It was another one of those moments that will be encoded in our memories, so that people will likely recall long into the future where they were when they heard the news. I know I won’t soon forget the sadness I felt, unexpectedly, when I heard that former police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted on all three counts.
As with most important events, I learned about it from a television announcer while I was in another room, doing something else. My eyes started welling up, and I thought about George Floyd somehow looking down on this sorry society of ours from his perch in the afterlife, or his place in our memories, and smiling. I think the repeated replay of his terrible suffering, over and over through the course of the trial, left a mark on a lot of us, and for me it is a source of tremendous sadness to know that he had to endure such an awful death, so unjustly.
In the shadow of that horrific act, the conviction is cold comfort, but I am glad that his family now has that small measure of solace. And if there is a soul that persists beyond the boundaries of this life, I hope the soul of Mr. Floyd is resting more peacefully now.
I wish I could say I feel confident that this will be some kind of turning point with respect to policing in America. Objectively, the Chauvin conviction is a demonstration of just how much it takes to convict a white police officer for killing a black civilian – namely, a complete video record, many witnesses, police willing to testify against the defendant, and so on. Even then, this was touch and go. That, in itself, is enlightening for white people. (See my take on this last summer.)
What’s more illuminating is the press release the Minneapolis Police Department put out after Floyd’s murder. CNN and other outlets have reported on this recently. Suffice to say that it is a pack of steaming lies. No mention of Chauvin’s knee on his neck for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds. They claim George Floyd died at the hospital after they had him transported via ambulance when the officers “noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress.” Seriously, their credibility is shit. There is no reason to believe a single word these people say.
How often does this happen, when there are no cameras around? How many George Floyds have expired with nothing but an anodyne press release left to cover the tracks of their killers? Those of us who grew up in white America know that this sickness runs as deep as our bones. The racist mission of law enforcement is as foundational as DNA – you can try to reform it, but it will always be there at some level. It takes a lot of work to put that into a box, and we’re only just getting started.
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