US braces for anti-racism protests regardless of jury’s verdict in Chauvin trial

THE JURY in the trial of the white ex-police officer accused of killing black man George Floyd in Minneapolis last year has retired to discuss the verdict as cities across the United States are bracing for protests regardless of the final decision.

Just outside the entrance to Smile Orthodontics, in a Minneapolis neighborhood of craft breweries and trendy shops, two soldiers in jungle camouflage and body armor were on watch Monday, assault rifles slung over their backs. Snow flurries blew around them. A few steps away at the Iron Door Pub, three more National Guard soldiers and a Minneapolis police officer stood out front, watching the street.

A HANDFUL of other soldiers were scattered nearby, along with four camouflaged Humvees and a couple of police cars.

Across the street was a boarded-up building spray-painted with big yellow letters: “BLACK LIVES MATTER ALL YEAR ROUND.”

More than 3,000 National Guard soldiers, along with police officers, state police, sheriffs deputies and other law enforcement personnel have flooded the city in recent days, with a verdict looming in the trial of Chauvin. But in the city that has come to epitomize America’s debate over police killings, there are places today in Minneapolis that feel almost like a police state.

The jurors who sat quietly off-camera through three weeks of draining testimony in Chauvin’s murder trial moved into the spotlight yesterday, still out of sight but now in control of verdicts awaited by a skittish city.

The jury of six white people and six who are black or multiracial was set for its first full day of deliberations. The jury, anonymous by order of the judge and sequestered now until they reach a verdict, spent just a few hours on their task Monday after the day was mostly consumed by closing arguments in which prosecutors argued that Chauvin squeezed the life out of Floyd last May in a way that even a child knew was wrong.

The defense contended that the nowfired white officer acted reasonably and that the 46-year-old Floyd died of a heart condition and illegal drug use. Chauvin, 45, is charged with seconddegree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, all of which require the jury to conclude that his actions were a “substantial causal factor” in Floyd’s death and that his use of force was unreasonable. The most serious charge carries up to 40 years in prison.

“Use your common sense. Believe your eyes. What you saw, you saw,” prosecutor Steve Schleicher said in closing arguments, referring to the bystander video of Floyd pinned to the pavement with Chauvin’s knee on or close to his neck for up to nine minutes, 29 seconds, as onlookers yelled at the officer to get off.

Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson countered by arguing that Chauvin did what any reasonable police officer would have done after finding himself in a “dynamic” and “fluid” situation involving a large man struggling with three officers.

Floyd’s death set off protests last spring in the city and across the U.S. that sometimes turned violent. The city has also been on edge in recent days over the deadly police shooting of a 20-year-old black man, Daunte Wright, in a nearby suburb on April 11. About 300 protesters marched in the streets outside the courthouse shortly after the jury got the case, lining up behind a banner reading, “Justice 4 George Floyd & all stolen lives. The world is watching.”

The streets in Minneapolis were silent on Monday and the hearing in the court was not disrupted. Activists say local residents are preparing to hit the streets regardless of the verdict. According to media reports, if Chauvin is cleared of all charges or is found guilty only of manslaughter, mass protests will spark across the country. “A celebratory protest” is also planned if the white officer is found guilty on all counts. In this case, the campaigners will take to the streets to demonstrate their satisfaction with the sentence and demand justice for others who died in police custody.