Derek Chauvin found guilty of murder in George Floyd case
Michael K. LaversMichael K. Lavers is the international news editor of the Los Angeles Blade. <a href="https://plus.google.com/101273109027887931261?rel=author">Follow Michael</a> <!-- Place this tag where you want the badge to render. --> <div class="g-plus" data-height="69" data-href="//plus.google.com/101273109027887931261?rel=author" data-rel="me"></div> <!-- Place this tag after the last badge tag. --> <script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[ (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })(); // ]]></script>homepage news
MINNEAPOLIS — A Minneapolis jury on Tuesday convicted a former police officer who killed George Floyd last May.
Prosecutors charged Derek Chauvin with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter after he kneeled on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes on May 25, 2020.
The jury found Chauvin guilty on all three counts.
“Today, humanity won over indifference,” said Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David in a statement. “This verdict will not bring George Floyd back, but it does hold one officer accountable for the killing of one Black person.”
National LGBTQ Task Force Executive Director Kierra Johnson in her own statement said “the world today saw accountability for the murder of George Floyd. Not justice, but accountability.” Other LGBTQ activists echoed Johnson’s sentiments.
“Our hope is that this verdict brings some measure of relief, comfort, and a starting point for healing for Floyd’s loved ones, and for Black families and communities who have particularly borne the weight and trauma of a country finally forced to begin reckoning with our history of racism,” said GLAD Executive Director Janson Wu. “Today’s guilty verdict provides a measure of accountability for a deeply unjust death, and is a step toward justice. But we cannot forget that true justice would see George Floyd alive today.”
The Los Angeles LGBT Center in its statement said “the verdict reinforces what the world already knew: The killing of Mr. Floyd was a violent and intentional act that, at its core, was the result of systemic racism that still exists in far too many areas of law enforcement as well as in our larger society.”
“The verdict provides a small ray of hope that we can and must do more to address the issues that make this kind of systemic violence against Black people — and in particular Black men — all too common,” added the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom in his statement said “the hard truth is that, if George Floyd looked like me, he’d still be alive today.”
“No conviction can repair the harm done to George Floyd and his family, but today’s verdict provides some accountability as we work to root out the racial injustice that haunts our society,” he said. “We must continue the work of fighting systemic racism and excessive use of force.”
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had a similar sentiment in response to the Chauvin conviction.
“Today, we take this verdict for what it is — justice that came too late for George Floyd, accountability for Derek Chauvin, and a reminder of the urgent work we must all commit to do together,” said Bowser in a series of tweets.
A police officer in Tallahassee, Fla., on May 27, 2020, shot to death Tony McDade, a Black transgender man. The shooting took place two days after Floyd’s death.
“Today’s it’s George Floyd, tomorrow it will be someone else,” Jasmyne A. Cannick, a Los Angeles-based political strategist and journalist, told the Los Angeles Blade in an email. “The struggle continues. Those who have been invested in this work know that one verdict doesn’t mean the entire criminal justice system is changed. It means that one verdict went the right way and there’s still a lot of work to do.”