Derek Chauvin Conviction
His guilty verdict in some ways broke precedent, but will it set it?

The verdict has been reached for the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who murdered George Floyd last May, with the jury finding him guilty on the charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. According to data from Mapping Police Violence, since the May 25th murder, 181 Black people in the United States have been killed by the police. Additionally, per the New York Times, since testimony for Derek Chauvin’s trial began on March 29th, at least 64 people have died at the hands of law enforcement nationwide, with Black and Latino people representing more than half of the dead. 

Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict broke precedent in a world where Trayvon Martin’s and Breonna Taylor’s killers walk free. But in the subsequent trials of the police who have since continued to kill Black people, will it have set precedent?

As much of the United States stood still, nervously, awaiting the results of the trial, many have pointed out the incredulity and injustice behind having to feel so uncertain about a jury doing the right thing, particularly when proof of the crime is in video, thanks to the bravery of seventeen-year-old Darnella Frazier. Still, we have time and time again been given every reason to have doubted that even a small semblance of accountability would have taken place.

Now we stand with fists up yet again, as we wait to see what will come of the trial of Kim Potter, who has been charged with second-degree manslaughter after fatally shooting twenty year old Daunte Wright, during a traffic stop in Minneapolis ten miles away from where the Derek Chauvin case was being carried out. After Chauvin’s conviction, what can we expect from the trials to come of the police who have also wrongfully killed innocent men? 

While some may see the Chauvin verdict as a step towards reforming an institution that has continually harbored systemic racism and police brutality, we will have to wait and see, whether the verdict was a step, or a blip. For decades we have been waiting, painfully, for it to be the former, while having all the proof that the outcome will be anything but the latter. If this is a step, another should be taken through the trial of Kim Potter, and we must continue walking, as we are very far away from the finish line.

At the end of the day, justice is not the conviction of Derek Chauvin, justice would be for George Floyd to be alive, and we will continue to stray from justice so long as society keeps giving the Black community reasons to fear for their lives everyday.