Second, the witnesses and evidence presented during the trial clearly demonstrated both that Derek Chauvin’s actions-pinning George Floyd to the ground with his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly 10 minutes-caused Floyd’s death. The prosecution demonstrated that the officer’s actions served no justified legal or practical purpose, and thus constitute an assault, no different than if one civilian were to violently pin another to the ground in the manner that Floyd was restrained. The most severe charge, second-degree murder, is met if a person kills another while committing a felony, such as assault, without the assailant necessarily intending to kill the victim. This verdict-guilty on all counts-was the right verdict for the trial and the only one that fit the facts of the case. “Believe your eyes,” lead prosecutor Steve Schleicher told the jury-made up of six white people, four Black people, and two multiracial people-in his final arguments.īut now what? What do Floyd’s death, Chauvin’s actions, and the jury’s verdict mean for a nation reeling over the killing of another Black person at the hands of a white police officer? Will there be police reforms as a result of the case? Will there be a racial reckoning? Or will nothing change?īU Today asked students, faculty, and staff from across campus for their reactions to the verdict and whether police reforms are needed.Ĭollege of General Studies lecturer in social sciences Prosecutors were relentless in arguing that, in fact, the video said it all. More than 20 times, Floyd uttered, “I can’t breathe.” But even as he cried out for his dead mother and his children, gasping, “They’ll kill me, they’ll kill me,” Chauvin never removed his knee.ĭefense lawyers blamed Floyd’s preexisting health conditions and past drug use as viable causes of his death, and said the video did not tell the complete story of the events that day. It was a case that riveted, angered, saddened, and divided the nation, since the afternoon of May 25, 2020, when a cell phone video captured Chauvin, who is white, kneeling for more than nine minutes on the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, while he lay handcuffed and facedown on the ground, until his body went limp.
George Floyd, 46, uttered, “I can’t breathe,” more than 20 times as Chauvin kneeled on his neck for over nine minutes on May 25, 2020.