Pictured are fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and Chauvin's Black murder victim George Floyd, ChauvinClevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.comBy Kathy Wray Coleman, editor
CLEVELAND, Ohio- After a three-week trial, a duly impaneled jury of his peers on Tuesday found fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on all charges in the murder of civilian George Floyd, Chauvin convicted of second degree intentional murder, third degree murder and second degree manslaughter.
Chauvin erroneously killed Floyd on May 25 following Floyd's arrest on a forgery charge.
Prosecutors told the jury in closing arguments that Floyd did not die because his heart was too big but because "Chauvin's heart was too little."
The jury agreed and brought back a stunning verdict of guilty on all three counts.
Chauvin faces up to 40 years for the second-degree unintentional murder conviction, 25 years for third-degree murder, and 10 years for second-degree manslaughter, though Minnesota guidelines for a person like Chauvin with no prior criminal record say he could get closer to 15 years, after getting sentenced on the second-degree murder because, per state law, it's the single most serious charge.
But in the end the sentence is up to presiding case judge Peter Cahill, who has set sentencing for eight weeks from now
Whether the defense will file an appeal remains to be seen, and is likely, sources say.
The former cop was taken out of a Minneapolis courtroom in handcuffs, the jury deliberating for just 10 hours before reaching its unprecedented verdict, and without asking the judge in the case a single question beforehand.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the justice department’s federal civil rights investigation into the death of George Floyd “is ongoing."
And Minnesota Gov Tim Waltz said that "its an important step towards justice for Minnesota, trial’s over, but here in Minnesota, I want to be very clear, we know our work just begins."
NAACP President Derrick Johnson also released a statement celebrating the verdict.
Floyd's younger brother Philonise Floyd, and other family members, including Floyd's daughter, stood with the Rev Al Sharpton and the Rev Jesse Jackson, Floyd family attorneys outside the courthouse following the verdict and dedicated the jury verdict in his brother's murder case to the legacy of Emmett Till, whom White supremacists hanged and murdered in 1955, and with impunity.
Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the nation's first Black vice president and a former prosecutor and state attorney general, spoke out after the verdict in the celebrated case Harris calling it justice delivered and Biden saying "no one should be above the law and today's verdict sends that message."
Harris said that the pain in the Black community relative to the police murder of George Floyd and so many other Blacks like him still lingers.
"Today we feel a sigh of relief" said Vice President Harris during a press conference Tuesday. "Still it cannot take away the pain.
The vice president said that " a measure of justice isn't the same as equal justice."
Even the national president of Chauvin's police union celebrated the verdict in the case of a cop gone bad whose peers and supervisors became key witnesses for the prosecution in his trial on murder charges, a trial that legal experts said was won from the beginning with a video of the entire incident taken by a by-standard.
"We were one of the first organization's to step forward and say this just doesn't look right." said Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police/
Peaceful crowds gathered in Minneapolis and in cities across the country to celebrate the verdict, including in Cleveland on Tuesday evening on Public Square.
The city has settled a wrongful death lawsuit with Floyd's family for $27 million, the largest of its kind in U.S. history.
The arresting officer, Chauvin, who is White, held his knee on Floyd's neck for nine minutes before a crowd of bystanders as Floyd pleaded for his life and cried out that he could not breathe.
The unarmed 46-year-old Black man was pronounced dead an hour later at an area hospital.
Chauvin and the other three involved officers who were on the scene but did nothing to help Floyd, nearly all of them White, were immediately fired.
The other police officers at issue have all pleaded not guilty.
Protests in Minneapolis ensued behind the tragic shooting death of Floyd in May of last year, and spread to over 2,000 cities and towns in all 50 states, and riots subsequently broke out in Minneapolis and in cities nationwide, including in Cleveland, Ohio.
Black Lives Matter activists led Cleveland's protest last May 30 where protesters rioted and tore up downtown Cleveland.
In Cleveland rioters torched or completely destroyed some five police cars, broke out the windows of multiple businesses, including the downtown Arcade, destroyed some downtown shelters, and threw rocks and boulders at police.
They wrote messages and profanity on some government buildings, and a group of protesters clashed with police.
Police shot off tear gas repeatedly, and in some instances unnecessarily, said activists.
More than 100 protesters, most of them White, and young, were arrested with charges ranging from disorderly conduct to criminal damaging and aggravated rioting.
There were more than 50 felony arrests and practically all of those arrested were from Ohio, mainly Cleveland and its suburbs.
Cleveland's riot was something to remember.
They shouted at police as some rode on horseback along the strip between City Hall and the Justice Center and the Justice Center and Public Square where more than three thousand protesters gathered.
"Am I next"? a sign read that was held up by a young Black woman as police and their horses trotted through the streets.
Most of the protesters were under 30 and many were White as well as Black with participants across ethic lines joining in one of at least three different marches and chanting such phrases of "No Justice No Peace," Black Lives Matter," and "Dump Trump."
The rally that led up to the riot began at 1:30 pm at the Free Stamp next to Cleveland City Hall and went on peacefully as an array of speakers took to the podium.
But by the time protesters had marched from the Free Stamp to the Justice Center and settled in, some became anxious and the once peaceful event quickly turned violent.
One protester wore a t-shirt that read "F--- the police."
Organizers begged protesters to act right.
"They expect us to misbehave," a Black Lives Matter Cleveland organizer said to no avail.
Given Cleveland's history of excessive force killings against Blacks and a pending consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice for police reforms and the climate nationally relative to police brutality, the upheaval was not at all surprising, sources said, though Cleveland's Black leaders have said for years that Cleveland is a sleepy town when standing up against police brutality.
The George Floyd riot in the city obviously proves otherwise.
City officials say that it was a small group of agitators who precipitated the violence.
Others say the unrest is deeply rooted in systemic racism and the ongoing undercurrent between police and the Black community and that it cannot be laid at the feet of protesters alone.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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