USA TODAY US Edition

Special coverage: The Derek Chauvin trial

Joy is joined by determinat­ion to change system

- CHAUVIN VERDICT Trevor Hughes, Kevin McCoy, Gabe Lacques, Deborah Barfield Berry and Marco della Cava

Inside a six-page section, a closer look at how America reacted to the verdict and what it means for the future of policing.

The emotions ran the gamut when news broke Tuesday that former Minneapoli­s police Officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts in the murder last May of George Floyd. Relief. Joy. Fatigue. Determinat­ion. But perhaps most of all, people of color across the United States felt that, for a moment, they mattered.

“This means everything, this is long, long overdue,” said Selena McKnight, 46, of Minneapoli­s, who after hearing the verdict threw her arms around her 18-year-old daughter as a crowd cheered. “But this doesn’t stop here. We have to keep going.”

In New York’s Times Square, Floyd’s brother Terrence told the USA TODAY Network that “given the history of these kinds of cases, I was surprised” by the verdict, which could find Chauvin in prison for up to 40 years for having knelt on Floyd’s neck until he died. “I know

there’s still more work to be done.”

In Washington, Cheria Askew, 43, arrived in Black Lives Matter Plaza feeling “overjoyed and overwhelme­d” by the news.

“I’d experience­d racism as a child, but it’s very different when you get older,” she said. “It’s saddening, it can be depressing. You see growth, but then sometimes it doesn’t seem like it’s enough. So it’s bitterswee­t. But this is more on the sweet side, than any

thing.”

At a Columbus, Ohio, barbershop, Emoni Hudson, 24, took a photograph of the TV after the guilty verdict was revealed. She said she was “very happy” about the verdict, but warned a battle for equality still loomed.

“As Black people, we’re still angry,” said Hudson, who is pregnant and plans to name her daughter Faith. “It’s a battle of humanity. We just want equality, not revenge.”

Floyd’s death last year sparked protests both peaceful and violent in hundreds of cities and ignited a new civil rights movement focused on exposing systemic racism and pushing for police reform.

Since then, calls for change have become only more strident given the growing list of people of color killed while interactin­g with law enforcemen­t. They include Rayshard Brooks, killed last June in Atlanta; and in recent days, Daunte Wright, 20, shot in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and Adam Toledo, 13, shot by a Chicago police officer while raising his hands at the officer’s request.

In recent years, many such incidents have resulted in settlement­s or no charges brought against the officers involved, further inflaming tensions in communitie­s of color and cementing a feeling that justice – even in the case where a video of an incident was available – would be hard to come by despite the world having watched the nearly 10-minute video of Floyd dying under Chauvin’s knee.

That skepticism has 30-year-old roots in the case of Rodney King, a Los Angeles man beaten by officers before being hauled to jail. The event was captured on video by a plumber who lived nearby, bringing to life a reality that many people of color say is commonplac­e when dealing with police. But when the resulting trial was moved from Los Angeles to a white suburb, the jury declined to convict the officers involved. South Los Angeles erupted in violence.

Similar concerns surfaced in the days leading up to the Chauvin verdict, as police and National Guard troops were mobilized in a variety of cities to quell any resulting protests.

But Chauvin’s guilt changed the tenor of the moment for many activists and civil rights leaders, who urged those fighting for social justice not to lose the momentum created by the trial.

The verdict “showed that everything that we fought for last year, all the marches, the protests, the rallies, arguments amongst each other, all the indifferen­ces, all the seats at the table, all the voices mattered,” said Traci Fant of Greenville, South Carolina, where she is organizer of Freedom Fighters Upstate SC.

“Hopefully, this right here is really going to start some true reforms, some true conversati­ons about police brutality, and police justice and show them that Black lives truly matter,” Fant said. “It’s a great day in history. Let the healing begin.”

Shortly after the verdict, the Rev. Al Sharpton, who joined Floyd family

members, took a sober tone.

“We don’t find pleasure in this,” he said. “We don’t celebrate a man going to jail. We would rather George be alive.”

But civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has represente­d a number of Black families in wrongful death lawsuits, felt the verdict had the potential to be a pivotal moment in the “legacy” of the nation, which continues to struggle with a 400-year-old history of slavery.

