The fate of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd, is now in the hands of jurors, who began deliberations late Monday in the landmark case that forced a national debate in the US on race and policing. The eyes of the mightiest nation on earth are focused on Minneapolis for the outcome of the verdict, recalling how Floyd’s death on May 25 last touched off weeks of civil unrest in the United States and brought millions to the streets worldwide in protest for social justice, reports Western media.
The jury of 12 people — six White, four Black and two multiracial — listened to nearly six hours of closing arguments on Monday as the prosecution and defense ended the case just as they began three weeks ago, presenting vastly different views of the circumstances that led to Floyd’s Memorial Day death on a Minneapolis street.
Summing up weeks of damaging testimony in the case including from eyewitnesses, police officers and medical experts, special prosecutor Steve Schleicher commented Mr. Chauvin “had to know” that he was killing Floyd when he pressed his knee into the man’s neck and back while Floyd was handcuffed, face down on the street, crying out for breath and for his dead mother. In his last comments to jurors, the special prosecutor argued that Chauvin had acted with cruelty and indifference unbefitting of a police officer and should be convicted of murder in George Floyd’s death.
But defense attorney Eric Nelson countered the prosecution’s arguments by urging the jury to consider the “totality of the circumstances,” including what happened before Mr. Chauvin arrived at the scene. He accused prosecutors of trying to mislead jurors by focusing only on the time that Floyd was restrained beneath his client’s knee and not the nearly 17 minutes spanning from when officers first responded to the scene for a complaint that a fake $20 bill had allegedly been passed at a market to when Floyd was placed on the ground after struggling with officers. He also repeatedly argued that Mr. Chauvin was following his training and experience as a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department and that he had behaved as any “reasonable officer” would.
Mr. Floyd’s death set off a wave of protests against police brutality last summer and led to fresh calls from activists across the US to divert public funds from police departments. Because the circumstance that led to George Floyd’s death shook the conscience of people.
