by Darrin Barker July 15, 2021

When former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd in May of 2020 it set off an entire summer of protests. Eleven months later the eventual conviction of Chauvin was met with nation-wide approval and relief. Yet I have noticed how few seem to really understand the crimes he was convicted of.

Chauvin was convicted of three charges. Second-Degree Manslaughter, Second-Degree Unintentional Murder, and Third-Degree Murder. The first two, by definition, do not include any intent to murder. They both require acts of “culpable negligence”. The most serious, Third-Degree Murder, means Chauvin was “Evincing a depraved mind without regard for human life” that resulted in death.

The common misunderstanding is that the trail were somehow about race. But prosecution did not make any attempt to brand Chauvin as a racist. Nothing revealed about his background demonstrated any pattern of racism. Not the eighteen complaints against him through his career. No examples of Chauvin using racist terms, telling racist jokes, or bigoted interactions with citizens or coworkers. The trail had nothing to do with skin color.

The shocking video told the entire story. Complaining about claustrophobia George Floyd resisted getting into the back of the police car. Hands cuffed behind his back the officers pulled him out of the car and set him on his knees. Floyd then thanked the officers for removing him from the car. At this point – beyond any explanation I can see from the video – Chauvin pushed Floyd's face into the pavement and knelt on his neck for a horrifying nine minutes. “Evincing a depraved mind without regard for human life”. Absolutely. Third-Degree Murder defines his actions perfectly.

The Chauvin trial was a fantastic example of our justice system performing at its best. No prosecutorial showmanship was required. Let the psychiatrist’s deal with Chauvin’s twisted mind. His motivation is irrelevant. It does not matter if he is a racist or just an asshole altogether. Video evidence caught the officer committing a crime and then the jury promptly convicted him of the very crimes perpetrated on camera. At least this awful tragedy finished off with accountability – something that often does not take place in such high-profile trials.