By DARLENE VANN / Headline SurferEDGEWATER, Fla. -- There is really no doubt that Derek Chauvin was guilty of placing his knee onto the neck of a handcuffed and facedown George Floyd for for more than 9 minutes in murdering him while two others also held him down as we all saw on the video.
If he had not been found guilty people black and white alike woould have torn this country apart in riots.
Up until now with police killing young black men even with video or body camera footage their word that they felt in danger or they thought they saw a gun that turned out to be a phone, a toy, or nothing at all and they were exonerated. There had to be a trial eventually and this was the one.
This man with 19 years on the job surely should have known better and was shown being told by bystanders he was not breathing and trying to get him off the man while other officers were also trying to tell him to get up and he refused.
Testimony from a 9-year-old witness stated that when paramedics arrived he still would not get off Mr. Floyd and had to be pushed off him. This is all documented by video and witness testimony. Chauvin knew when indicted he was going to be found guilty because he knew what he did was wrong. It was criminal.
I wonder what he was thinking sitting there staring out at nothing in pictures we have seen hundreds of times. All day today I was wishing someone asked him that but he took the fifth.
We will never know what was in his mind during that 9-plus minutes. Now, however, he will have to be sentenced to a long time because he has become the one person to go to trial which makes him have to pay the price for all the past injustices that never were given justice they were due. I feel sad for that for him but he did the deed and needs to pay for it.
Will this finally change the system? The old guard were used to old ways and being unquestioned no matter the outcomes or deaths. They expected to always be believed no questions asked.
Interestingly the television show Blue Bloods shows the generational differences with a police family. Grandfather was police commissioner, son is now commissioner and two sons are police officers of different ages and ways of thinking.
It is a microcosm of the truth of the different ways of doing things over the years in fictional settings but the actual truth underlying it all.
We can only hope times will change for the better now so that we can go back to respecting our police force the majority of whom are good honest trustworthy people.
Perhaps we can even start getting along with each other without any bias. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
YouTube download / AP video / Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd, the explosive case that triggered worldwide protests, violence and a furious reexamination of racism and policing in the U.S. (April 20)