Ex-officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of all charges for the murder of George Floyd

MINNEAPOLIS – Former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin was convicted on Tuesday of murder and manslaughter for putting George Floyd on the sidewalk with his knee on the black man’s neck in a case that sparked worldwide protests, violence and a furious re-examination of racism and police in the US.

Chauvin, 45, could spend decades in prison.

People who raved about the verdict flooded the surrounding downtown streets when they heard the news. Cars bellowed and people ran through traffic, waving banners.

Floyd’s relatives gathered in a Minneapolis conference room cheered from the next room as each verdict was read.

The jury of six whites and six black or multiracial people came back with their verdict after about 10 hours of deliberation over two days. Chauvin was found guilty on all charges: second degree accidental murder, third degree murder, and second degree manslaughter.

His face was obscured by a COVID-19 mask, and little reaction was seen beyond his eyes darting through the courtroom.

His bail was immediately withdrawn and he was taken away with his hands handcuffed behind his back. The sentencing will take place in two months.

When the judge asked jurors if they were reaching a verdict, silence fell on the 300-strong crowd in a park next to the courthouse, with people listening to the proceedings on their cell phones. When the final guilty verdict was announced, the crowd roared, many people hugged, some shed tears.

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At the intersection where Floyd was pinned down, a crowd shouted, “One down, three to go!” – a reference to the three other fired Minneapolis police officers who went to trial in August on charges of complicity in murder in Floyd’s death.

Janay Henry, who lives nearby, said she felt grateful and relieved.

‘I feel grounded. I can feel my feet on the concrete, ”she said, adding that she was looking forward to the next case with joy, optimism and strength.

An ecstatic Whitney Lewis leaned out of a car window halfway into a growing traffic jam of partygoers waving a Black Lives Matter flag. “Justice is served,” said the 32-year-old from Minneapolis. “It means George Floyd can rest now.”

The verdict was read in a courthouse surrounded by concrete barriers and barbed wire, and patrolled by National Guard troops, in a town on edge due to another round of unrest – not only because of the Chauvin case, but also because of the deadly shooting by police of a young black man, Daunte Wright, in suburban Minneapolis on April 11.

The jurors’ identities have been kept secret and will not be released until the judge decides it is safe.

Floyd, 46, died on May 25 after being arrested on suspicion of passing a bogus $ 20 bill for a pack of cigarettes at a corner market. He panicked, pleaded claustrophobic, and struggled with the police when they tried to put him in a police car. Instead, they put him on the floor.

The center of the case was the excruciating spectator video of Floyd repeatedly gasping for breath: ‘I can’t breathe’ and onlookers yelling at Chauvin to stop when the officer pressed his knee on or close to Floyd’s neck, as authorities say was 9 1/2 minutes. Floyd slowly became quiet and limp.

Prosecutors played the footage as quickly as possible, during the opening statements, with Jerry Blackwell telling the jury, “Believe your eyes.” And it was shown over and over, analyzed frame by frame by witnesses on both sides.

After Floyd’s death, demonstrations and scattered violence erupted in Minneapolis, across the country and beyond. The furor also led to the removal of Confederate statues and other offensive symbols such as Aunt Jemima.

In the months that followed, many states and cities restricted police use of force, renewed disciplinary systems or subjected police forces to tighter surveillance.

The ‘Blue Wall of Silence’ that often protects police accused of wrongdoing crumbled after Floyd’s death: the Minneapolis police chief was quick to call it ‘murder’ and fired all four officers, and the city reached a shocking settlement of $ 27 million with Floyd’s family as the jury. was on the way.

Police procedural experts and law enforcement veterans within and outside the Minneapolis department, including the chief, testified to the prosecution that Chauvin used excessive force and opposed his training.

Medical experts for the prosecution said Floyd died of asphyxiation, or lack of oxygen, because his breathing was limited by the way he was pressed to his stomach, his hands cuffed behind him, one knee in his neck, and his face to the ground. printed. .

Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson called a police force expert and forensic pathologist to help prove that Chauvin was acting reasonably against a struggling suspect and that Floyd died as a result of an underlying heart condition and his illegal drug use.

Floyd had high blood pressure, an enlarged heart and narrowed arteries, and fentanyl and methamphetamine were found in his system.

By law, the police have a certain margin of maneuver to use force and are judged based on whether their actions were “reasonable” under the circumstances.

The defense also tried to show that Chauvin and the other officers were hindered in their duties by what they saw as a growing hostile crowd.

Chauvin did not testify, and everything the jury or the public had ever heard as a statement from him came from police camera footage after an ambulance took six-foot Floyd. Chauvin told a bystander, “We have to control this man because he’s a big man … and it looks like he’s probably on something.”

The prosecution’s case also included tearful testimony from onlookers who said the police stopped them protesting what happened. Eighteen-year-old Darnella Frazier, who made the pivotal video, said Chauvin just gave the bystanders a “cold” and “heartless” look.

She and others said they felt a sense of helplessness and persistent guilt from witnessing Floyd’s slow-motion death.

“It has been nights that I stayed up, apologized and apologized to George Floyd for not doing anymore, and not having physical contact and saving his life,” Frazier testified, as 19-year-old cashier at the neighborhood market, Christopher Martin, complained that “this could have been avoided” had he just turned down the suspect’s $ 20 bill.

To make Floyd more than a crime statistic in the eyes of the jury, the prosecutor called his girlfriend to the stands, who told the story of how they met and how they struggled with opioid addiction, and his younger brother Philonise. He recalled how Floyd helped him catch a soccer ball and make “the best banana mayonnaise sandwiches.”

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Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan. Video journalist Angie Wang of the Associated Press in Atlanta and writers Mohamed Ibrahim and Aaron Morris in Minneapolis contributed.

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Find AP’s full coverage of George Floyd’s death at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd

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