Guilty verdict for George Floyd’s killer brings relief, calls for wider justice

Americans anxiously awaiting a verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin reacted with jubilation and relief on Tuesday after a jury found the former Minneapolis police officer guilty of murdering George Floyd during an arrest last May.

But elation over the trial's outcome, capping nearly a year of social upheaval, racial tensions and political strife stoked by Floyd's killing, was tempered by calls for a continued fight against inequalities pervading the U.S. criminal justice system.

In George Floyd Square, the Minneapolis traffic intersection named after the 46-year-old Black man who died with his neck pinned to the street under Chauvin's knee, throngs of people screamed, cheered and applauded at the news of the guilty verdict.

The square has become a place of pilgrimage and protest since Floyd's death made him the face of a national reckoning with racial injustice and police brutality.

His dying words, «I can't breathe,» were recalled in street demonstrations against his killing that convulsed the United States and the world last year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

"I can breathe,» said Lynea Bellfield, 43, who is Black and joined a festive celebration in the square. «It feels like the beginning of something special. I had to bring my grandsons to see it."
A brass band played in a church parking lot as several hundred milled about the square where a large wooden sculpture of a raised fist sits surrounded by flowerbeds and images of Floyd and other Black people killed by police.

A 12-member jury found Chauvin, 45, guilty of all three charges against him - second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter - after hearing three weeks of testimony and deliberating for just over 10 hours.

"I'm happy we don't have...