Killer Cop Derek Chauvin Guilty on All Charges! But the Struggle Continues!
https://socialistaction.org/2021/04/21/killer-cop-derek-chauvin-guilty-on-all-charges-but-the-struggle-continues/
April 21, 2021
By Lisa Leonard
Thousands are celebrating in the streets of Minneapolis today after the
judge in Derek Chauvin’s trial announced the jury’s guilty verdict for
the murder of George Floyd. Chauvin was convicted of all three charges,
including second and third degree murder, and second-degree
manslaughter. In Minnesota, second-degree murder carries a maximum
sentence of 40 years in prison; third degree murder carries a maximum
sentence of 25 years and second-degree manslaughter up to 10 years in
prison. Prison times can be less for those without prior criminal
charges. The sentencing will take place in about 8 weeks.
A giant cheer went up from the crowds of expectant protestors gathered
near the courthouse and at George Floyd square when the verdict was
announced. The City of Minneapolis has been on edge for weeks throughout
the trial as security measures, including concrete barriers and barbed
wire went up downtown. Some 2,000 National Guard forces were mobilized
in Minneapolis and nearby cities. The cop and Guard presence served as
an ominous warning that city and state officials were fully prepared to
repress mass protests in the event of a Chauvin acquittal. Armored
trucks and gun-carrying Guard members patrolled the streets. Storefronts
were boarded up. The immediate area around the courthouse was closed
down completely.
Last week, union members kicked the National Guard out of the St. Paul
Labor Center after they stationed their trucks there and partially
headquartered at the labor facility. The police murder of a 20-year old
Black man, Daunte Wright, a week earlier in nearby Brooklyn Center,
Minnesota, had sparked mass protests across the state and nationally. On
Monday high school students across the state walked out of their schools
to call for justice for George, Daunte and other people killed by police.
“This was homicide,” said State Prosecutor
In closing arguments on Monday, April 19, State Prosecutor Steve
Schleicher urged jurors to focus on the infamous video of Chauvin
brutally kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds.
Chauvin continued to crush the life out of his handcuffed victim long
after Floyd’s repeated cries of “I can’t breathe!” had ceased. The
horror revealed by the video sparked mass mobilizations against police
brutality, that quickly spread across the country and around the world.
“Believe your eyes. Unreasonable force, pinning him to the ground–that’s
what killed him. This was a homicide,” said Schleicher. “The case is
exactly what you thought when you first saw it – when you first saw the
video. It’s exactly that. It’s exactly what you felt in your gut. It’s
what you now know in your heart. This wasn’t policing, this was murder.”
Daily police murders! Convictions rare!
The conviction of Derek Chauvin today was a huge victory for the
movement against police brutality in Minnesota and across the U.S. It
may set a new precedent and new possibilities for the prosecution of
police officers in these types of cases. This victory was the result of
massive street mobilizations and anti-racist organizing, not just for
justice in the murder of George Floyd, but for justice for Jamar Clark,
for Philando Castille, for Breonna Taylor, for Dolal Idd, for Daunte
Wright, for Adam Toledo and for countless other Black and Brown people
who are killed by police every day.
President Joseph Biden spoke to the nation shortly after the
announcement of the guilty verdict. During the course of his carefully
prepared speech he insisted that most police serve society justly and
that those who fail to meet the standard should be held accountable.
This is what the powers that be want us to believe. That the court
system works, that justice has been served, that we should all go back
to living our lives.
The truth lies elsewhere. Police kill 1,000 people in the U.S. every
year. Just last week, body camera footage was released of a Chicago cop
killing a 13-year old boy, Adam Toledo. Of the 1,000-plus annual police
murders, only a tiny fraction are even charged, much less convicted.
According to the New York Times, only 44 police have been convicted in
the U.S. since 2005, often of a lesser charge The overall conviction
rate is barely one percent. In Minnesota, 478 people have been killed by
police since 2000, but only four prosecutions of police have ever taken
place and only one police officer has been convicted before Chauvin.
That police officer was a Somali-American man convicted of killing a
white woman. Derek Chauvin is the first white police officer ever
convicted of killing a Black person in the state. Chauvin had 26
previous complaints filed against him and four prior deadly force
incidents before he was tried for the murder of George Floyd.
