I started this piece about two weeks ago, at the the beginning of the George Floyd and Derek Chauvin trail in Minneapolis. The last two weeks have done nothing but exacerbate the situation we see in Minneapolis, as the prosecutors and the defense will offer their final statements today (Monday, April 19th). Since I started this we have had 6 instances of shooting where more than 3 people were killer, we saw-mere miles from the Chauvin trial-the death a of a 20 year old father resulting from a traffic stop, and then potentially most tragic of all a 13 year old was shot in the chest, with both hands raised in the air, by the police in Chicago. The realization of the shooting of Toledo comes after two weeks of activists in Chicago called for the release of the body cam footage from the police office involved in the shooting. While the link that I attached does included a modified version of the video released, I plead with you to respect Adam and his family. You don’t need to see a 13 year old boy getting shot in the chest.`
I want to start with the Chauvin trail. During their opening statement, now close to three weeks ago, the prosecution said that it was going to set out to prove was that then Officer Derek Chauvin betrayed his badge when he used excessive force to kneel on George Floyd's neck for about nine minutes - that video that we've all seen - asphyxiating him to death. They called almost 40 different witnesses in order to do this. From observers, to first responders, to police officers and use-of-force experts who shared their opinions on how Chauvin violated Minneapolis Police Department policy in his arrest and restraint of George Floyd. They of course called medical experts who argued that Floyd died of asphyxiation and not, as the defense has suggested, of a heart arrhythmia and his drug use.
The defense then had their time to call witnesses and called just seven, over the course of two days. The defense called their own use-of-force expert and a medical expert, a forensic pathologist, who both worked to contradict the case that the state made, basically arguing that what Derek Chauvin did in arresting George Floyd was totally appropriate and not an excessive use of force, and also to make the case that George Floyd did not die of asphyxiation. There were all kinds of different contributing factors that led to his sort of sudden death - his heart disease, his drug use. There was even the suggestion that Floyd may have been poisoned by carbon monoxide from the exhaust pipe of the police car under which he was being pinned. So really, the goal here is to raise a reasonable doubt in the mind of a single juror. Some other major factors the defense raised were the presence of of drugs in George Floyd’s system, both fentanyl and methamphetamine. In addition to this the defense brought a 30 second clip of a video that they believe shows that Chauvin did not in fact have his knee on George Floyds neck, maybe at all; but certainly not for the 9 minutes that the prosecution accuses.
Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, which third degree murder being the most serious and would mean that the jury has decided that Chauvin acted “by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind,” without regard for life and without intent to kill.
I don’t really know what is going to happen as the jury leaves to deliberate. The judge, Peter Cahill, told jurors earlier last week “If I were you, I would plan for long (deliberations) and hope for short." This where I want to transition to the next part of my piece, my gut tells me that Derek Chauvin will be acquitted. I know it’s a small sample size, but a study done of NYPD police officers in 2019 found that only 2 of the 27 offices accused of excessive force lost their job. Here is an article by a former police chief of Aurora diving into the politics involved in actually holding police accountable. Obviously a murder and manslaughter charge is a little more serious than an officer loosing his job or not, but when it comes down the defense needing to raise a doubt in one juror we certainly have culture here in the States, that gives considerable benefit of the doubt to the police officers and their use of force.
If Chauvin is acquitted, we will almost assuredly see another prolonged period of protests, and riots, all across the U.S. The case hasn’t even come to a conclusion yet, and in the wake of the Adam Toledo and Duante Wright shootings, protests have happened in Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, Denver, and New York.
Before I continue I want to say that I hear the dismissal of protesting, of rioting; including the physical harm done to people, the destruction of private, and public, property. But I want to be candid about my own limitations. Smarter people than I have argued for, and against, the BLM movement and their public demonstrations. Personally, I suspect that what they are opposed to is the actions that take place under the guise of initially peaceful protests, but others find a way to steal, too loot, and too destroy. The opposition is not to the assertion that all people should be help equitable and accountable for their actions.
However there is a famous Martin Luther King quote where he says “rioting is the language of the oppressed.” What does that mean? Is it applicable to what we might see after the ending of the Chauvin trial? Is is it a gross mischaracterization of what Dr. King said?
On April 14, 1967, in “The Other America” delivered at Stanford, King explained the vast gap that separated white America and Black America — in housing, in education, in healthcare, in employment, etc.1 2 3
While he came out and criticized the riots, which were breaking out all over the country in the late 1960s, he very clearly talked about the need to understand and not just condemn — and called for an end to the conditions of injustice and impoverishment that created the situation.
