Pictured are fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and Chauvin's Black murder victim George Floyd, ChauvinClevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's leader in Black and CLEVELAND, Ohio: Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com :CLEVELAND, Ohio-By Kathy Wray Coleman: May 25 marks the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer and convicted murderer Derek Chauvin and Cleveland activists, led by Black on BLack Crime Inc. Oppressed People's Nation, Black Lives Matter Cuyahoga County and Imperial Women Coalition, will rally at 5:15 pm at Market Square Part across from the West Side Market at the corner of West 25th St and Loraine Avenue near downtown Cleveland.Chauvin awaits sentencing on convictions last month of second degree voluntary murder, third degree murder and second degree manslaughter.
Chauvin is currently housed in a Minnesota prison in solitary confinement and is scheduled to appear for sentencing on June 25.
Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, left behind two children.
The disgraced former cop, who is White, Chauvin faces up to 40 years in prison 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 15-20 years.
Several events are planned across the U.S. to mark the one-year anniversary of Floyd's killing, whom Chauvin murdered by holding his leg on his neck for more the nine minutes following an arrest and rendering him unconscious while by-standers looked in disbelief and videoed the celebrated incident on their cell phones.
Three other officers at the scene, all three of whom await trial on charges of felony aiding and abetting and were fired relative to the incident as Chauvin was, did nothing to stop the gruesome attack.
They have all three pleaded not guilty and face a trial scheduled for March 2022.
Hundreds of people, led by Floyd's surviving family members, Floyd and Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter activists, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, gathered for the rally in front of the courthouse in downtown Minneapolis on Sunday where the Chauvin trial concluded last month, many carrying signs with pictures of Floyd, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and other Black men and women killed in encounters with police
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The jury deliberated for just 10 hours before reaching its unprecedented verdict during last month's trial, and without asking the presiding judge in the case, Judge Peter Cahill, a single question beforehand.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement after the jury verdict 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."
Vice President 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 after last month's guilty verdict in the case. "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
The city has settled a wrongful death lawsuit with Floyd's family for $27 million, the largest of its kind in U.S. history.
Arrested on a forgery charge over a $20 bill, Floyd pleaded for his life and cried out that he could not breathe when Chauvin murdered him a year ago before an astonished crowd of people, some in the crowd hollering for him to ease up on his excessive force against Floyd, but to no avail.
Floyd was pronounced dead an hour later at an area hospital
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 anxious and angry protesters rioted and tore up downtown Cleveland, destroying businesses and writing graphite on landmark buildings.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black and alternative 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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