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by M. Anthony Davis

I cant describe the wave of emotion I experienced hearing the reading of the verdict. Guilty on all counts. I had spent so much energy refusing to believe justice would be served that I never allowed myself to even consider the idea that Chauvin would be found guilty of all charges. Now that it has happened, Im in shock.

After about 10 hours of deliberation, the jury in the Derek Chauvin trial found Chauvin, the officer who was filmed with his knee on the neck of George Floyd, guilty on charges of third-degree murder, second-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. The verdict was followed by both cheers and tears from those awaiting the decision outside the courthouse in Minneapolis.

The killing of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked protests nationwide and catapulted the Black Lives Matter movement to the forefront of American media. In many cases, protests in cities like Seattle, Portland, and New York led to a firestorm in the media with pundits on the right and the left debating the protests themselves just as much as the police violence that was being protested.

The first time I remember hearing the phrase, Black Lives Matter! chanted was back in 2014. This was after George Zimmerman was acquitted of charges for killing Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown had just been murdered by police in Ferguson, Missouri. I cant begin to name all of the Black people killed by police between then and now that received no justice. Todays victory feels both monumental and overdue.

It will be easy for folks to jump out and say that this win is a grain of sand in a desert of injustice. And they are right. But this victory has meaning. This victory declares that George Floyds life has meaning. That my life has meaning. And not just to you and me that was never in question. But now Black Lives Matter to the courts. This case has the potential to set the precedent that police cannot continue to kill unarmed Black people with impunity.

While I encourage folks to take the time to celebrate victory in the courts, we must still remember a few things. George Floyd is not here to celebrate. His life is forever lost, and his family will forever mourn him. But we have the opportunity to build in his name and expand his legacy. This can start with the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

While not loved by all activists, this bold and comprehensive bill is aimed at holding police accountable for misconduct, ensuring that a registry is created to prevent problematic cops from being rehired in different jurisdictions, ending qualified immunity for law enforcement, and protecting the public from excessive force via chokeholds and other tactics used to cause harm. If this Policing Act becomes law, it will be a historical step in police reform and potentially create a path for massive shifts in the culture of policing. I admit that this bill is not perfect, and creating laws that police will actually follow has been difficult. But I think it is a pivotal step in the right direction. Especially if it ends qualified immunity and stops taxpayers from footing the bill when cops are sued for misconduct. If we are ever going to change the culture of policing in this country, we must do it with solid legislation that guarantees accountability.

But for today, we can take a collective sigh of relief. For all of us who watched the video of Floyds death and for all of those citizens, including children, who were there to bear witness to Floyds death, today justice was served. Tomorrow the fight will continue.

We must demand justice for Daunte Wright and Adam Toledo and the names that will continue to be added to this list. We must not forget Manuel Ellis. We must not forget the struggle and pain that has led us to this moment. As political pundits and politicians step out to make statements, we must not let up. Black bodies are still being brutalized on their watch.

Our push for justice must continue.

Editors Note: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name Daunte Wright. The article was updated to correct the error.

M. Anthony Davis (Mike Davis) is a local journalist covering arts, culture, and sports.

Featured Image: Protester at a Black Lives Matter march in Othello Park on June 7, 2020. (Photo: Alex Garland)

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OPINION: Todays Ruling Was a Victory Tomorrow the Fight Continues - southseattleemerald.com

Derek Chauvins defense has been dealing the race card all throughout the trial, but prosecutors should not let them get away with it. Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who pressed his knee into George Floyds neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds on May 25, 2020, is on trial for murder in the second degree, murder in the third degree and second degree manslaughter in the death of Floyd. Chauvin is white. Floyd was Black.

On Tuesday, Chauvins attorney, Eric Nelson, began the defenses case by focusing on Floyds drug use and criminal history. He showed jurors police body camera footage from a May 2019 traffic stop involving Floyd. In the video, one can see Floyd in the front passenger seat being told several times by Officer Scott Creighton to put his hands on the dashboard. Floyd does not put his hands on the dashboard and Creighton pulls his gun on Floyd. Called as a defense witness, Creighton testified that Floyd was incoherent. Nelson also presented then-paramedic Michelle Moseng, who administered aid to Floyd that day. Moseng testified that Floyd told her that he had been taking multiple opioids about every 20 minutes prior to being arrested because he was addicted. Nelson also recalled Nicole Mackenzie, a Minneapolis police training officer, to speak about excited delirium, a condition that Mackenzie testified can be found in one who engages in illicit drug use. Mackenzie testified that someone suffering from excited delirium might be incoherent, exhibit extraordinary strength, or suddenly snap.

