Chennai: People across the world who were anxiously awaiting a verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin reacted with jubilation and relief after a jury found the former Minneapolis police officer guilty of murdering George Floyd during an arrest last May.
Former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd, a milestone in the fraught racial history of the United States and a rebuke of law enforcement’s treatment of Black Americans.
Reacting to the development, George Floyd’s brother Philonise, speaking at a news conference with several family members after the verdict, said, ‘We are able to breathe again’ but added that the fight for justice was not over. ‘We have to protest because it seems like this is a never-ending cycle,’ he was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters.
In George Floyd Square, the Minneapolis traffic intersection named after the 46-year-old Black man who died with his neck pinned to the street under Chauvin’s knee, throngs of people screamed, cheered and applauded at the news of the guilty verdict.
The square has become a place of pilgrimage and protest since Floyd’s death made him the face of a national reckoning with racial injustice and police brutality.
His dying words, ‘I can’t breathe,’ were recalled in street demonstrations against his killing that convulsed the United States and the world last year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
The trial, and its verdict, have attracted more attention than almost any other criminal proceeding in decades, and as it moves into the final phase — closing arguments Monday, followed by jury deliberations and the verdict on Tuesday — these key moments illustrate some of the themes that are most important to jurors.
Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis police force, was seen on video kneeling on the neck of Floyd for more than nine minutes as he lay facedown and handcuffed on the ground saying repeatedly ‘I can’t breathe.’
Wearing a facemask and displaying no visible emotion, Chauvin was escorted out of the courtroom by a deputy as one of George Floyd’s brothers, Philonise Floyd, embraced prosecutors.
Chauvin faces up to 40 years in prison on the most serious charge — second-degree murder. Sentencing will be at a later date.