The trial of George Floyd’s killer begins . Agent Derek Chauvin appears in the dock and in front of a country that, with bated breath, is demanding justice for the 46-year-old African American brutally killed for a counterfeit 20 dollar bill. A death that shocked the United States in the midst of the pandemic, bringing to the fore once again the unresolved problem of excessive violence by the police, especially towards minorities, with frequent accusations of racism.
” America demands justice, the whole world is watching us ,” said Benjamin Crump, one of the attorneys representing George Floyd’s family. “This murder is not a difficult case to judge,” said the lawyer speaking before the start of the trial, referring to the images in which Chauvin chokes Floyd with the knee, despite the latter begging to let go. The trial for the death of George Floyd is a real “referendum on American justice” , to see if “justice and equality for all” can be guaranteed in the United States, the family’s lawyers said shortly before the trial began. of the African American killed by former police officer Derek Chauvin.
Great commotion in front of the Minneapolis courthouse.The victim’s family members, along with lawyers and dozens of people present, knelt for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the length of time former police officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee pressed to the neck of the victim. Floyd killing him .
Derek Chauvin “betrayed his badge, his oath to protect citizens and to use compassion in the performance of his duties,” said the prosecutor representing the prosecution at the opening of the trial . “Let’s put politics aside in this process,” the words of Derek Chauvin’s defense attorney.Chauvin sitting in the courtroom next to his lawyer and wearing the mask. The lawyer pointed out that Floyd was under the influence of drugs and twice refused to give back the cigarettes he tried to buy with a fake $ 20 bill.
The video of Floyd’s death, lying on the ground for 8 minutes and 46 seconds with Chauvin’s knee on his neck until he was suffocated, awakened the conscience of Americans and prompted millions of people in the United States and around the world to take to the streets for weeks to say enough to racism alongside the Black Lives Matter movement, of which ‘Big Floyd’ has become a true icon.
The trial is one of the highest-profile cases against violent police since 1991, when African American Rodney King was brutally beaten by four officers in Los Angeles. Since then, several African Americans have died in police hands and the officers responsible have mostly gotten away with it, as in the cases of Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor and Daniel Prude. Now it’s the turn of Chauvin, a former veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department. The fear is that, even in this case, the desired justice will not arrive, triggering a new wave of violent protests. Precisely for this reason Minneapolis presents itself armored at the start of the process, aware that it has the eyes of the whole of America on it. “People don’t have much faith in his conviction. We have seen this film many times before,
While everything is ready for the start of the trial, in George Floyd Square – as the intersection where Floyd died was called – continues the pilgrimage that began ten months ago, on that May 25, 2020 in which the African American was killed. The barricades surrounding the area read “you are entering George Floyd’s free state”: there are flowers, murals, graffiti ‘I can’t breathe’ – I can’t breathe, the phrase Floyd uttered several times before he died – and candles. There is no police: security is managed locally and officers stay away. Having become a symbol of resistance against the system, the future of the square is however uncertain. The city authorities would like to reopen the area for circulation even if for now everything is postponed until after the trial.