Attempting to depict Floyd as a drugged-out criminal who exhibited superhuman strength taps into deeply rooted stereotypes about Black men as dangerous, violent criminals. Professor Paul Butler notes that this strategy is not new and was used in 1992 by four white Los Angeles police officers charged in state court with assaulting Rodney King, a Black man. At that trial, retired Los Angeles police instructor Edgar Oglesby testified that the four officers justifiably thought King was high on PCP when King did not respond to their orders, looked at the officers with a blank stare and was speaking unintelligibly. The officers claimed that when they tried to take King into custody, King threw one officer off his back and did not seem phased by baton blows or a shot from an officers stun gun. Oglesby testified that this behavior reflected the "superhuman strength" often shown by PCP users. Even though no PCP was found in Kings system, the officers were acquitted.

While relying on the Black-as-criminal stereotype may have worked in the past, it is not clear whether it will work this time. Floyds death led thousands of people to demonstrate, demanding police accountability and racial justice. Individuals from all walks of life saw Floyds death as an example of systemic racism in policing gone amok.

The prosecution in Chauvins case, however, cannot simply hope that in light of the racial reckoning following Floyds death, things will be different this time. It also should not ignore the racial implications of this case. We need only look to the murder trial of George Zimmerman to see how the prosecution in that case ignored race to its peril.

The shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager, by George Zimmerman led to widespread protests at the failure of the police to arrest Zimmerman immediately after the shooting in 2012. Thousands of people held candlelight vigils to demand Zimmermans arrest. The belief that Zimmerman had racially profiled Martin and that racial bias influenced the initial decision not to arrest Zimmerman animated the protests. Following the public demands for justice, Zimmerman was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

Even though the initial failure to arrest Zimmerman focused the nations attention on race and the criminal justice system, there was little talk of race at Zimmermans murder trial in 2013. The judge ruled that the prosecution could say Zimmerman profiled Martin but could not use the term racial profiling to describe Zimmermans act of following Martin and calling 911 to report his suspicion that Martin looked suspicious and was probably on drugs. The prosecution argued its case without any explicit mention of race. During the rebuttal closing argument, a member of the prosecution team told the jury, this case is not about race. Its about right and wrong. Zimmermans defense team too maintained that the case had nothing to do with race. Yet, at the same time the defense was claiming race was irrelevant, they called a white woman who lived in the neighborhood to testify about hiding in fear with her children in an upstairs closet while her home was being burglarized by two Black male youths. Even though Martin had nothing to do with the burglary of this womans home, the defense used this witness to signal to the jurors that reasonable people fear young Black males and that Zimmermans fear of Martin was reasonable. In the end, Zimmerman was acquitted.

The prosecution in the Chauvin case cannot afford to ignore race. Research on implicit racial bias suggests that making race salient making jurors aware of race encourages jurors to treat Black and white individuals more fairly. The defense has tried to paint Floyd as a threat by appealing to racial stereotypes about Black men as violent, drugged out criminals. During closing arguments next week, the prosecution should remind jurors that they should decide the case on its facts and not on racial stereotypes. If the prosecution chooses to ignore race, it will do so at its peril.

Cynthia Lee is the Edward F. Howrey professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and the author of Murder and the Reasonable Man: Passion and Fear in the Criminal Courtroom.

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Ignoring race at its peril in the Derek Chauvin trial | TheHill - The Hill

The mothers of Black men killed in recent years by police had personal messages of strength and hope for the mother of Daunte Wright. Wright was shot and killed by a Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, police officer Sunday.

But I want her to know that she has a guardian angel forever, said Lesley McSpadden, the mother of Michael Brown who was killed in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.

Whoever said time heals all wounds did not lose a child, said Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin. Martin was killed in 2012 by George Zimmerman, who a part of a community watch group.

McSpadden, Fulton and others were part of an event by the Rev. Al Sharpton and attorney Ben Crump in Brooklyn Center Wednesday.

Fulton warned Wrights family that they should prepare for the long legal process to come.

An arrest is just step one. We all had arrests, and anyone can get arrested. But we have to get a conviction, and you cant give up on that, Fulton said. Were not going anywhere were in this for the long haul.

Earlier in the day Wednesday, it was announced the officer who fired the deadly shot at Wright, Kim Potter, was arrested and charged with second-degree manslaughter.

To my sister Katie [Daunte Wrights mother], you are not alone we are here for you, said Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner. In my sons case, I did not get a day in court. Thats why I not only fight for my child, I fight for everyones child. Death can knock on any one of your doors any day.

Garner was killed in 2014; widely-shared video of the incident with New York police showed an officer using a prohibited chokehold on Garner and him shouting "I can't breath."

