‘Justice is served.’

It took less than three minutes from start to finish.

Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter Cahill read aloud the charges against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and the jury’s verdict in each count.

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

He polled the jurors.

He didn’t hesitate a moment in granting the prosecutor’s motion to revoke the defendant’s bail and remand the defendant into custody.

Chauvin was promptly cuffed and led from the courtroom. He will be sentenced in eight weeks, the judge said. He faces up to 40 years in prison.

It all transpired today in the Minneapolis courtroom in one-third of the time that Chauvin knelt on the neck of a prone George Floyd last May 25 — nine minutes captured on a video that horrified the nation.

After 11 hours of deliberation, the jury found Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd, 46.

“Justice is served,” NAACP Eastern Long Island branch president Lawrence Street said after the verdict was announced.

Chauvin’s conviction “means that we can begin to embrace each other, black and white, and hopefully come together as a people with love,” Street said.

“This can be the beginning of a new day,” he said.

“Accountability has now found its way into our society. Let’s embrace this verdict and our country,” Street said.

He stressed the importance of making permanent changes.

“There are good cops and there are bad cops and we need to begin to change police culture,” Street said. “If the culture is not changed, then reform won’t matter,”

Floyd’s death under Chauvin’s knee last May sparked protests and marches in cities and towns across the United States, including Riverhead.

It led New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to order all municipalities with law enforcement agencies to prepare a police reform plan collaboratively with the communities they police. The governor’s executive order set an April 1 filing deadline for the plans.

Cuomo this evening said while he is grateful for the jury’s verdict, “accountability is not the same as justice.”

The verdict “doesn’t make an unacceptable situation acceptable, and it doesn’t bring Gianna’s dad back. But it must fuel our continued march towards equity,” Cuomo said in a statement.

Riverhead Police Chief David Hegermiller could not be reached for comment after the verdict today. After Floyd’s death last year, Hegermiller said the actions of the Minnesota cops, captured on video and witnessed by the world, “go against us as human beings as well as the policy, practice and training of our department.”

The chief said he wanted the community to know that every member of the Riverhead Police Department was upset by what they saw in the gruesome video.

The Minneapolis police officers’ behavior was “incomprehensible,” Hegermiller said.

“I have not and will not tolerate abuse, maltreatment or crimes against anyone,” Hegermiller wrote in a letter to the community, dated June 5, 2020 and posted on the police department’s webpage.