“America, let’s frame this moment as a moment where we finally are getting close to living up to our Declaratio­n of Independen­ce, that we hold these truths to be self-evident,” he said. “We frame this moment for all of us, not just for George Floyd.”

Meredith J. Duncan, assistant dean of diversity, inclusion and metropolit­an programs at the University of Houston Law Center, said the verdict is historic because of the message it sends about prosecutin­g police officers for unlawful use of force.

“That is very encouragin­g, not just for George Floyd’s family, but for all Americans, not just people of color in this country, and we still have a lot to work on, but this is very encouragin­g,” Duncan said. “Moving forward, we know that it is possible to hold law enforcemen­t to account for the killing of a person of color in this country.”

ACLU President Deborah Archer watched the outcome of the Chauvin trial with her two teenage sons and was “worried about the verdict – not only for what it meant for the United States, but also for what it meant for the ability of my boys to live lives of joy and to feel safe.”

“I breathed deeper than I had in weeks,” said Archer, the first Black person to head the ACLU, one of the nation’s major civil rights organizati­ons. “Tonight, I think we are all rightfully celebratin­g Chauvin’s conviction. George

Floyd’s family and his community finally have some measure of accountabi­lity.”

But Archer added, “Ultimately, I think we are still a long way from justice . ... There is momentary relief, but this does not change our system. Now we must renew our conviction to create a world where police do not have the opportunit­y or authority to use violence to harass, target, oppress and kill Black people.”

Many civil rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers are pushing the Senate to pass the new George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Measures would include eliminatin­g the immunity from prosecutio­n that has protected many officers involved in shootings of civilians, as well as mandating training and establishi­ng a national database of police misdeeds.

Police advocates argue that the job of law enforcemen­t has never been more dangerous given the number of weapons in American homes; the United States has 120 firearms per 100 residents, double that of any nation on Earth. They also express concern that if the job of policing is no longer seen as appealing, recruitmen­t of new officers will decline and require department­s to hire applicants who do not meet their criteria.

The Police Officers Federation of Minneapoli­s issued a statement after the verdict saying there were “no winners” in the case, adding a request for “the political pandering to stop and the race baiting of elected officials to stop. In addition, we need to stop the divisive comments and we all need to do better to create a Minneapoli­s we all love.”

But others begged to differ about the neutrality of the verdict.

“Justice won,” said the Rev. Charles Williams II, the pastor of Historic King

Solomon Baptist Church of Detroit and the head of the Michigan chapter of the National Action Network, led by Sharpton. “We are relieved that Derek Chauvin will have to pay for his crime against a human.”

That sentiment echoed around the nation as people took to the streets to express themselves after the jury took less than 24 hours to render its verdict.

“Today, a Black life truly mattered,” said Chivona Newsome of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, who was standing in the city’s Union Square when she heard the news and shouts of “Guilty! Guilty!” erupted around her.

“It showed the police that they can’t go on killing, that the government sanctioned killing of Black men will be no more, that police can no longer hide behind a badge,” she said.

For some, the moment was both personal and private. Brian Hilliard, 48, of Washington was alone in his car when he heard the verdict. He said he just yelled, “Yes!”

“It’s about time,’’ Hilliard said later as he walked through a neighborho­od. “We don’t ever get justice.’’

He rattled off the names of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor and other lives lost at the hands of police who did not suffer the consequenc­es of their actions.

“There are so many others so justice hasn’t been served,’’ he said. “I’m still not satisfied. We got one. But how much more of this do we have to endure?”

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 ?? TREVOR HUGHES/USA TODAY NETWORK ?? Zaidia Schwab, 7, holds a picture of George Floyd on Tuesday in Brooklyn Center, Minn.
TREVOR HUGHES/USA TODAY NETWORK Zaidia Schwab, 7, holds a picture of George Floyd on Tuesday in Brooklyn Center, Minn.
 ?? HARRISON HILL/USA TODAY ?? Minneapoli­s community members raise their fists in celebratio­n at George Floyd Square on Tuesday after hearing the guilty verdict in Derek Chauvin’s case.
HARRISON HILL/USA TODAY Minneapoli­s community members raise their fists in celebratio­n at George Floyd Square on Tuesday after hearing the guilty verdict in Derek Chauvin’s case.

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