Grieve like you want to. Dont let anyone tell you how to grieve, how long to grieve and when to stop grieving. You do that yourself, Carr added.

Potter and the Brooklyn Center chief of police tendered their resignations Tuesday.

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'She has a guardian angel forever': Moms of killed Black men share hope, strength with Wright family - The Denver Channel

Outside the Hennepin County Government Center on March 31, 2021, in Minneapolis, Minn. (Kerem Yucel / AFP via Getty Images)

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The phrase Black Lives Matter hasnt cropped up frequently during the actual trial of police officer Derek Chauvin, who is facing manslaughter, second-degree murder, and third-degree murder charges over the death of George Floyd. But in many ways, the proceedings at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis mark a subtle sea change in how racial biases are treated in the courtroom, and show the profound impact that a year of protests challenging the police violence that Black people disproportionately face has wrought on the American legal system.

I am a scholar of juries, and my research has focused on the way citizens develop an acute understanding of their civic power when they serve on juries. Ive paid close attention to the Black Panther trials of the 1970s, the Central Park Five trials, the trial of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin, and recent cases in which Black Lives Matter has come up in jury selection. So seeing the ways in which racial bias has been approached during the Chauvin trial jury selection, and judging from the testimony of key witnessesduring a trial of a police officer no lessIve taken away a sense that something new is happening in this courtroom.

In many ways, the shifts are easy to see across our political culture. A Pew Research Group Study conducted in September of 2020 found that 55 percent of Americans supported the BLM movement, a slim but notable majority in a country not historically welcoming to racial justice movements. Democratic candidates for president addressed the protests for Black lives on the campaign trail, and President Joe Biden has already committed to expanding the powers of the Department of Justice to address systemic misconduct in police departments.

During jury selection for the Chauvin trial itself, all potential jurors were asked about their view of Black Lives Matter and the responses were strongly positive. More importantly, it was not unusual to hear jurors state plainly that they thought that Blacks and whites were not treated equally under the law. Rather than using these responses as a basis for dismissal, Judge Peter Cahill found them, in conjunction with other answers about the jurors willingness to respect the norms of the trial, to be consistent with the constitutional protection for the defendant of a fair and impartial jury. While both sides are allotted a certain number of peremptory strikes to dismiss any jurors who they think will not be favorable for their side and this was used by the defense against some potential jurors of color, the judges bar for qualified jurors set the tone in the courtroom. Put simply, he did not see support for BLM as an ideological position at odds with the responsibilities of being a juror. In fact, he seemed sympathetic to potential jurors who were distraught at how George Floyds death fit a pattern of abuse by the police. While he guides jurors to focus on the evidence presented in the courtroom and not on the media coverage of the incident, he also says they should use their judgment and common sense when deliberating to reach a verdictthese are attributes of the jurors worldviews that might be strongly influenced by the concerns of the BLM movement.

Its important to emphasize how unusual this is. In the past, judges have treated Black Lives Matter as an extremist group that condones the destruction of property (People v. Silas, California), or treated even thoughtful reflections by a juror on the pattern of police violence as a worrisome sign for the jurors ability to be impartial (State v Holmes, Connecticut).

During the Chauvin trial, Genevieve Hansen, the firefighter who desperately tried to assist the officers by volunteering to take Floyds pulse, seemed to have the history of police killings at the front of her mind when she approached the scene. Not only was she, a white woman, motivated to help Floyd because she recognized how acutely vulnerable he was in the moment, but she testified that she remained at the scene because she was worried what might happen to the Black witnesses when they interacted with the officers who remained in the area.

Some of the most startling testimony so farnot for its content but for its sourcehas come from Medaria Arradondo, chief of the Minneapolis Police Department. It is quite rare for a police chief to testify against an officer on their force; more often, department chiefs can fall back on the standard defense that an officer perceived a threat and acted accordingly, or was putting public safety above all other concerns. But Arradondo didnt take those tacksinstead, the movement for Black Lives provided an alternative compelling narrative that the chief was able to access. When asked what professional policing means, Arradondo responded, Its really about treating people with dignity and respect, above all else, at the highest level. Its that we see each other as necessary, we value one another and its really treating people with the dignity and respect they deserve. Platitudes, sure, but coming from Arradondo, who himself is Black and once sued the MPD for discrimination, these words had a different impact in the courtroom. By invoking respect and dignity repeatedly, the very qualities that Black Lives Matter supporters say is fatally lacking in police dealings with Black Americans, his testimony revealed how the ethos of the movement has subtly pervaded the trial.Current Issue

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Compelling evidence of this influence came when the prosecution showed the jury footage from the officers body cameras of when the officers first appeared on the scene to investigate the counterfeit $20 bill. The jury saw an officer approach Floyds car with pistol drawn, pointing it at Floyds head in the drivers seat. In the video, Floyd begs, Please dont shoot me over and over again. As a country, having watched the footage of Philando Castile, killed by another Minnesota police officer in 2016, or of Rayshard Brooks, shot in the back by an Atlanta officer last year, or of Walter Scott, shot as he ran away from a North Charleston officer in South Carolina in 2015, I dont question Floyds fear. The recent killing of Daunte Wright in his car by a police officer, apparently the result of a mix-up between a Taser and a Glock, shows just how present this reality is for Black Americans.

