This afternoon, the jury in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd in May of 2020 delivered its verdict, finding Chauvin guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. Chauvin was immediately remanded into custody.
Racial tension and polarization had intensified in the period leading up to today’s verdict, with sporadic violence in Minneapolis aimed at National Guardsmen and law enforcement, fueled by the killing of a 20-year-old black man, Dante Wright, by a white police officer on April 11. Visits by black “celebrities” such as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Al Sharpton, as well as provocative verbal attacks on the police by Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), heightened the tensions. Major urban centers around the country were bracing for violence, had the verdict gone in Chauvin’s favor.
In a visit to Minneapolis over the weekend, Maxine Waters made a spectacle of herself in joining street protesters in demanding that people get more “confrontational” and stay on the streets to “fight for justice,” were Chauvin not convicted. Chauvin’s defense attorney, Eric Nelson, called for a mistrial, charging that Waters was telling the jury how to vote and inciting violence. Presiding Judge Peter Cahill denied the motion, but told Nelson that Waters “may have given you something on appeal that could result in this whole case being overturned,” Associated Press reported. Cahill called Waters’ remarks “abhorrent and disrespectful to the rule of law.”
