The Verdict
Yesterday, Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of the murder of George Floyd. In less than twelve hours of deliberation, a jury of twelve citizens determined he was guilty on three charges: second degree murder, third degree murder, and manslaughter. The nation held its collective breath on that jury’s decision. America was poised for upheaval. The National Guard is already in place in Minnesota, and out in cities nationwide as well.
It was one of the most well documented deaths in history. Each of the four police officers directly involved was wearing a body camera. Street cameras had a clear view of the event as well. And outraged bystanders, helpless to prevent Floyd’s unnecessary death under the knees of Chauvin, documented the murder on cell phone cameras.
The trial was televised gavel to gavel. So for many Americans, we were all in the jury box, all listening to the testimony and seeing the videos. We listened to the carefully developed Prosecution case, and we heard the attempts of the defense to somehow create enough reasonable doubt to alter the verdict.
Justice
So why was the Nation so prepared to celebrate or protest the outcome of the trial?
Neither the death of one man, or the destruction of another man’s life is cause for joy. Yet there was cheering and parading at the announcement of this verdict. It wasn’t about joy; it was about justice. Historically American courts give police officers wide latitude in performing their duties. In some cases, that is justified. The citizenry has placed the burdens of our society on those officers, asking them to make the difficult choices to control and protect us from crime and harm.
But in the defense of Derek Chauvin, the jury was asked to “Not believe their lying eyes”. They were told to ignore what we all saw from multiple angles: the “depraved indifference” of nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds, as Chauvin snuffed out the life of George Floyd. And that failure of justice has happened so many times before.
Facts
Police officers kill about 1000 people a year in the United States (NYT). From 2005 to 2019, 104 police officers were arrested for murder or manslaughter for on-duty killings. Only 35 were convicted of a crime, and only 4 were convicted of murder (BGSU). Not every police killing is murder, and not every police officer charged is guilty. But holding police officers accountable in Court happens so rarely, that even the slow-motion suffocation of George Floyd was still in doubt.
There are issues of race and intent. This week, while the Chauvin trial ended and we waited for the verdict, a young Black man was killed in a Minneapolis suburb, and a fifteen year old Black girl was killed here in Columbus. The young man was killed “unintentionally”; the officer acted as if she was using her Taser but instead used her service weapon. And body camera footage here in Columbus seems to indicate that the officer was justified in shooting the young girl. She was attacking other young girls with a knife, and he was acting to protect them.
It Takes Outrage
It is difficult to know if former officer Chauvin would have been held accountable without the national outrage the “bystander video” created. The “default position” of the Minneapolis police was that the “death was incidental” to the arrest. It was only in the marches and protests, and even the rioting and destruction, that the “default” action was reversed, and this first officer held accountable. There remain three more also complicit in Floyd’s death. We have yet to see what will happen to them.
And during that time the “default position” exonerated officers of the controversial death of Breona Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. She went from being an innocent victim, killed in her own home, to “collateral damage” of a misguided attack.
So the National problem continues: enforcement of the law somehow depends on race as much as actions. Justice is not blind to color in the United States today, and until it is, then what should be the normal course of justice will remain a matter for celebration.
