While former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted Tuesday of murder and manslaughter for killing George Floyd on May 25, 2020, leaders both nationally and locally say this is just one step toward achieving equitable racial justice.
On Tuesday, a jury reached its verdict after 10 hours of deliberation over two days. Chauvin, 45, was convicted on three counts: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter for pinning Floyd, a Black man, to the pavement by putting his knee on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds. The case sparked national and global protests and action, with local groups continuing to hold rallies and meetings across Franklin County for the past 11 months.
Cate Woolner, a Northfield resident who began holding stand-outs each Sunday afternoon at Northfield Town Hall in June 2020. Woolner said she did not watch the trial live, but kept up with reports as the case progressed.
“I was a little surprised at the outcome,” Woolner said. “It seems like it could be a turning point, but it’s just one small step. It’s not going to change the system — that one small step.”
Woolner said people need to continue to push for systemic change. She pointed to a need to examine the “militarized training” that police undergo and the frequency with which officers draw their weapons during traffic stops, leading to shootings with victims who are often people of color.
“I hope people don’t look at this outcome and feel that because a jury was willing to convict him on three counts that now we’ve resolved the issue of racism,” Woolner said. “I think it’s really incumbent on white people to keep up the pressure. We can’t afford to sit back and be complacent or passive. I think that just underlines the wrong use of our privilege.”
She said the Northfield gatherings for racial justice will continue. While they took a few weeks’ hiatus, participants will return to gather outside Northfield Town Hall on Sunday afternoons beginning in May.
Wife and husband Constance Pike and Mike Magee hold their own weekly demonstrations at Memorial Park in Orange, which they started following Floyd’s murder. They get together with like-minded people to hold Black Lives Matter vigils at Orange Memorial Park on Saturdays. Pike and Magee plan to continue these events, saying Tuesday’s guilty verdict is by no means an end to this conversation.
“We should see this more often. White officers have been going after Black people for decades. But ‘the blue wall’ is ‘the blue wall.’ They don’t go against each other,” Pike said, referring to the proverbial “blue wall of silence,” a term used to describe an informal code of silence among law enforcement not to report a colleague’s errors or misdeeds.
Pike said she was relieved by the verdict but maintains this merely diagnosed one symptom of a deadly ailment.
She said the evidence against Chauvin was overwhelming and the prosecution did a thorough job. She and Magee said the testimonies of eyewitnesses and expert witnesses reinforced one another.
Though he was nervous when the verdict was pending, Magee said, he was not surprised by the relatively short length of time the jury deliberated. However, he is worried about the outcome of Chauvin’s sentencing in eight weeks — he could face between 12½ years and 75 years in prison.
Magee said the celebrations that sprouted across the country were warranted, but the battle is still waging.
“This doesn’t solve anything. Nothing,” he said. “We’re going to continue our vigils here in Orange. I hope they do all around the country and in the world.”
Greenfield Police Chief Robert Haigh Jr. said he wasn’t surprised by the verdict or the length of time it took to be reached.
“I think it’s what should have and needed to happen,” he said. “I think what happened was egregious and speaks for itself … and I think the jury did the right thing. I certainly don’t believe we’re done yet.”
He called the verdict a step in the right direction, but said there is still a long way to go in the fight for racial justice in the United States. Haigh said this can be achieved through proper police reforms.
Magee and Pike said they are 72 years old and cannot believe the country is still grappling with the racial issues brought front and center during the civil rights movement of the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. They say their parents were active in the cause.
Magee compared Floyd to Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy lynched in Mississippi in 1955. He posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.
The Northwestern District Attorney’s Office released a statement regarding the verdict.
“Jurors in the Derek Chauvin trial did the right thing Tuesday in unanimously holding him accountable for the killing of George Floyd,” the statement reads. “The prosecution of this crime was fair and it was just. The return of guilty verdicts on all three counts was a credit to the career prosecutors who built and presented a case that showed overwhelming evidence of guilt. It was also a credit to the victim/witness advocates who worked closely with the family of George Floyd over the past year and with bystanders who unwittingly became key witnesses after doing the right thing by drawing attention to the circumstances of the death of Mr. Floyd.”
Domenic Poli can be reached at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 262. Zack DeLuca can be reached at: zdeluca@recorder.com or 413-930-4579.