Minneapolis, United States:
Sacked police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter Tuesday in the death of African-American George Floyd in a case that roiled the United States for practically a year, laying bare deep racial divisions.
A racially-diverse jury of seven girls and 5 males in the Midwestern city of Minneapolis took significantly less than two days at the finish of a 3-week trial to uncover the white officer guilty in unanimous choices on all 3 charges he faced.
Chauvin, 45, could be handed decades behind bars for Floyd’s May 25, 2020 killing, which sparked protests against racial injustice about the world and is getting observed as a landmark test of police accountability.
Floyd loved ones lawyer Ben Crump hailed the verdict as a landmark victory for civil rights that could be a springboard to legislation to reform police forces in their dealings with minorities.
“Painfully earned justice has finally arrived for George Floyd’s family. This verdict is a turning point in history and sends a clear message on the need for accountability of law enforcement,” Crump tweeted.
“Justice for Black America is justice for all of America!”
Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department, faces a maximum of 40 years in prison on the most significant of 3 charges he faced — second-degree murder.
He was observed on video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as the 46-year-old Black man lay handcuffed facedown in the street complaining he “can’t breathe.”
The harrowing video, which was shown repeatedly to the jury in the course of Chauvin’s 3-week trial, sparked protests against racial injustice and police brutality about the world.
The courtroom drama played out just before the eyes of the nation as Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was shot dead in a Minneapolis suburb by a white policewoman who apparently mistook her gun for her Taser, and a 13-year-old boy was killed by police in Chicago.
Wright’s killing triggered many nights of protests in Minneapolis, and ahead of a verdict in Chauvin’s case National Guard troops had been deployed in the Minnesota city exactly where shop windows have been boarded up as a precaution, as effectively as in the capital, Washington.
Among the 38 witnesses who testified for the prosecution had been some of the bystanders who watched Floyd’s May 25, 2020 arrest for allegedly making use of a counterfeit $20 bill to invest in a pack of cigarettes.
Darnella Frazier, the teenager who took the video that went viral, stated Floyd was “scared” and “begging for his life.”
“It wasn’t right. He was suffering,” Frazier stated.
Chauvin attended each and every day of the trial — dressed in a suit and taking notes on a yellow legal pad — but spoke only after to invoke his Fifth Amendment proper not to testify.
A conviction on any of the charges — second-degree murder, third-degree murder or manslaughter — will need the jury to return a unanimous verdict.
The racially diverse jury was created up of six white girls, 3 Black males, 3 white males, two mixed race girls and one Black lady.
Three other former police officers — Tou Thao, Thomas Lane, and J. Alexander Kueng — also face charges in connection with Floyd’s death.
They are to be attempted separately later in the year.
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