How Americans are reacting to his murder conviction

The feelings ran the gamut when information broke Tuesday that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was discovered responsible on all three counts within the murder final May of George Floyd.

Relief. Joy. Fatigue. Determination.

But maybe most of all, individuals of shade throughout the United States felt that, for a second, they mattered.

“This means everything, this is long, long overdue,” stated Selena McKnight, 46, of Minneapolis, who after listening to the decision threw her arms round her 18-year-old daughter as a crowd cheered. “But this doesn’t stop here. We have to keep going.”

In New York’s Times Square, Floyd’s brother Terrence advised the USA TODAY Network that “given the history of these kinds of cases, I was surprised” by the decision, which might discover Chauvin in jail for up to 40 years for having knelt on Floyd’s neck till he died. “I know there’s still more work to be done.”

In Washington, D.C., Cheria Askew, 43, arrived in Black Lives Matter Plaza feeling “overjoyed and overwhelmed” by the information.

“I’d experienced racism as a child, but it’s very different when you get older,” she stated. “It’s saddening, it can be depressing. You see growth, but then sometimes it doesn’t seem like it’s enough. So it’s bittersweet. But this is more on the sweet side, than anything.”

Cheers and tears in George Floyd Square: ‘Light will defeat dark’

At a Columbus, Ohio, barbershop, Emoni Hudson, 24, took {a photograph} of the TV after the responsible verdict was revealed. She stated she was “very happy” concerning the verdict however warned a battle for equality nonetheless loomed.

“As Black individuals, we’re nonetheless indignant,” stated Hudson, who’s pregnant and plans to title her daughter Faith. “It’s a battle of humanity. We just want equality, not revenge.”

Floyd’s death last year sparked protests both peaceful and violent in hundreds of cities and ignited a new civil rights movement focused on exposing systemic racism and pushing for police reform.

Since then calls for change have only become more strident given the growing list of people of color killed while interacting with law enforcement. They include Rayshard Brooks, killed last June in Atlanta, and in recent days Daunte Wright, 20, shot in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and Adam Toledo, 13, shot by a Chicago police officer while raising his hands at the officer’s request.

Over the past years, many such incidents have resulted in settlements or no charges brought against the officers involved, further inflaming tensions in communities of color and cementing a feeling that justice – even in the case where a video of an incident was available – would be hard to come by despite the world having watched the nearly 10-minute video of Floyd dying under Chauvin’s knee.

That skepticism has 30-year-old roots in the case of Rodney King, a Los Angeles man beaten by officers before being hauled off to jail. The event was captured on video by a plumber who lived nearby, bringing to life a reality many people of color say is commonplace when dealing with police. But when the King trial was moved from Los Angeles to a white suburb, the jury declined to convict the officers involved. South Los Angeles erupted in violence.

Similar concerns surfaced in the days leading up to the Chauvin verdict, as police and National Guard troops were mobilized in a variety of cities to quell any resulting protests. 

But Chauvin’s guilt changed the tenor of the moment for many activists and civil rights leaders, who urged those fighting for social justice not to lose the momentum created by the trial.

The verdict “showed that everything that we fought for last year, all the marches, the protests, the rallies, arguments amongst each other, all the indifferences, all the seats at the table, all the voices mattered,” stated Traci Fant of Greenville, South Carolina, the place she is organizer of Freedom Fighters Upstate SC.

Analysis:Derek Chauvin’s conviction is progress, but it ‘will do nothing to change’ urban policing on its own

“Hopefully, this proper right here is actually going to begin some true reforms, some true conversations about police brutality, and police justice and present them that Black lives really matter,” Fant said. “It’s an ideal day in historical past. Let the therapeutic start.”

Shortly after the verdict, Rev. Al Sharpton, who joined Floyd family members, took a sober tone. “We do not discover pleasure on this. We do not have fun a person going to jail. We would slightly George be alive,” he said. 

But civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has represented a number of Black families in wrongful death lawsuits, felt the verdict had the potential to be a pivotal moment in the “legacy” of the nation, which continues to struggle with a 400-year-old history of slavery. 

