A Moment Of Hope

A historic moment isn’t experienced in the same way by everyone — its impact differs by community, by gender and race, by economics, by geography. But the power, the significance, reaches us all in some way — it’s felt by everyone. That should lead to a unifying moment that bridges the political divide, even as wide as it is today.

On the South Fork, the conviction, on all three counts, of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd last summer, which sparked protests and a movement toward police reform that continues to this day, echoed.

On the surface, there isn’t much connecting a Midwest urban center and a suburban/rural resort community some 1,300 miles away. This region has been fortunate not to have a similar case of police violence that took a life and raised urgent questions about inequality.

But to suggest that the Chauvin verdict has no relevance here misses the most important point: Police reform is universally necessary in the United States. It is urgent. And it is long overdue.

Radley Balko, a columnist for The Washington Post, summed up a point that many made in the wake of the verdict: just how much had to fall into place to finally secure a guilty verdict against a police officer in a case of deadly violence.

Start with 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, who was one of several people who used her cellphone to record the horrific scene, and refused to stop. Had that grueling video not been shared with the public via social media, the original police narrative — that George Floyd appeared to suffer “medical distress” after being placed in handcuffs, and then just died — would have been the official story. As Mr. Balko put it: “He’d have been a blip: a guy accused of passing a fake $20 bill who resisted arrest, suffered ‘medical distress’ and died.”

But there were many, many more factors that made this case incontrovertible, Mr. Balko noted. There was Mr. Chauvin, as villainous a defendant as you could hope for, sneering on the video as he snuffed out Mr. Floyd’s life, and sitting stoic and silent in the courtroom, the picture of remorselessness. There was the election of a Black attorney general — the first Black man or women elected to statewide office in Minnesota — and the appointment of a reform-minded police chief. There was a potent prosecution team and a remarkably weak defensive strategy. And there was, as Mr. Balko noted, “a remarkably diverse jury” in a county that is 74 percent white.

Another key factor: Mr. Chauvin’s department scaled the “blue wall of silence” to testify against their colleague, and to make clear that his actions were not acceptable policing. The fact that it was so breathtaking to watch officers put justice before omerta is testimony to just how out of balance policing has become.

Mr. Balko’s conclusion — “Chauvin’s conviction struck a blow for justice, but this isn’t how the system operates most of the time” — is the ultimate takeaway.

And it’s a message that resonates here. It underscores the underlying racism found in every single department, to some degree. Those that can’t find it aren’t looking hard enough, because it’s been baked into policing over generations, just as it stubbornly exists in society at large.

The verdict, though, is a hopeful sign of a changing nation. The protests this summer and fall, including in white, affluent areas, like the East End, showed a transformation of the nation in general. It was a rebellion challenging the staying power of racism, and demanding that, if nothing else, police begin to address the inequities that are killing people of color at an infuriating rate.

The Chauvin verdict offers something we haven’t had in a while: hope. It’s not about being anti-police — it’s about society demanding change, real change. This conviction, and all the protests that preceded it, are a watershed moment where the American people said, loudly, that police are not always right, and it’s okay to say that out loud.

A sobering note: In the 24 hours after the verdict, the Associated Press noted, six people were killed by police officers in the United States. Not all were murders, of course; the killing of a 16-year-old Black girl in Columbus, Ohio, for instance, captured on an officer’s body cam footage, shows the ambiguity of dangerous situations the police face all the time, and the risk of inaction as well as the use of deadly force.

The point is not that police are always wrong — but that it’s long past time to study these incidents more closely instead of shrugging them off as just part of the job. These deaths are sometimes unavoidable, but they’re frequently the result of poor policing, poor decisions, poor policy. That’s true everywhere, not just in the precincts where they happen.

The protests demanded action — and the Chauvin verdict showed that it’s not impossible. That’s not enough, but, for now, it’s something to appreciate.