Derek Chauvin and George Floyd

Almost 12 months ago we all witnessed the tragic death of George Floyd on a Minneapolis Street  while being taken into custody by officer Derek Chauvin and several other police officers.  The circumstances of Mr. Floyd’s death might never have come to light if it had not been for actions of a young lady armed with nothing more than her mobile phone with its camera. The video this young lady took that day, along with other video evidence we could all see and hear in our own homes reverberated across the U.S and around the world.  We could all bear witness to the way Derek Chauvin relentlessly kept his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for those 9 minutes and 29 seconds, and whose last words were,”I can’t breathe”.

Within days of Mr. Floyd’s death there was condemnation from every quarter, and that included, somewhat surprisingly, senior police officials who were horrified at his killing.  Here in Bermuda our own Commissioner of Police, Stephen Corbishley, posted a message “from the heart” and said he was “appalled and saddened” by the killing of  a black man by a police officer in the United States.  CLICK HERE for the article published with Commissioner Corbishley's comments.

This killing resulted in “Black Lives Matter” marches being organized throughout the U.S. and in countries around the globe, and despite what some people might falsely claim, the vast majority of these demonstrations went off peacefully, including the one here in Bermuda which was attended by thousands of people from all walks of life,  old and young,  black and white and all ethnicities, along with many of our serving police officers including Commissioner Corbishley.  

Although there have been many deaths of men of colour before and since the George Floyd case, we were all confronted with having to stop and think about what we had all seen on those videos and the realisation that racism still exists in so many ways. There was no way of denying the reality of that cold blooded killing carried out by a police officer in front of witnesses on the street and around the world.

I’m sure that most, if not all of our ExPo members will have followed the trial of Derek Chauvin and heard the overwhelming evidence against him.  But I’m equally sure that we all wondered if justice would be served.

Well, today the verdict was rendered.  Chauvin was found guilty of all the charges against him, and he was led away in handcuffs.  Justice was indeed served.

I wanted  to close this article with some kind of profound statement about how to fight systemic racism but words fail me.  I can only expand on a piece of advice I was given as a young constable in England by one of my sergeants who said, “Imagine you have a tiny little magistrate sitting on your shoulder watching everything you do and listening to everything you say when you’re in a difficult situation.”  

It worked for me most of the time, but if I had to give advice  to a young police officer today I would say, “Imagine every time you interact with a member of the public there’s someone standing right next to you armed with nothing more than a video camera filming everything you do and say.”  Who knows, that might help a little to turn the tide against both systemic racism and poor policing in general.

I would like to think that George Floyd will be remembered long after Derek Chauvin has faded into history.