This cycle of the viral video showing black death, the outrage that follows, and the apparent return to the status quo in policing is exhausting for all and traumatic for many Black Americans, who do not want to expose themselves (and their children) to such devastating material again and again. Yet one implication of this cycle is that many people on their way into Cup Foods were concerned enough to stop and pay attention. Some of them recorded what was taking place. Others, like Charles McMillan, tried to de-escalate the situation and advocate, not solely on George Floyds behalf, but on behalf of the community that the police are commissioned to serve. There was something devastating in watching McMillan, a Black man and an elder to Floyd, counseling him to acquiesce to the commands of the police, despite knowing the many ways such custody could go wrong. Even when Donald Williams, another bystander, beseeched and heckled Chauvin as he knelt on Floyds neckYoure a bum, bruhwhich the defense tried to paint as a volatile threat to the officers safety, Williams was ultimately deferential and focused on the issue at hand. On the stand, Chief Arradonda said that officers receive training that makes explicit the right of bystanders to film the police discharging their duties and that this transparency is necessary for accountability and trust. That the bystanders all did as much as they could to voice their concern, and that it had no impact on the outcome, reveals the stark reality of what can happen when the police are the only ones who have the authority to use force.

Taken together, these telling moments of the trial suggest a new normal when it comes to the publics expectation for justice in police killings. An awareness of the patterns of racial violence at the hands of the police has pervaded American public life in a way that is unprecedented. What has been obvious to many Black Americans and racial justice activists for a long time is now obvious to many more. There is no going back.

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How BLM Is Subtly Shaping the Chauvin Trial - The Nation

The televised trial of Derek Chauvin is yet another mental anguish for the Black men in this country. The videos played during the court proceedings included George Floyds last minutes of his life as he struggled under Chauvins knee. Every Black American that gathered the courage to watch this trial felt the traumatizing fear and horror of being killed by the men who are sworn to protect us. How do you not sob and hold back tears as you watch witnesses testify about their experiences watching Floyd cry for his breath?

Footage played during the trial shows Floyd inside a local store before he was murdered. With this in mind, Black Americans who watched these videos will never walk into stores feeling safe ever again. It is a daily reminder of the violence and brutality every Black man and woman in this country can expect to encounter at the hands of law enforcement: Floyds murder was captured on film and witnesses testified yet the officers guilt is still up for debate.

The trial reminds many Black Americans of the 1991 Rodney King episode. Four police officers were filmed beating King within an inch of his life. Yet the officers were acquitted. What does justice even mean when history shows police officers can get away with such murder?

Remember Trayvon Martin? Justice was denied to the 17-year-old Martin when, after three weeks of testimony, George Zimmerman, his killer, was acquitted. Then there was Eric Garner, who also died at the hands of the police. His killer, Officer Daniel Pantaleo, only lost his job. He is walking around freely today.

In several Black deaths, justice was never done; officers accountable for the deaths were not held accountable. This is why the Chauvin trial is critical to the ways Black Americans will see justice in a country they call home.

It is hard to avoid seeing the footage presented at the trial; it leaves trails of trauma in Black communities. You can see this in the everyday lives of Black people.

In our state of Maine, there is a growing sense of fear. When Black men travel from Portland to Lewiston or Boston, they have to inform their families about their whereabouts, and they check on each other quite often to make sure everything is OK and that they are not dead. Even sometimes a phone call from the family member who is traveling can bring back trauma to the family member answering the calls.

As the weather warms, the question is, will Black people again enjoy a safe summer outdoors? The usual activities, such as biking, running and even shopping at the grocery, may never feel the same for any Black person who is following the trial of Derek Chauvin.

To the Black immigrants, including myself, this does not look like the America that presented itself as a safe place to escape from persecution and death from our countries of origin. The main reason the Maine Blacks emigrated from their countries was safety for themselves and their families. Now, the question is: If the killings of Black people continue, where else do we go to feel safe and thrive as a community?

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Through My Lens: Black mental health and the Derek Chauvin trial - pressherald.com