Racist system remains intact
Despite the popular sense that “justice was served” in the murder of
George Floyd, the racist police system remains intact. This system
includes the racist “criminal justice” system, the racist
school-to-prison pipeline, and the mass incarceration and detention
horrors. This is a social system based on the historic foundations of
U.S. slavery and slave patrols, upholding the “legal” system of Jim Crow
segregation, government-enforced “chain gang” labor on the plantations
of the former slaveocracy, and union busting. It is a system constructed
to protect the power and property of the rich, not to protect and serve
the working class. Had it not been for the 20 million who mobilized in
2,000 U.S. cities last summer to denounce the still-prevailing systemic
racism in this country and to insist that Black Lives Matter, George
Floyd’s murder would have likely gone unpunished.
Despite the ongoing organizing and the millions of people who poured
into the streets over the last year, nothing resembling “police reform,”
much less defunding and dismantling the police, has been implemented to
alter the systemic racism that prevails in every institution of U.S.
society. One Minneapolis protestor who was interviewed live today summed
it up well. She said, “I feel a sense of relief, but also renewed
urgency. This is the beginning of justice, not the end. It’s not just
this one cop, it’s an entire system that needs to be dismantled and
reformed.”
The power of mass movements
The unprecedented scope of the Black Lives Matter protests last summer,
that instantly exploded again following the recent police murder of
Daunte Wright, provided a stunning example of the potential power of
mass action to shake the foundations of the racist system. The power of
these movements frightened the ruling elite, who in short order felt
compelled to accede to the removal of many of the most blatant symbols
of the Confederate slaveocracy that still exist in statues, monuments,
paintings, and in the names of prestigious institutions. To date, more
than 30 states have passed over 140 new “police oversight and reform”
laws purportedly aimed at “restricting the use of force, overhauling
disciplinary systems, installing more civilian oversight and requiring
transparency around misconduct cases,” according to a New York Time
survey of state legislature proceedings. Most of these “reforms” are
cosmetic in nature – aimed at placing a thin veneer of restraint over
the daily reality of police murder and repression. Nevertheless, they
reflect a ruling class fear that future revolts may not be easily
coopted into safe electoral channels. Today, they believe, the “system”
they defend must be publicly presented, however disingenuously, as
compassionate and responsive.
Reforms and “compassion” aside, local, state and federal funds for
policing are on the rise! This is a sure sign that the ruling rich fully
understand that in the face of a generalized increasing awareness of the
brutality of their system, more, not less, repression may well be
required. That was the meaning of the militarization of Minneapolis
leading up to the Chauvin trial. Barriers, billy clubs, and tanks were
set to make certain that a justifiably outraged population wouldn’t
exceed the bounds of “acceptable” protest.
Role of the Democratic Party
In the lead up to the 2020 elections, the Democratic Party proved to be
capitalism’s central vehicle in channeling the mass anti-racist Black
Lives Matter mobilizations into the party’s electoral apparatus, the
“graveyard of social movements.” From unprecedented millions united in
actions across the country, this promising movement’s corporate-funded
NGO and opportunist political leaders (funded to the tune of $90
million) were momentarily successful in steering the mass power in the
streets into the election campaign of Joseph Biden. Yet in a matter of
minutes, the police murder of Daunte Wright sparked those same mass
forces to re-emerge to demand justice from a racist system that they
perceived as categorically rejected it.
The mass and joyous reactions to Derek Chauvin’s conviction affirm that
a deep sense of justice and human dignity permeates the consciousness of
countless millions of working people. George Floyd will remain a symbol
of the reality of police brutality and murder. No one doubts that he
will not be the last victim of police violence in racist America. The
independent, massive and ongoing organizing efforts of working people
that challenge capitalist racism and repression on all fronts will prove
to be decisive factors in winning decisive future victories. These will
in turn lay the basis for new and independent organizations aimed at
challenging the system itself. Join us in the struggle! Join Socialist
Action!
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Carl Sagan “It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance
between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all
hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great
openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some
tension. But if you are able to exercise only one of these modes,
whichever one it is, you’re in deep trouble. If you are only skeptical,
then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new.
You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the
world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now
and then, maybe once in a hundred cases, a new idea turns out to be on
the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being
skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and
either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and
progress. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility
and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot
distinguish the useful as from the worthless ones.” ― Carl Sagan