Victory for the Movement!
Congratulations to Our Civil Rights Movement!

 

We Must Stay on the Streets to Put Chauvin Away for Life!

 

Keep Fighting to JAIL ALL KILLER COPS and Win Justice for ALL Victims of Police Brutality and Murder!

 

Congratulations to our civil rights movement on our victory today! We congratulate the courage of the jury in their unequivocal assertion of the truth and on the side of justice today by declaring Derek Chauvin guilty of all charges. But there can be no question that today’s victory belongs to the millions of people that through the course of months lit up towns and cities all over America and even globally. Today’s victory belongs to the people that contributed to the explosion of a new civil rights movement in America and in the process also contributed to the defeat of racist Donald Trump and his racist program for a white America. Today is a vindication of the power of our movement and that when we fight, we win! But this is no time to lower our guard. The judge in Chauvin’s trial has scheduled the sentencing hearing that will decide how long Chauvin will spend in jail for eight weeks from now (!). Our movement must remain in the streets to prevent the danger of the judge finding a way to let Chauvin off the hook once our movement has cooled off. The movement must make sure that Chauvin gets the most amount of time in sentencing.

There are also some lessons to learn from this jury trial that will be important for our movement to remain vigilant as we continue our fight to end this epidemic of racist police murders in black and brown communities. The jury today voted the way it did because they wanted justice, not because of the quality of the arguments of the prosecution. In fact, through the course of the trial, the prosecution made a point to not mention race and racism and acted as if racism doesn’t exist in America. The prosecutor acted as if the murder of George Floyd had nothing to do with the prevalent racism of police departments nationwide.

Even before the legal proceedings really began, the Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison chose not to charge Derek Chauvin with first degree murder. The reason was so the prosecution wouldn’t have to deal with the question of intent and motive for why Chauvin remained over 9 minutes on top of George Floyd. To deal with the question of Chauvin’s intent or motive would have meant dealing with the question of racism, not only of Chauvin’s individual racism, but the historic racism of the Minneapolis police department and of American police in general. That is, the entire trial was conducted as if Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd was the isolated act of “one bad apple in the barrel.” The truth is, the murder of George Floyd was one of hundreds of police atrocities committed by American cops against black and Latina/o Americans . The truth is that in all those atrocities the only motive is racism, and the main condition of the crime the cop takes for granted is that s/he is supposed to get away with it. If not for the ongoing actions of the movement, Chauvin would not have even been charged with second degree murder. The highest charge received by Chauvin today was “unintentional murder.” We all know that murder is killing somebody. The prosecution made clear in his closing statement that being a police officer is a “noble profession,” that this trial was not against the police, but was in fact, a “pro-police trial”(!). The prosecution wanted to avoid addressing the history of racism of the Minneapolis police department or American police in general.

But the jury and movement know this is about racism and the history of racist police brutality in America. Despite the prosecution’s legal fictions, today’s jury decision is a condemnation of the history of racism and racist violence in America. The jury made a decision in common sense terms, yes Chauvin intended to kill George Floyd, he did, and he is guilty of murder. Sellouts and civil rights celebrities gush over on television thanking the police and talking about how this is proof that the legal system in America works. We must remind ourselves that it was our actions that accomplished this victory and that our fight against racist inequality in America is not over. We need to keep marching to jail the killer cops of Daunte Wright, Adam Toledo, and all who were murdered by killer cops.

Read More on BAMN’s Fight for Justice for George Floyd:

Program of Action for the New Civil Rights Movement

Justice for George Floyd! Spread the Fiery Spirit of Minneapolis By Any Means Necessary

The Real Power Is In the Streets! Trump Must Resign Or Be Removed!

 

Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights, and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)   www.bamn.com    email@bamn.com    Facebook.com/bamnpage    IG: @joinbamn    snapchat: join_bamn