The reckoning is now

Chants of “Defund the police” echoed far and wide as shocked and stunned protesters took to the streets after the May 25, 2020, murder of George Perry Floyd by Minnesota Police Officer Derek Chauvin.

What the protesters demanded was an end to policing as we know it…an end to the institutional racism at the heart of a policing system that was created to hunt down escaped slaves, which morphed into a white supremacist-led system that allowed whites with badges to kill unarmed Black people with impunity. The majority of white cops who kill innocent Black people never face any consequences.

But this case is different. The world watched Derek Chauvin murder George Floyd in real time. Thanks to the courage of a Black teenager, who videoed the event and posted it on social media, Chauvin is now on trial for taking the life of a man accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store in Minneapolis, Minn.

If asked, many Black people think Chauvin will walk out of court a free man. He will not be convicted of torturing and killing George Floyd. That’s because for decades, whites with badges (or wearing white hoods; sometimes both) have abused and killed our men, women and children, our civil rights leaders and voting rights activists, our clergy and others and still have not faced Lady Justice.

Routine traffic stops, sleeping in a McDonald’s parking lot, playing with a pellet gun, eating ice cream on your sofa while watching television, sleeping in your bed, trying to bring an autistic patient back to the group home from which he ran, selling bootleg CDs, selling loose cigarettes, walking home from work and allegedly buying a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill, as George Floyd was accused of doing, all ended in death by cops.

We all saw the video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck until he was dead. He continued to kneel on Floyd’s neck at least two minutes and several seconds after the breath left Floyd’s body and he had no pulse.

A medical doctor who is considered by fellow doctors to be “iconic” in the area of pulmonary medicine, testified that Floyd died of a “lack of oxygen” caused by Chauvin’s knees in Floyd’s neck and back and ex-cop King’s pressure on Floyd’s wrist and left arm, which stopped the flow of air to Floyd’s lungs.

The doctor acknowledged that Floyd died of positional asphyxiation from being placed face and chest down on the ground and not being allowed to be on his side, so he could breathe.

Chauvin’s attorney will take the usual route when a Black person is murdered by cops and can’t answer for him or herself. In this case, as in all others, George Floyd will be put on trial. He will be demonized as a big threatening Black guy who was resisting arrest and died from cardiac arrest after ingesting fentanyl and methamphetamines.

No matter what lie or excuse they cook up, we know that George Perry Floyd died because he was a Black man. He was killed out of fear, contempt and bigotry on the part of Chauvin and his murderous men.

We can only hope that in the case of Chauvin justice prevails.

This article originally published in the April 12, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.