Ex-officer convicted in Floyd’s death
Decision praised as a key step for justice
MINNEAPOLIS — Former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin was convicted Tuesday of murder and manslaughter for pinning George Floyd to the pavement with his knee on the Black man’s neck, a case that touched off protests, violence and a reexamination of racism and policing in the U.S.
Chauvin, 45, could be sent to prison for decades.
The verdict set off celebrations around Minneap-
olis. People instantly flooded the streets of the downtown area, running through traffic with banners. Cars blared their horns. Floyd family members who had gathered at a Minneapolis conference room could be heard cheering and even laughing.
“America, let’s pause for a moment to proclaim this historical moment, not just for the legacy of George Floyd but for the legacy of America,” Floyd family attorney Ben Crump said at a news conference that included Floyd’s young daughter. “This is a victory for those who champion humanity over inhumanity, those who champion justice over injustice.”
“Today, we are able to breathe again,” Floyd’s younger brother Philonise said at a family news conference. Tears streamed down his face as he likened Floyd to the 1955 Mississippi lynching victim Emmett Till, except that this time there were cameras around to show the world what happened.
Another brother, Terrence Floyd, marveled, “What a day to be a Floyd, man.”
The jury of six white people and six Black or multiracial people returned with its verdict after about 10 hours of deliberations over two days. The white former officer was found guilty on all charges: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
His face was obscured by a mask, and little reaction could be seen beyond his eyes darting around the courtroom. His bail was immediately revoked, and he was led away with his hands cuffed behind his back. Sentencing will be in two months; the most serious charge carries up to 40 years in prison.
Defense attorney Eric Nelson followed Chauvin out of the courtroom without comment.
As the judge asked jurors whether they had reached a verdict, a hush fell on the crowd of 300 people in a park near the courthouse, with people listening to the proceedings on their cellphones. When the final guilty verdict was announced, the crowd roared, with many people hugging and some shedding tears.
At the intersection where Floyd was pinned down, a crowd chanted, “One down, three to go” — a reference to the three other fired Minneapolis police officers, who face trial in August on charges of aiding and abetting murder in Floyd’s death.
Chauvin will now wait in jail until his sentencing. Meanwhile, Nelson is expected to begin preparing an appeal based on several concepts.
A state court of appeals would then review the case and make the final decision, or it could send the case back to trial for additional proceedings. The defense could also request that the Minnesota Supreme Court review the case.
One of the arguments Nelson could make is related to the influence of extensive media coverage of the case and the trial on the jury, and more particularly is based on what Nelson described as “threatening and intimidating” comments made by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., over the weekend. Waters told protesters that they should be more “confrontational” if Chauvin were acquitted.
House Republicans were defeated on Tuesday in their effort to force a vote that would censure Waters for her comments.
Less than an hour after jurors found Chauvin guilty, prosecutors thanked the jury for making what they called the “right and decent” choice.
Standing outside the courtroom Tuesday afternoon, special prosecutor Steve Schleicher, who presented the closing arguments, said it was a privilege to get to know Floyd’s family. He added he was grateful that he and the rest of the prosecution team were able to bring a conviction.
“I want to thank the jury for their service, for doing what was right and decent and correct and speaking truth and finding the right verdict in this case,” Schleicher said.
The jurors’ identities were kept secret and will not be released until the judge decides it is safe to do so.
Schleicher was followed by colleague Jerry Blackwell, who borrowed a saying from the late Georgia congressman John Lewis. Blackwell thanked those who filmed Floyd’s death, saying they “had the willingness, the courage, the passion, the intestinal fortitude to get into good trouble.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison commended the bystanders at Floyd’s death who “raised their voices because they knew that what they were seeing was wrong” and then “told the whole world” what they saw.
Ellison read off the names of others killed in encounters with police and said: “This has to end. We need true justice. That’s not one case. That’s social transformation that says no one is beneath the law and no one is above it.”
BIDEN WEIGHS IN
President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Chauvin’s conviction “can be a giant step forward” for the nation in the fight against systemic racism.
Biden spoke from the White House after the verdict alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, with the pair calling for Congress to act swiftly to address the nation’s policing policies.
“It’s not enough,” Biden said of the verdict. “We can’t stop here.”
Biden spoke after calling Floyd’s family and telling them, “We’re all so relieved.”
Harris, the first Black woman to serve as vice president, said racism was keeping the country from fulfilling its founding promise of “liberty and justice for all.”
“It is not just a Black America problem or a people of color problem. It is a problem for every American,” she said. “It is holding our nation back from reaching our full potential.”
“A measure of justice isn’t the same as equal justice,” she said.
Crump posted video on Twitter of a phone call from Biden and Harris to the family. Asked by a family member how he was doing, Biden said: “Feeling better now. Nothing is going to make it all better, but at least now there is some justice.”
