The verdict was everything any decent human being in this country could have wanted. Guilty on all three counts of murder and manslaughter. So the next question we immediately have to ask ourselves is this: Why were so many of us afraid it wouldn’t happen?
The prosecution of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin should have been an open-and-shut case. The murder of George Floyd took place in broad daylight not only in full view of more than a dozen eyewitnesses but recorded in a video viewed by millions throughout America and around the world who were appalled by what they saw.
The only question most people had was how Chauvin’s attorney would try to defend a police officer who kept his knee on the neck of a handcuffed black man crushing his face into the pavement for nine minutes and 29 seconds as horrified witnesses pleaded for the deadly assault to stop.
Weak Defense
It turned out defense attorney Eric Nelson hardly bothered. After more than two weeks of prosecutors presenting eyewitnesses, medical experts and multiple police officers including his chief testifying Chauvin violated police training and policy, the defense lasted only two days.
Nelson never appeared to try to convince all 12 jurors Chauvin wasn’t guilty. His main witness was a former Maryland medical examiner who simply threw out numerous possible causes of death other than Chauvin’s actions. Any juror looking for cover to vote against conviction could use one to create a hung jury. That might look better than agreeing with Nelson’s not-so-subtle racist insinuations. Nelson said Chauvin may have feared the “angry” witnesses in a black neighborhood police considered a dangerous, high crime area. Nelson even suggested the possibility of a large, black man on drugs suddenly regaining consciousness and exhibiting “superhuman” strength. He described all that as “the totality of the circumstances.”
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The multi-racial residents — a high school student with a cellphone camera, young children, an off-duty white firefighter begging to use her life-saving skills, the tearful 61-year-old “mayor” of the neighborhood — demolished Nelson’s stereotypes. Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell told jurors simply to believe their eyes watching the video. “Why is it necessary to continue applying deadly restraints to a man who is defenseless, who is handcuffed, who is not resisting, who is not breathing, who doesn’t have a pulse?”
If Not for Video
The unanimous verdicts were welcome, but most Americans realize how rare it is to convict a police officer for killing an unarmed black man. If not for 17-year-old Darnella Frazier’s video posted on Facebook, it’s unlikely Chauvin would have been charged at all.
Here’s the initial police report on the horrific scene millions saw: “Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering from medical distress. Officers called for an ambulance. He was transported to (a hospital) by ambulance where he died a short time later. At no time were any weapons used by anyone involved in this incident.” There was no mention of the nine minutes and 29 seconds that caused the medical distress.
The primary reason to doubt Chauvin’s conviction will result in serious police reform is very few African Americans killed by police during arrests take 9 ½ minutes to die. Most are shot as the result of split-second decisions allowing juries to excuse police actions even if the killings turn out to be unjustified. Officers testify they feared for their lives. What’s never explained is why officers fear for their lives more often while arresting black people for minor offenses than when they’re arresting whites known to be armed and dangerous like Dylann Roof who killed nine African Americans in a Charleston church or Kyle Rittenhouse who killed two Black Lives Matter protesters and wounded a third in Kenosha.
Justice in Policing Act
That’s why President Biden and Democrats are urging the Senate to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that passed the House in early March. State Voter Alert: Wisconsin Congressman Ron Kind was one of only two House Democrats voting against the bill that bars police chokeholds and non-knock warrants, creates a national database tracking police misconduct and makes it easier to hold police criminally and civilly liable for violent and deadly assaults. Only one House Republican voted for it.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is pretending to authorize South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the only black Republican Senator, to negotiate with Democrats over police reform. But Trumped-Up Republicans have little interest in alienating all the white supremacists and violent neo-Nazis their former president intentionally attracted to their party.
Scott also has been chosen to present the Republican response to President Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. It’s difficult to imagine Biden and Scott announcing a bipartisan agreement to create uniform national standards assuring racial equality in the policing of white, black and brown neighborhoods.
