CNN's Van Jones disappointed by Chauvin's sentence: 'A punch in the gut'

CNN commentator Van Jones is "very" disappointed over the prison sentence Derek Chauvin received for the muder of George Floyd.

A judge sentenced Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, to 22.5 years in prison Friday after he was convicted of murdering Floyd, though according to The Associated Press, with good behavior, Chauvin "could be paroled after serving two-thirds of his sentence, or about 15 years." Jones expressed disappointment on CNN over the sentence and argued it was too light.

"Very disappointing," Jones said. "15 years? I know people doing 15 years for nothing, I mean, for victimless crimes of drug possession. ... What this man did, there should have been the maximum of the maximum."

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Jones added that while he didn't think the sentence would spark "outrage," he argued it was still a "punch in the gut" because "this guy's life was worth more than 15 years," and he hoped the sentence would send a message to law enforcement that "you can't do this type of stuff [or] you're never going to come back home."

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig agreed that while the sentence was "serious," he felt it was "light" and that Chauvin should have received more time. CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rogers pointed out that the sentence itself was not 15 years but 22.5 years, but she added, "I do think that it was light like you all do."

But Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said Friday that the sentence was "one of the longest a former police officer has ever received" for use of deadly force, adding that this is "not justice, but it is another moment of real accountability on the road to justice," per CBS. President Biden also said Friday that the sentence seemed "to be appropriate."