CHAUVIN TRIAL REPRESENTS A DEFINING MOMENT OF RACE RELATIONS IN AMERICA

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

The trial of the George Floyd murder began last Monday, when Police Officer Derek Chauvin was charged with Unintentional Second Degree Murder and Third Degree Murder of a black man arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. He was murdered by the grisly act of Chauvin nonchalantly placing his white knee on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, in full view of the camera.

In the United States, the laws and sentences for murder vary by jurisdiction. According to Minnesota law, under which jurisdiction Chauvin is being tried, the statute for “Unintentional Second Degree Murder” is generally defined as “unintentional killing that lacks premeditation, is intended to only cause bodily harm, and demonstrates an extreme indifference to human life”. Third Degree is murder is based on not having an intent to kill, and often charged as a “depraved, heart or mind crime”.

Both these charges certainly do not verify the evidence of the video, that Chauvin’s actions were intended only to cause bodily harm. He continued to keep his knee on Floyd’s neck for three minutes after he was told that Floyd no longer had a pulse. And to accuse him of Third Degree Murder, based on not having an intent to kill is laughable, although there is no doubt at all that Chauvin has a depraved heart and mind.

There have been no charges that the murder of Floyd was a hate crime, even though Chauvin had a history of 18 complaints of brutality largely against the black community on his police record. Complaints which had been dismissed with hardly a slap on the wrist.

The Minneapolis court was shown new footage of Floyd’s behavior in the Cup Foods convenience store before his arrest. It was evident that he was high, laughing and talking to people and walking around, but never in a threatening manner. He had a very cordial conversation with the young cashier, 19 year-old Christopher Martin, who sold him the cigarettes and accepted the $20 note, which he later felt was counterfeit. Martin relayed his suspicions to the manager, but said that “Mr. Floyd didn’t seem to know it was a fake note”. Martin told the manager that, according to the rules of the store, he was prepared to let this go and “put the $20 on his tab”. He said he did so because Floyd was a regular customer. However, the manager ordered Martin to ask Floyd, who was getting into his vehicle, to come back. Martin carried out this order, but Floyd refused. At this point, another employee called the cops.

Mr. Martin, who witnessed the arrest, told the court he felt “disbelief, grief and guilt” because “if I’d have just not taken the bill, this could have been avoided”.

Charles McMillian, another witness who took the stand on Wednesday, was the first bystander at the scene of Floyd’s arrest. He told the court he “engaged in conversation with Floyd, urging him to get into the police car”. He remembers feeling “helpless” seeing the incident unfold, when the police had him, handcuffed, on the ground, clearly not resisting arrest or violent in any way. He can be heard on video telling Chauvin: “Your knee on his neck, that’s wrong, man”.

As the court was shown footage of the arrest and subsequent murder, McMillian burst into tears while on the witness box. In this footage, Floyd is seen to be begging of the police: “Please don’t shoot me… I just lost my mom”. After he is handcuffed, he continues to plead, saying he is not resisting arrest, and “will do anything you tell me to”.

Defense counsel for Chauvin, Eric Nelson argued that Floyd’s autopsy showed that he was in poor health and had used drugs in the past, and had “a mixture of opioids in his system at the time of death; that he may have died of a drug overdose and cardiac arrhythmia” at the very time Chauvin was kneeing the life out of him in open view. That the force used was reasonable.

A similar defense was used in Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination case, when defense counsel argued that his autopsy showed that King, a 39-year-old man, had the heart of a 60 year-old. The implication being Dr. King suffered a massive heart attack at the very moment the bullet of James Earl Ray’s bullet entered his left cheek!

The damning evidence against the brutality of Derek Chauvin continued. His supervisor stated that Chauvin should have stopped using force the moment that Floyd was handcuffed and on the ground, showing no resistance. The paramedic who arrived minutes later said, “Floyd was dead on his arrival”, and had to ask Chauvin to get off Floyd so that he could access the patient.

