I have wanted to write about the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd since the verdict came in on 20 April 2021. I hoped we were about to witness the dawn of justice, but I knew I should wait until Chauvin was sentenced. So I waited. Beyond cheering about the conviction with my family, I said nothing. I deliberately avoided reading commentary about the conviction while I developed my own thoughts. And I hoped. And I waited.
On 25 June 2021, Chauvin was sentenced to twenty-two and a half years. And my hopes were dashed. Again. I have still avoided any commentary on this decision. I discussed it with a few of my Black workmates, most of whom knew about the decision. I wanted a sense of how they felt and to see if my disappointment was misplaced. I do not offer this as a scientific survey. When I asked those who knew about the sentence what they thought, all felt the sentence should have been heavier, though their reasons varied. It took most of the morning to articulate just to myself exactly why I was disappointed with Chauvin’s sentence.
Explaining what I hoped for and why I am disappointed will take some time. What follows is my personal reflection. If it is not already obvious, I am writing from the perspective of a white man who considers himself an ally of the Black community. As such, I have my blind spots. For my Black readers, I am pretty sure those blind spots are obvious and that you will point them out to me. I have been stopped by the police for being poor, but I do not and cannot know the sheer terror many members of the Black community feel when they are stopped by law enforcement. I can only talk about George Floyd’s murder in the abstract, however enraged and horrified I feel about it. But it is not visceral in the sense I seriously wonder whether I am going to be next.
Before going on, I have a confession to make. I have not watched the video, and I will not link to it here. I have seen enough videos of police brutality toward Black people, whether it includes outright murder or not. The written descriptions are and have been enough for me to be horrified and enraged by Chauvin’s treatment of Floyd. And for all intents and purposes, I have watched a person die horribly in real time. Next to that experience, simply watching a video…. I don’t need to see it.
I followed the case as closely as I could. I followed the protests and the police brutality used against them. I watched as the media dragged Floyd’s name through the mud—as if anything could possibly justify the nine and a half minutes of sheer torture he endured while dying. I watched when Chauvin and his accomplices were indicted for unintentional murder and became enraged. For God’s sake! Chauvin pressed down on Floyd’s neck and back for nine and a half minutes while he was handcuffed and the crowd was shouting for Chauvin to back off! How many fucking minutes would it have taken for it to be declared intentional? Ten minutes? An hour?
I calmed down eventually. I let myself have faith the prosecutors were taking things cautiously to ensure a conviction. That was why they added the charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Give the jurors some options and (hopefully) they will convict him of something. It may not have been what I would personally like to see, and it almost certainly would not have been what the Black community would like to see. But something was better than nothing, which is all the justice Breonna Taylor is likely to get.
I followed the trial as closely as I could, mostly through the Guardian. On the morning of 20 April 2021, I was doing something on the computer when I heard the television in another room announcing the verdict was about to be read. I went to that room to watch. And I found myself holding my breath.
It isn’t hard to understand why. The subject of police brutality, especially toward Black people, first truly burst into my consciousnessi when the video of the Rodney King beating became national news in March 1991. I was not quite twenty years old at the time. To say I was shocked by the video footage would be an understatement. But it was still nothing compared to the shock I felt when the four officers charged in the case were not convicted, with three officers being acquitted outright.
And then to see it happen time and again. I cannot possibly list all the names here. Here are some that have prominent places in my memory: Amadou Diallo. Abner Louima. Jannie Ligons. Eric Garner. Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. Freddie Gray. Sandra Bland. Philando Castile. Sometimes, there was video in these cases; sometimes not. Few of these cases resulted in convictions, assuming anyone was charged at all.
I was holding my breath because I genuinely feared Chauvin would be acquitted of all charges. We had been through this before. Indeed, I suspect part of the reason Chauvin tortured Floyd to death was precisely because we had been through this before, and he thought he would get away with it. What else could possibly explain the brazenness of Chauvin’s actions? Chauvin acted in full view of a crowd, his accomplices keeping them from intervening, with at least one camera capturing everything. These are the actions of someone confident they will not face any serious consequences of their actions.
I also feared what an acquittal would mean. It would be an announcement to law enforcement that they are literally above the law. If Chauvin can get away practically scot-free with such a brazen and egregiously cruel murder—on camera—what do they have to fear? It would also be an announcement to BIPOC communities that no matter how brazen, no matter how outrageous, no matter how cruel law enforcement is toward members of their communities, they can’t even hope for justice. At least, not until we start seeing more white mothers crying on TV.ii And even then….
So when Judge Peter Cahill read the guilty verdict for the most serious charge of unintentional second-degree murder, I explosively shouted, “Yes!” Then guilty for third degree murder. “Yes!” And finally guilty for second-degree manslaughter. “Yes!” I never expected Chauvin would be convicted of all the charges. I expected that, at most, he would have been convicted for second-degree manslaughter. Maybe there was hope that justice had dawned.
But I still knew it was not over yet. Yes, the jury got it right, and thank God for that. But while waiting for sentencing, another case kept coming back to my mind: Brock Turner sexually assaulting Chanel Miller. I do not want to overemphasize the similarities between these two cases; there are significant differences between them. However, these are the things that came to my mind:
There is a racial component to both cases. Miller, who is half Chinese, was raped by a white male. Floyd, an African American, was murdered by a white police officer.
Bystanders at the scene intervened or tried to intervene. In Miller’s case, graduate students Peter Lars Jonsson and Carl-Fredrik Arndt caught Turner red-handed, successfully stopped the assault and captured Turner. In Floyd’s case, at least one bystander was physically held back from helping Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao.
In both cases, Turner and Chauvin’s defenders resorted to blaming-the-victim tactics as if Miller and Floyd got what they deserved for whatever perceived or real crimes they may have committed.
In both cases, the juries rejected those arguments, rightly finding Turner and Chauvin guilty of the most serious crime they were allowed to consider.
So in Miller’s case, so far so good. The bystanders intervened and stopped Turner. They got it right. Stanford University banned Turner from the campus, getting at least that part right. USA Swimming banned Turner from competing. They got it right. The prosecutors pressed the most serious charges they could. They got it right. The jury rejected Turner’s lies. They got it right.
And then that fucking judge let Turner off with a slap on the wrist.
Could this have happened in Floyd’s murder? Yes—easily. Remember a prime similarity in these cases: in both cases the offender is white and the victim was a person of color. While neither Turner nor Chauvin had pristine records before these particular criminal acts, this was their first criminal conviction. Both also have class privilege and were represented by private attorneys. And judges have wide discretion in sentencing.
Then on 12 May 2021, Judge Cahill ruled that four aggravating factors applied to the case. I began to hope that Chauvin would indeed get a heavy sentence. A sentence that was at least commensurate to the aggravating factors. I did not expect Cahill would sentence Chauvin with the forty-year maximum sentence, but things looked good for Chauvin to get the thirty years the prosecutors requested.
Twenty-two and a half years. Two hundred and seventy months. A little over half the maximum sentence.
So much for the dawn of justice.
I wanted to see a sentence that would make the police sit up and take notice. I wanted a sentence that said, “You’re not going to get away with this shit anymore.” Chauvin’s sentence does not do that. At best, this only tells the cops to be careful about being so egregious. It is a sentence that only means the next Derek Chauvin who tortures the next George Floyd to death will make sure there are no cameras around.
iI did know about police brutality towards Black people during the Civil Rights Era from my history classes, of course. In my naivete, I thought that era was over.
No comments:
Post a Comment