“This is a day of justice,” Harris told the family after joining Biden to watch the verdict in the private dining room off the Oval Office.
Speaking hours ahead of the verdict, while the jury was deliberating in Minneapolis, Biden said he called Floyd’s family on Monday to offer prayers and could “only imagine the pressure and anxiety they’re feeling.”
“They’re a good family, and they’re calling for peace and tranquility no matter what that verdict is,” Biden said. “I’m praying the verdict is the right verdict. I think it’s overwhelming, in my view.”
Biden said he was only weighing in on the trial because the jury had already been sequestered.
The president has repeatedly denounced Floyd’s death but had previously stopped short of weighing in on Chauvin’s trial, with White House officials saying it would be improper to speak out during active judicial proceedings. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki repeatedly refused to explain Biden’s comments, doing nothing to dispel the impression that he thought Chauvin should be found guilty.
CHANGES SEEN
The verdict was read in a courthouse ringed with concrete barriers and razor wire and patrolled by National Guard troops, in a city on edge against another round of unrest — not just because of the Chauvin case but because of the deadly police shooting of a young Black man, Daunte Wright, in a Minneapolis suburb April 11.
In the wake of Floyd’s death, demonstrations and scattered violence broke out in Minneapolis, around the country and beyond. The furor also led to the removal of Confederate statues and other offensive symbols.
In the months that followed, numerous states and cities restricted the use of force by police, revamped disciplinary systems or subjected police departments to closer oversight.
The “blue wall of silence” that often protects police accused of wrongdoing crumbled after Floyd’s death: The Minneapolis police chief quickly called it “murder” and fired all four officers, and the city reached a $27 million settlement with Floyd’s family as jury selection was underway.
Convictions of police officers prosecuted for killing someone on the job are rare. Out of the thousands of deadly police shootings in the U.S. since 2005, fewer than 140 officers have been charged with murder or manslaughter, according to data maintained by Phil Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green State University. Before Tuesday, only seven were convicted of murder.
TRIAL PROCEEDINGS
Floyd, 46, died May 25 after being arrested on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill for a pack of cigarettes at a corner market. He panicked, pleaded that he was claustrophobic and struggled with police when they tried to put him in a squad car. They put him on the ground instead.
The centerpiece of the case was the bystander video
Floyd gasping repeatedly, “I can’t breathe,” with onlookers yelling at Chauvin to stop as the officer pressed his knee on or close to Floyd’s neck for what authorities say was 9½ minutes. Floyd slowly went silent and limp.
Prosecutors played the footage at the earliest opportunity, during opening statements, and told the jury: “Believe your eyes.” And it was shown over and over, analyzed one frame at a time by witnesses on both sides.
Police-procedure experts and law enforcement veterans inside and outside the Minneapolis department, including the chief, testified for the prosecution that Chauvin used excessive force and went against his training.
Medical experts for the prosecution said Floyd died of asphyxia, or lack of oxygen, because his breathing was constricted by the way he was held down on his stomach, his hands cuffed behind him, a knee on his neck and his face jammed against the ground.
Chauvin’s attorney called a police use-of-force expert and a forensic pathologist to help make the case that Chauvin acted reasonably against a struggling suspect and that Floyd died because of an underlying heart condition and his illegal drug use.
Floyd had high blood pressure, an enlarged heart and narrowed arteries, and fentanyl and methamphetamine were found in his system.
Under the law, police have certain leeway to use force and are judged according to whether their actions were “reasonable” under the circumstances.
The defense also tried to make the case that Chauvin and the other officers were hindered in their duties by what they perceived as a growing, hostile crowd.
Chauvin did not testify, and all that the jury or the public ever heard by way of an explanation from him came from a police body-camera video after an ambulance had taken the 6-foot-4, 223-pound Floyd away. Chauvin told a bystander: “We gotta control this guy ’cause he’s a sizable guy … and it looks like he’s probably on something.”
The prosecution’s case also included tearful testimony from onlookers who said the police kept them back when they protested what was happening. Darnella Frazier, 18, who shot the crucial video, said Chauvin just gave the bystanders a “cold” and “heartless” stare.
She and others said they felt a sense of helplessness and lingering guilt from witnessing Floyd’s death.
“It’s been nights I stayed up, apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more, and not physically interacting and not saving his life,” she said. Information for this article was contributed by Amy Forliti, Stephen Groves, Tammy Webber, Steve Karnowski, Jonathan Lemire, Zeke Miller, Michael Balsamo, Colleen Long, Doug Glass, Lolita C. Baldor and Mary Clare Jalonick of The Associated Press; and by Timothy Bella, Keith McMillan, Abigail Hauslohner and Marianna Sotomayor of The Washington Post