Yesterday the jury returned a verdict of guilty to all three counts against ex-police office Derek Chauvin who was infamously filmed during the arrest -and subsequent death- of George Floyd.
George Floyd’s death was caught on film, a grisly nine minutes plus of Officer Chauvin pressing his knee against Mr. Floyd’s neck.
This was the reason for the trial and the verdict of the jury finds Mr. Chauvin guilty of choking George Floyd to death.
There was elation, and I could certainly understand it.
There have been too many cases where officers -and others- have done harm to people of color and subsequently the justice system declared their actions either justified or innocent, despite their heinous nature.
Some have noted this is a first step in what will likely be a long process and I feel like that will be the case.
The times, as the saying goes, they are a changing and it certainly feels like this is the case.
With the rise of the internet and cell phones, actions are easier to record than ever before and accountability, one hopes, will become better.
I’d like to think that people are not inherently bad and they genuinely do try to do good.
But looking over the footage of George Floyd’s last minutes, one can’t help but wonder if said footage did not exist, would the outcome have been the same?