We can finally breathe, a little

It felt like I’d been holding my breath. I didn’t realize it until the verdict was announced. And it didn’t just feel like I’d been holding my breath for seconds. It felt like I’d been holding my breath at least for a year, since Officer Derek Chauvin cavalierly knelt on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, seemingly indifferent to the fact that he was depriving Floyd of breath, that Floyd was dying, that Floyd was dead.

In a way, I’d been holding my breath during the protests that engulfed the country last summer, as mostly peaceful demonstrators were too often met with police violence. And of course during Chauvin’s trial, I was holding my breath, especially as I watched Chauvin’s lawyer blame Floyd for his own death. He even blamed the carbon monoxide that might be coming from an exhaust pipe that just happened to be where Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck. I was even holding my breath as the prosecutor, in the state’s closing argument, kept telling the jury that the police were not on trial, just Chauvin. And certainly as the jury was deliberating, when the news was full with stories about police departments across the country preparing for possible unrest, I was holding my breath.

I teach criminal procedure at Fordham Law School, and in a way, I might have been holding my breath during class too, whenever I veered from the syllabus to talk about the use of no-knock warrants in the police killing of Breonna Taylor, or the reason why the car stop of Army Lt. Caron Nazario in Virginia was perfectly constitutional, or why the pretext traffic stop of Daunte Wright, apparently for a hanging air freshener, was “legally” good even though it resulted in Wright’s death.

Though the truth be told, I’m realizing maybe I haven’t been breathing right since Officer Daniel Pantaleo put Eric Garner in a chokehold here in New York, seemingly indifferent too to Garner’s pleas, “I can’t breathe.” Or since a squad of police officers shot at Amadou Diallo 41 times as he reached for his wallet. Or since police shot Eleanor Bumpurs, an elderly, emotionally disturbed Black woman in 1984. By the way, all of these victims were Black.

When the verdict in the Chauvin trial was finally announced — guilty on all three counts, of second-degree unintentional murder, of third-degree murder, of second-degree manslaughter — that’s when I let out a long breath. Really exhaled. I imagine lots of people — especially people who look like me, or George Floyd, or Daunte Wright, or Breonna Taylor — collectively exhaled in that moment. Indeed, since the Chauvin trial has been followed all around the world; I imagine millions of people exhaling everywhere. A collective sigh of relief.

This is what the verdict means: justice is possible. At least in a case where everything is on video. Where there are witnesses. Where the blue wall of silence cracks a little and fellow officers testify that a knee on a neck for over nine minutes on an unresisting person in handcuffs is unreasonable. Where state law allows the prosecution to introduce evidence of the victim’s life to humanize him. Where the prosecution really marshals the evidence and puts their back into it. Where jurors are willing to focus on the evidence.

Here is the thing. The guilty verdict of the Chauvin trial brings a measure of justice to Floyd’s family. And I’m glad many of us were able to finally exhale. Really exhale. But let’s not forget that three people were likely killed by the police yesterday. That three people will likely be killed by the police today. And three more tomorrow. Let’s not forget that of the 1,000 or so people killed by the police each year, approximately 6% are unarmed.

Or that according to a recent study by the group Mapping Police Violence, 99% of all police killings of civilians go uncharged. And that doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the thousands upon thousands of cases of excessive force, the ones that don’t result in death, that aren’t captured on camera, that don’t make the news. There are too many cases where justice remains elusive.

There is a reason the prosecutor, in his closing argument, kept repeating that the trial was about one man, Derek Chauvin. He was trying to assure any jurors who were pro-police that a guilty verdict against Chauvin would not amount to an indictment of the police as a whole.

And in a way, he was right. One man was on trial, and one man only. And yet for many of us, this trial is also about who we are, and who we want to be. And for that, the verdict is still very much out. For that, I’m still waiting to be able to breathe freely. A lot of us are.