The fourth day of the trial began with the emotional testimony of Floyd’s girlfriend of three years, Courteney Ross. She gave perhaps the most compelling evidence against Chauvin, talking about Floyd’s love for his daughters and grief after the recent death of his mother, his love for all types of exercise and their struggles with opioid addiction. Floyd and Ross had both tried several times to give up their addiction to opioids, which had started, for both of them, by taking prescription pain-killers to get relief from the pain they had suffered in the past. She said that Floyd had been hospitalized a month earlier for a drug overdose. “It’s a classic story of how many people get addicted to opioids. We both suffer from chronic pain, me in my neck and he in his back”.

Ross said they were “very close”, and saw each other every day until the day he died. She humanized Floyd, talking about his love for his daughters and the grief he felt for his mother on her recent death. They used to “spend time outdoors, walking around the city’s sculpture garden”. They also shared a love for fine dining, and ate out a lot.

The concept of “humanizing” a black person is an important one. American society has always dehumanized African Americans, with the idea that black people are dangerous, they are sub-human. They use their black skin as a weapon, they should be treated differently by, and present a danger to, society. All the black community and the minorities in America are asking for is that they be treated as normal human beings, with human frailties. They only ask that they be given equal protection under the law, just like a white person, just like any other human being who succeeds, who stumbles.

Civil Rights attorney, Ben Crump, who represents Floyd’s family, released a statement following Ross’ testimony.

“As the defense attempts to construct the narrative that George Floyd’s cause of death was the Fentanyl in his system, we want to remind the world who witnessed his death on video that George was walking, talking, laughing and breathing just fine before Derek Chauvin held his knee to George’s neck, blocking his ability to breathe and extinguishing his life for all to see…. We are confident that the jury will see past that and arrive at the truth – that George Floyd would have lived to see another day if Derek Chauvin hadn’t brutally ended his life in front of a crowd of witnesses, pleading for his life”.

Most of you would have forgotten the Los Angeles riots of April 1996, when four policemen, three of them white, the fourth Latino, were acquitted of the brutal beating of Rodney King, an African American who had led the police on a high-speed chase through Los Angeles. When he was finally stopped, King was ordered out of the car. Although he offered little resistance on arrest, he was hit by two high-voltage tasers, and then kicked and beaten with metal batons for a full 15 minutes, watched by more than a dozen cops who did nothing to stop this brutality.

These 15 minutes, illuminated by the floodlights from a police helicopter hovering overhead, were caught on camera by a bystander. The graphic video was broadcast into homes throughout the nation and the world.

In a subsequent negligence claim filed against the City of Los Angeles, King alleged he had suffered “11 skull fractures, permanent brain damage, broken bones and teeth, kidney failure and emotional and physical trauma”. For being pulled over on a suspected misdemeanor.

Rodney King was no angel. He was on parole for robbery, and was driving under the influence when he was arrested. He was ultimately charged with Driving Under the Influence (DUI), a misdemeanor. In defending the officers who beat King within an inch of his life, the regular framework used by the police in justification of racial brutality was used: covering up the attack, devaluing the target, reinterpreting the events, using official channels and intimidation of witnesses. These tactics worked, the officers were acquitted of a brutal assault seen by the world.

There is every indication that this strategy will be used in the defense of Derek Chauvin in an effort to get him a light sentence. For a sadistic, obvious murder of hate, carried out in full view of the world.

Justice in America has taken some very strange twists in the past. The outcome of the George Floyd case may reverse the course of continuing law enforcement brutality against minorities, especially African Americans. However, if Chauvin, who committed a murder of utmost hatred in full view of the world, gets off with an acquittal or a light sentence, there is little doubt that there will be Black Lives Matter riots, nationwide, which will dwarf the BLM riots of last Summer right after Floyd’s murder. And make the Los Angeles Rodney King riots of 1996 look like a walk in the park.

The trial continues, and is expected to last at least a month.