These high-profile deaths of African Americans, along with many others sparked global protests and resulted in politicians and activists on the political Left calling on their cities to and counties to defund their police departments.
“… if the U.S. Justice Department develops evidence that a local or state entity like a police department is failing to abide by the U.S. Constitution or other federal laws, it can go to federal court and seek an order of some kind requiring the entity to cease its illegal activity and perhaps implement some measures to prevent its recurrence,” Caitlin Kizielewicz, a spokesperson for the Crime and Justice Research Alliance, told NNPA Newswire.
Hundreds of people joined Daunte Wright’s family and friends on a march through the Minneapolis suburb where he was fatally shot by a police officer during a traffic stop three weeks earlier.
But such prosecutions and convictions are remarkably rare — Van Dyke got off with an absurdly short sentence). Most killer cops like the murderers of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, and many more go free. And there’s never been anything remotely like the Chauvin trial.
But in spite of this coming together of these factors to yield this important victory, let’s not imagine it’s more than it is. It is a major victory, but a single victory.
David G. Brown Cartoon – April 22, 2021
Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin has been charged with the murder of George Floyd. The jurors of the historical trial reached a verdict almost a month before the anniversary of Floyd’s untimely end on May 25, 2020.
Former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with the murder of George Floyd. The jurors of the historical trial reached a verdict almost a month before the anniversary of Floyd’s untimely end on May 25, 2020.
The jury convicted Chauvin on two counts of murder, homicide and one of manslaughter, for pinning his knee on the neck of Floyd for nine minutes and 29 seconds on May 25, 2020.
The fate of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, charged with the murder of George Floyd, now rests in the hands of a jury. The much-anticipated final day of the Chauvin murder trial was a long, drawn-out battle of opposing theories as to what caused Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020.
A member of George Floyd’s family often occupies a reserved seat in the back corner of the Minneapolis courtroom where former police Officer Derek Chauvin is on trial in Floyd’s death. The seat reserved for Chauvin’s family goes unclaimed.
The first days of testimony at the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death were dominated by witnesses to his arrest and countless videos that forced them to relive the trauma of it all over again.
The trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in George Floyd ’s death is being conducted under special circumstances due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The city of Minneapolis on Friday agreed to pay $27 million to settle a civil lawsuit from George Floyd’s family over the Black man’s death in police custody, as jury selection continued in a former officer’s murder trial.
“For too long, we have endured the pain of watching or seeing the deaths of people of color, particularly Black men and women, at the hands of rogue police officers who operate with impunity and take it upon themselves to be the arbiters of life and death,” Congresswoman Maxine Waters declared. “The trauma that our communities feel is only made worse by the ways in which we are forced to reckon with the reality that Black people are over 3.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white people, and Black teenagers are 21 times more likely to be killed by police than white teenagers.”