WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden said Tuesday the conviction of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd “can be a giant step forward” for the nation in the fight against systemic racism.
Biden spoke from the White House hours after the verdict alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, with the pair calling for Congress to act swiftly to address policing reform.
“It’s not enough,” Biden said of the verdict. “We can’t stop here.”
Biden spoke after telephoning Floyd’s family, telling them, “We’re all so relieved.”
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
Biden to America after Floyd verdict: We can t stop here
By JONATHAN LEMIRE , ZEKE MILLER and MICHAEL BALSAMO Associated Press April 20, 2021 7:49pm
Video (01:22) : President Joe Biden said Tuesday he is praying for th
President Joe Biden has said the conviction of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd can be a giant step forward for the nation in the fight against systemic racism. Biden spoke from the White House hours after the verdict alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, with the pair calling for Congress to act swiftly to address policing reform. It s not enough, Biden said of the verdict. We can t stop here. Biden spoke after telephoning Floyd s family, telling them, We re all so relieved. Before Tuesday s guilty verdicts were read out, Biden said he was praying for the right verdict in the trial of Chauvin.
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In considering the conviction of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin for second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter in the May 25, 2020, killing of George Floyd, we celebrate a system that we perceive to have worked in this case but we must do so against a backdrop of thousands of other cases in which no one was called to account for police killings, disproportionately of Black people.
This case was so closely watched precisely because it was a rarity: a criminal trial of a police officer for unreasonable use of force that resulted in death.
The jury found that the officer acted so far outside the bounds of proper policing as to have committed crimes when he kneeled on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. There will be attempts to read the result as some kind of vindication for American policing and our system of law, because it arguably demonstrates that good law enforcement agencies and good laws will ferret out and hold to account rogue officer
The Globe and Mail Jonathan Lemire, Zeke Miller and Michael Balsamo WASHINGTON Bookmark Please log in to listen to this story. Also available in French and Mandarin. Log In Create Free Account
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U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd “can be a giant step forward” for the country in the fight against systemic racism. But he declared that “it’s not enough.”
Mr. Biden spoke from the White House hours after the verdict alongside Vice-President Kamala Harris, with the pair saying the country’s work is far from finished with the verdict.