opinion Why will this time be different than all other times?.But we do know that even where graphic proof has existed, criminal charges, much less convictions, have been nearly impossible to attain. How often it happens, we do not know - no comprehensive statistics exist. Lynching has not yet ceased to be part of the fabric of the Black experience. After all, we all saw the video of him kneeling on Floyd’s neck as Floyd’s life drained out of him.Īccountability for state and extrajudicial vigilante violence against Black people has not come easily in America. It should have been a foregone conclusion that Derek Chauvin, who was fired from the police force shortly after Floyd’s death, would be found guilty on all charges. His death became the catalyst for the most ambitious legislation tackling policing reform in my lifetime, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.Īs the verdict was announced in that Minneapolis courtroom, I broke down in tears. The name George Floyd would become synonymous with a societal awakening about police brutality.
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And Minnesota’s governor handed over the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as bystanders begged him to stop, to Attorney General Keith Ellison, citing Minneapolis’s state representatives’ lack of confidence in county-level prosecutors. George Floyd’s murder led to an outpouring of anger and grief, with Americans of all races taking to the streets. His last words? Like Garner: “I can’t breathe.” His crime? Allegedly passing a fake $20 bill at the corner store.
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His final words, “I can’t breathe,” haunt me to this day.Īlmost six years after Garner uttered those words, another unarmed Black man would be murdered over a thousand miles away, in Minneapolis, face pressed into the pavement with a knee on his neck. Garner’s killing, in a place so familiar to me - the place where my father grew up, my own congressional district - hit close to home. Donovan, Jr., was the same district attorney who failed to secure an indictment from the grand jury for Pantaleo. The man who went on to win the seat, Daniel M. In 2015, I cast my ballot in a special election for my congressional representation.
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opinion Want real police reform after the Chauvin trial? Start with how they’re trained.