The news broke this afternoon: Derek Chauvin found guilty on all three counts in the murder of George Floyd (via Laurel Wamsley at NPR.org):
The jury has found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on all the counts he faced over the death of George Floyd. The trial has been one of the most closely watched cases in recent memory, setting off a national reckoning on police violence and systemic racism even before the trial commenced.
There's been a national reckoning on police violence and system racism since the 1960s, but let's discuss that later on.
Chauvin, 45, has been found guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
With only his eyes visible as the rest of his face was hidden behind a surgical mask, Chauvin watched as the verdict was returned. Judge Peter Cahill thanked the jury members for their "heavy-duty jury service." Chauvin was remanded into custody as the jury was dismissed, and Cahill said sentencing is expected in eight weeks...
Floyd's death on Memorial Day 2020 sparked protests in Minneapolis, across the United States and around the world. It prompted calls for police reform and soul-searching on issues of racial injustice.
Floyd was a 46-year-old Black man from Houston who had moved to Minnesota three years earlier. He was a father and brother who idolized his mother, loved making music and had been a star athlete as a young man.
Floyd died after Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as Floyd lay facedown, hands cuffed behind his back...
This was the great sticking point, the part of the story where the argument between "Black Lives Matter" vs. the "Blue Lives Matter" of law enforcement goes dark. We've had previous documented instances of police brutality towards Blacks - not just the violent responses in Birmingham 1963 and the rest of the Civil Rights protests, but also Rodney King to Amadou Diallo to Michael Brown to Tamir Rice to Sandra Bland to Breonna Taylor and to Daunte Wright just a bloody week ago - and in all of those instances were acts of bullying and brutality that ought to make people sick to their stomachs.
But what Chauvin did to Floyd crossed the line into pure sadism. Even with Floyd handcuffed and in custody, something in Chauvin's brain triggered his urge to kneel on another human's neck with enough force to choke Floyd to death.
Please note what the experts said: Floyd was dead within five minutes. Chauvin kept pressing on his neck for another four minutes to make sure of it.
And even with all the expert testimony, all of the eyewitnesses on the stand tearfully shaken by what they saw during Floyd's death, all the prosecution's presentation that what Chauvin did was NOT by the book for law enforcement, with everything I would argue proved Chauvin committed murder... there was still this fear that enough members of the jury would ignore all that.
Even with Chauvin's defense lawyer putting up what observers noted as a weak defense of his client, there was this understanding outside of that courtroom that it didn't matter how strong a defense he could pass (there really wasn't: there was no goddamned excuse to crush a man's neck like that, ever) only as long as the defense could get one person on that jury to buy "reasonable doubt." We've seen this movie before: What looked to be a clear-cut case of police brutality on Rodney King ended up with the jury siding with the cops, what looked to be a clear-cut case of excessive force (41 shots!) on Diallo ended up with that jury siding with the cops. And far too many cases where local prosecutors refused to go to trial because "they lacked evidence" (what they lacked was the willingness to cross the local police departments those prosecutors have to work with every day).
There was - and still is - this fear that juries will err on the side of reasonable doubt in favor of police because of the built-in "respect" for law enforcement our society relies on for "peace and order." Even at the expense of dead unarmed minorities. That was the dread until the verdict was finally reached and some slight acceptance of justice delivered could be felt.
And even now, even with this verdict as a form of accountability - that there is a line of excessive force that the public cannot tolerate from our police - there is still the reality that this is just one brief drop of justice in an ocean crashing with police misconduct in the United States, something that does not look like it will start behaving itself any time soon.
In the time after Floyd's murder, with that on the national consciousness, time and again cops have been caught on camera committing brutal acts against unarmed Blacks for the slightest - oft-times unjustified - excuses. It's been getting to where even White folks are thinking "what the hell are cops doing pulling over unarmed Blacks for traffic stops all the time?" (hint: We learned about all this back in 2014 when Michael Brown's death led to an investigation of Ferguson's police force, and that the police harassment of Blacks is an ongoing extortion racket.)
How many of you think that with this Guilty verdict on Chauvin, how many cops will sit back and think "whoa, we need to cut back on the bullying and brutality"? How many cops do you imagine will think instead "next time if that happens to me, make sure there's no cameras present"?
What happened today is a moment of personal justice for George Floyd's family and loved ones.
What happens tomorrow is the rest of us still working towards holding our police - city cops, county sheriffs, state patrols, hell even the FBI - accountable to ensure no more unarmed people - no more minorities, no more women, no more kids - get killed by the hands of those who are supposed to serve and protect US.
(Update 4/21): As Denny noted in the Comments already, there's been another police shooting this time in Columbus, Ohio. The cops were called to a family altercation where a 15-year-old girl Ma'Khia Bryant was defending herself with a knife, she was the one who had called the police for help... and when one of the cops got inside he promptly put four bullets into her. Jesus Christ. With all that was going on with the Chauvin trial at that moment, the cops still couldn't be bothered to keep their trigger fingers away from their guns or try to de-escalate a situation. They just went in, shooting first and refusing to ask questions at all. The law enforcement in our country doesn't want to learn from their mistakes. The cops don't want to accept the possibility THEY are in the wrong here.
JUST STOP FUCKING SHOOTING PEOPLE, COPS. CAN YOU COMPREHEND THAT ONE LITTLE THING.
YOU ARE NOT EXECUTIONERS.
JUST STOP FUCKING SHOOTING PEOPLE.
JUST STOP FUCKING SHOOTING PEOPLE.
JUST STOP IT. YOU ARE NOT PROTECTING US WHEN YOU KILL US.
5 comments:
At roughly the same time as the Chauvin verdict was about to be announced police in Columbus, Ohio mortally wounded a fifteen year old girl. Understandably, details are sparse. From my reading it appears that she was living with a foster family and several adults became involved in an altercation which was aimed at or at least involved the girl in some capacity. Reports indicate that she was wielding a knife but had dropped it when police arrived. Again, lacking for details so I draw no conclusions.
As long as there are enough people who buy into the law enforcement model that says the police can execute you for almost any perceived disobedience, we won't get significant policing reform.
Police unions have made departmental reforms almost impossible, which raises the stakes for reform almost out of the realm of possibility.
Personally, I lived in all of the poorest neighborhoods in Oakland for 35 years and never once did I encounter a situation that was made better by the presence of the police, so I don't tend to see them as all that crucial to maintaining order.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
This article is nine months old and inked by a guy who claims to be a former cop. It's too detailed for me to think that he's a phony:
https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop-bb14d17bc759
It buttresses Doug's experiences. A buddy of mine was a cab driver in Oakland for years and seldom witnessed a positive outcome coming from cops getting involved.
Denny, I linked to that guy's article already. https://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-nation-plans-accordingly.html
Yeah, I agree with you the details are too great to ignore.
THAT EXPLAINS IT!
I knew one of the bloggers I frequent had provided it. I should have realized that it was you.
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