Many rejoiced yesterday as the verdict to what was arguably the most famous and explosive murder trial since the OJ Simpson trial back in the mid-nineties. It seemed that everyone was tuned into this particular trial.
A lot was at stake. There have been protests and massive unrest that were obviously tied into anger and fear over this killing by a while police officer of an unarmed black man who was already in handcuffs. It is in large part because in the past, there have just been too many instance where similar accounts of police brutality and/or killings of unarmed black men have gone unpunished in the past. Anyone old enough to remember the Rodney King beatings and subsequent trial remembers only too clearly what happened then in the trial, and the riots afterwards. Much more recently, we can all remember how George Zimmerman (who was not a police officer, but was trying to act like one) killed a male teenaged wearing a hoodie, which Zimmerman thought was suspicious, and took it upon himself to fatally shoot Trayvon Martin, who had simply gone to a store to buy some skittles, as I recall. What happened to Zimmerman? He was found innocent, and ha since become somewhat of a celebrity, particularly for extremist right-wingers. He even tried selling paintings.
So we have seen somewhat similar trials in the past go exactly the opposite way of justice. Indeed, many were bracing themselves for a “not guilty” outcome for this particular trial. It would not be the first time, after all. Also, those examples that I just gave are only two examples of a significant number, in fact.
It becomes too much after a while. It seemed that there was a trend of unarmed black men (mostly young, but not always) ultimately being killed by police, all too often without any serious escalation being on their end. And the contrast between these numerous examples (and we really only saw a handful of them become high profile as a result of cameras on cell phones capturing these shootings) and the way that young, armed white men are treated by police could not be more stark. Kyle Rittenhouse walked right past the police with a wave after shooting several people and killing two just a couple of years ago. And just after a mass shooting at a black church that he believed would ignite a new civil war in the country (along racial lines), Dylan Roof (a known racist) was calmly arrested. The police even bought him a free meal at Burger King after arresting him for his shooting rampage.
Enough stories like those, and you begin to understand why there is such anger about racial inequalities in this country. In the back of all of our minds, I suspect that we all feared that a “not guilty” verdict could be a very distinct possibility. In fact, it would feel like a bit of continuity with the recent past.
The defense did their best. They tried to make it seem like Floyd was resisting, and that he posed a theat. They talked about substances in his bloodstream. They talked about his past record of problems with the police. For once, however, none of that convinced the jury that he then deserved to be killed, and right in the open in public, on a Minneapolis street. None of that justified the fact that he is no longer with us.
In the end, Chauvin was found guilty. The video proof was too much, simply irrefutable. As the prosecution pointed out, George Floyd himself told us on the video of his cause of his ultimate death, when he said that he could not breathe. There were other people there, onlookers, who were urging the police to get off his neck as well. Through it all, Chauvin ignored everything and stayed on Floyd’s neck for something like nine minutes.
Perhaps finally, we are learning that nobody should be above the law, including those who wear the uniforms to reflect law enforcement itself. Is it possible that the era of cops protecting each other no matter what, even through unjustifiable and transparent bad behavior, may be coming to an end? This is the age where everyone has to worry about what might be caught on camera, even via a live feed. Increasingly, in fact, police officers themselves are required to wear body cameras. In time, not only do I believe this will become so routine as to not raise any objections any longer, but I suspect that someday, turning off a body camera will be regarded as tampering with evidence. And frankly, this will ultimately likely improve the image of the police, as well as going far to remove the so-called "bad apples" that tarnish the reputation of the police with similar such instances. If I were a cop myself, it would seem to me a good idea not to have images of a bad apple like Chauvin kneeling on someone's neck for that many minutes, literally murdering him. When there are clear examples of bad apples like this, it is in the interest of the police force to actually remove them from the police ofrce and hold them accountable for their crimes.
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