“But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots.
I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.
And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met.
And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”
Lest you think this is to deny the reality of brutal injustice that often feeds such a response, he finished these remarks with a bit of prognostication:
“And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.”
I have seen the argument on Twitter that the protests, and the murals are a shame, a waste, a charade because Floyd, Wright, and other were “bad men.” They aren’t martyrs. I hear this. They weren’t perfect people. Unfortunately none of us are. Nor do I believe the riots, and protests are even specific reactions to the death of these men individually. They are about a context. A context where in Chicago, black people are killed by police at a rate 22x that of white people; and we watched a 13 year old boy loose his life with two hands up. Where from 2013-2020 police in Oklahoma City, and St. Louis, killed black men at a rate higher than the national murder rate.4 Think about that. A group of people, we pay through taxes, to protect us caused the death of their citizens at a higher rather than the average murder rate. Here is a mind-blowing article, yes its old, that shows that from 1986 (the beginning of the war drugs) until 1995, there were zero federal prosecutions for any one who was white from the Los Angeles and surrounding Southland counties, for 10 years! I feel like an entire book could be written about this context, and it in fact has. If you want more than I can discuss here I cannot recommend the book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness” enough.
“We could choose to be a nation that extends care, compassion, and concern to those who are locked up and locked out or headed for prison before they are old enough to vote. We could seek for them the same opportunities we seek for our own children; we could treat them like one of “us.” We could do that. Or we can choose to be a nation that shames and blames its most vulnerable, affixes badges of dishonor upon them at young ages, and then relegates them to a permanent second-class status for life. That is the path we have chosen, and it leads to a familiar place.” Michelle Alexander
So what does justice look like? What does mercy look like? Well let’s start with Dr. King’s speech and then I’ll expand from there. King argues that moving forward the path that prevents citizens from rioting is two fold. First it’s an acknowledgement of the context of the rioting, of the protesting and then it is to move to fix the conditions that they are rioting against. The “Other America” speech is, at its heart, a speech about economics. His solutions included fair-housing legislation, a federal law ensuring fair access to justice (about 50 civil rights workers had been killed in Mississippi since 1963 and there had been not a single conviction), and the institution of a national guaranteed annual income, which could be paid for by ending the war in Vietnam. Here we are almost 60 years later and none of these things have happened. On a practical level I think there are good, and quick steps we can do. Ending qualified immunity for police officers. The continued legalization of marijuana nation wide is a great step. I would love to see the records of those convicted for weed related incidents should also be expunged. In relation to this the restoration of voting right for felons, the ending of the drug war, and minimum sentencing. Then the demilitarization of the police forces, the ending of no knock warrants, and the creation of independent non-police investigators for allegations of police misconduct.
But how is this all tied to justice. Well tied to history of the Protestant church here in America I think we have a strong pervasive sense that true, right, justice is retributive justice. This demarkation of the other, the wrong, the sinner. Putting them out so that they suffer the consequences of their actions. What I see instead in the message of Christ is restorative justice. Even in the Old Testament, the goal of the punishments of the Israelites were not to maintain some abstract cosmic balance, but to put right what has gone wrong, to protect the community, and to restore the integrity of its life and its relationship with God. Justice is satisfied by the restoration of peace to relationships, not by the pain of punishment. In addition to this we can see restorative justice on display in a macro sense too. We see through the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of the Christ, God liberates humanity from its subjection to sin, to death, and renews human nature from the inside out. The restoration of the relationships between God and man.
This is what justice looks like.
Lastly. If you see the stories of these deaths and your response is “they deserved it”, “they shouldn’t have ran”, “why was he out at 2 am” Please. Please Please. Mourn with me. The loss of life, of a child, of a father.
Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others' faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.
Rumi
Thank you for joining this foray into this merriment, love, and sorrow. This view that life holds that ordinary and the unique. The common and the uncommon. Thank you and I’ll see you next Monday.
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https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/
http://ssrc-cdn1.s3.amazonaws.com/crmuploads/new_publication_3/impact-of-the-us-housing-crisis-on-the-racial-wealth-gap-across-generations.pdf
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2020/01/20/the-achievement-gap-in-education-racial-segregation-versus-segregation-by-poverty/
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/cities