.5 years in prison on Friday, for murdering African American George Floyd last year in Minneapolis, Minnesota state.
"We need to recognise the pain of the Floyd family," said Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill in court while concluding the case that sparked America's greatest demonstrations for racial justice in decades.
The sentence was not based on emotion or sympathy, the judge noted.
The members of Floyd's family were also present in the courtroom for the hearing, the Xinhua news agency reported.
Chauvin, who was found guilty of murdering Floyd by a jury in April, said he declined to give a formal statement in court due to "additional legal matters," but expressed his condolences to the Floyd family.
In his earlier ruling, Cahill concluded that Chauvin abused his "position of trust and authority" as a police officer and displayed "particular cruelty" when he knelt on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes during his arrest. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
The former US cop was convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter as well as third-degree murder in April.
Chauvin "is the first white officer in Minnesota to face prison time for the killing of a Black man," according to Minnesota Public Radio.