A jury on Tuesday found Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, guilty of murder in the death of George Floyd during an arrest last year, a killing that sparked worldwide outrage and led to a nationwide racial justice movement.
Floyd’s death on May 25 outside a Minneapolis convenience store happened in front of a crowd of bystanders, some of whom filmed it with their cellphones. The video of the incident went viral on social media. Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, died after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground under the knee of Officer Chauvin, who is white, for nine minutes and 29 seconds. In the videos of the arrest, Floyd is heard repeatedly telling Chauvin that he can’t breathe.
The video, as well as a long history of police violence targeting Black Americans, incited large protests across the United States against police brutality and systemic racism, with millions of people marching in more than 150 American cities in the months that followed. The protests, in turn, prompted a national reckoning over racial injustice (see “How Our World Changed,” Upfront, Aug. 31, 2020). The Minneapolis Police Department fired Chauvin and the three other officers involved in Floyd’s arrest. The video also prompted an F.B.I. civil rights investigation that is currently before a federal grand jury.
Chauvin, 45, was charged with second-degree murder (which is the killing of someone in the course of committing another serious crime), third-degree murder (a death that occurs when someone is acting extremely dangerously), and second-degree manslaughter (a death in which the perpetrator knowingly risks death or serious harm to another). It’s customary for prosecutors to include multiple charges, as a way to give the jury options in case they can’t meet the burden of proof for one. The jury found Chauvin guilty on all three counts.
The jurors—seven women and five men—spent 10 hours over the course of two days deliberating while sequestered in a hotel before settling on a verdict. All 12 members of a jury must agree in order to avoid a mistrial. In voting for conviction, jurors must believe that prosecutors have proved their case “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
When the verdict was read, cheers erupted from the crowds of people who had gathered outside the Minneapolis courthouse and outside the convenience store where Floyd died. Many political and civil rights leaders spoke about the significance of the moment in light of the fact that it has been relatively rare for police officers to be found guilty on charges of wrongdoing involving violent arrests of Black Americans.
“We will forever look back at this moment in American history,” said Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, a civil rights group. “George Floyd’s death created a new energy around making changes, though it’s not clear how lasting they will be.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who led the team of lawyers prosecuting the Chauvin case, said the jury had done the right thing and called on all Americans to continue working for racial justice.
"I would not call today's verdict justice, however, because justice implies true restoration," Ellison said. "But it is accountability, which is the first step towards justice, and now the cause of justice is in your hands."
George Floyd’s death has had a profound impact on the national conversation about race. Businesses, schools, and public officials have searched for new ways to address longstanding problems of racial inequity. More than 30 states have passed more than 140 new police oversight and reform laws, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the National Conference of State Legislatures. President Biden has spoken about the push for racial justice as a key part of his coronavirus relief legislation and his proposed infrastructure plan. A national police reform bill named for George Floyd is pending in Congress.
On Tuesday, President Biden praised the verdict in a nationwide address at the White House, but he called it “too rare” to deliver “basic accountability” for Black Americans.
“It was a murder in full light of day, and it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see,” Biden said. “For so many, it feels like it took all of that for the judicial system to deliver just basic accountability.”
He called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Accountability in Policing Act, which is currently stalled in the Senate after having passed in the House of Representatives. The bill faces strong Republican opposition. It passed the House without any Republicans supporting it. In particular, Republicans oppose eliminating legal protections for police officers that make it harder to charge them with wrongdoing. This change is one of the bill’s provisions.
President Biden also called Floyd’s family after the verdict and told them that he was relieved that the jury had made the right decision. In March, the City of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million—among the largest payments of its kind—to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Floyd’s family.
The deadly encounter between Floyd and the police began around 8 p.m. on May 25, when police responded to a call from a convenience store clerk who said Floyd had paid for cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. The police found Floyd outside in his car and said he “appeared to be under the influence.”
The county medical examiner ruled the death a homicide caused primarily by the officers’ use of force, but he also noted the presence of two drugs, fentanyl and methamphetamine, in Floyd’s system, and his underlying heart condition.
At the trial, several medical witnesses testified that Floyd died from a lack of oxygen—contradicting arguments by the defense lawyer, Eric J. Nelson, who sought to tie Floyd’s death to complications from drug use and a heart condition. Law enforcement officials, including the chief of the Minneapolis Police Department, said Chauvin violated police policy when he used his knee to keep Floyd pinned to the street.
In his last comments to jurors before they began deliberating, Steve Schleicher, the prosecutor, argued that Chauvin had acted with cruelty and indifference unbefitting a police officer and should be convicted of murder in Floyd’s death.
“What the defendant did was not policing,” Schleicher told the 12 jurors. “What the defendant did was an assault.”
In the defense’s closing argument, Nelson said that there was much more to the case than the moments that had been captured on a cellphone video and seen by the world. Nelson argued that there was at least reasonable doubt about two vital issues: whether Chauvin’s actions were allowed under Minneapolis Police Department policies and whether Chauvin had caused Floyd’s death.
Chauvin’s trial lasted three weeks. It featured testimony from 45 witnesses and many hours of video footage. Chauvin opted not to testify in his own defense, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Chauvin was tried separately from the other three former officers who were also involved in Floyd’s death. Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng will be tried jointly beginning in August.
During Chauvin’s trial, protests erupted after the police killing of a Black man named Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, about 10 miles from the courthouse. That—and other highly publicized police killings, including one involving a 13-year-old Mexican American boy named Adam Toledo in Chicago—have set off demonstrations in cities around the country.
Having been convicted of all three counts against him, Chauvin could face up to 40 years in prison when he’s sentenced in eight weeks. After the verdict was read, he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. His lawyer did not issue a statement, but Chauvin is expected to appeal the verdict.