MINNEAPOLIS â âHis name,â the prosecutor said, âwas George Perry Floyd Jr.â
These seven words were the first the jury heard from Steve Schleicher, a prosecutor, in his closing argument in the trial of Derek Chauvin. With them Mr. Schleicher, standing in a bland Minneapolis courtroom, answered a call from the spirited streets 18 floors below, where protesters, for nearly a year, had been shouting a simple demand: Say His Name.
Over the course of the three-week trial that ended last week with a murder conviction for Mr. Chauvin, a white former police officer whose victim was Black, race was rarely an explicit topic of discussion. And yet the presence of the Black Lives Matter movement, which demands that all Black people be seen for their full humanity, was felt throughout the proceedings.
plannedparenthoodaction.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from plannedparenthoodaction.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
MINNEAPOLIS – The guilty verdict returned by jurors Tuesday in the murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin was a reason for joy among many, especially in the Black community. But it was also a vivid demonstration of what the criminal justice system could be if prosecutors went after all bad cops with the same gusto, legal observers said.
During the 42-day trial, jurors heard from 45 witnesses and listened to hours of technical testimony about whether Chauvin, who pinned George Floyd to the ground under his knee for 9 1/2 minutes, actually caused his death. In the end, jurors unanimously agreed, he did.
‘Gentle Steering of the Ship’: How Keith Ellison Led the Prosecution of Chauvin
Years before he won a murder conviction for the death of George Floyd, Mr. Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general, was a young civil rights lawyer taking on police misconduct.
Keith Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general, has long been an important voice on criminal justice issues in Minneapolis.Credit.Victor J. Blue for The New York Times
April 21, 2021
MINNEAPOLIS As a young civil rights lawyer almost 20 years ago, Keith Ellison took on a client who accused two Minneapolis police officers of sodomizing him with a toilet plunger.
The case had echoes of an earlier police brutality case in New York, in which four officers were sent to prison in connection with the sexual assault of Abner Louima, who was attacked with a broken broom handle in a precinct bathroom.