“America, let’s body this second as a second the place we lastly are getting shut to residing up to our Declaration of Independence, that we maintain these truths to be self-evident,” he said. “We body this second for all of us, not only for George Floyd.”

Meredith J. Duncan, assistant dean of diversity, inclusion and metropolitan programs at the University of Houston Law Center, said the verdict is historic because of the message it sends about prosecuting police officers for unlawful use of force.

“That may be very encouraging, not only for George Floyd’s household, however for all Americans, not simply individuals of shade on this nation and we nonetheless have so much to work on, however that is very encouraging,” said Duncan. “Moving ahead we all know that it’s potential to maintain regulation enforcement to account for the killing of an individual of shade on this nation.”

ACLU President Deborah Archer watched the outcome of the Chauvin trial with her two teenage sons and was “worried about the verdict – not only for what it meant for the United States, but also for what it meant for the ability of my boys to live lives of joy and to feel safe.”

“I breathed deeper than I had in weeks,” said Archer, the first Black person to head the ACLU, one of the nation’s major civil rights organizations. “Tonight, I think we are all rightfully celebrating Chauvin’s conviction. George Floyd’s family and his community finally have some measure of accountability.”

‘This means every part’:Minneapolis joyfully chants George Floyd’s name after Derek Chauvin is found guilty of murder

But, Archer added, “Ultimately, I think we are still a long way from justice. … There is momentary relief, but this does not change our system. Now we must renew our conviction to create a world where police do not have the opportunity or authority to used violence to harass, target, oppress, and kill Black people.”

Many civil rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers are pushing the Senate to pass the new George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Measures would include eliminating the immunity from prosecution that has protected many officers involved in shootings of civilians as well as mandating training and establishing a national database of police misdeeds.

Police advocates argue that the job of law enforcement has never been more dangerous given the number of weapons in American homes; the United States has 120 firearms per 100 residents, double that of any nation on earth. They also express concern that if the job of policing is no longer seen as appealing, recruitment of new officers will decline and require departments to hire applicants who do not meet their criteria. 

The Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis issued a statement after the verdict saying there were “no winners” in the case, adding a request for “the political pandering to cease and the race baiting of elected officers to cease. In addition, we’d like to cease the divisive feedback and all of us want to do higher to create a Minneapolis all of us love.”

But others begged to differ about the neutrality of the verdict.

“Justice gained,” said the Rev. Charles Williams II, the pastor of Historic King Solomon Baptist Church of Detroit and the head of the Michigan chapter of the National Action Network, led by Rev. Al Sharpton. “We are relieved that Derek Chauvin could have to pay for his crime in opposition to a human.”

That sentiment echoed around the nation as people took to the streets to express themselves after the jury took less than 24 hours to render its verdict.

“Today a Black life truly mattered,” said Chivona Newsome of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, who was standing in the city’s Union Square when she heard the news and shouts of “Guilty! Guilty!” erupted around her.

“It showed the police that they can’t go on killing, that the government sanctioned killing of Black men will be no more, that police can no longer hide behind a badge,” she said.

Clear across the country, a man whose life has been permanently affected by police violence did not hold back when he heard the Chauvin trial news.

“Oh man, I was full of emotions,” stated Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson of Love Not Blood Campaign, a corporation he co-founded in Oakland, California, after his nephew, Oscar Grant, was killed by a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer in 2009 who stated he mistook his gun for his Taser. “I’m extremely glad that it came down the way it came down, and I’m hopeful that some changes are finally beginning to take place.”

For some, the second was each private and personal. Brian Hilliard, 48, of Washington, D.C., was alone in his automotive when he heard the decision. He stated he simply yelled, ‘Yes!’’

“It’s about time,’’ Hilliard stated later as he walked by way of a neighborhood. “We don’t ever get justice.’’

He rattled off the names of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor and different lives misplaced by the hands of police who didn’t undergo the implications of their actions. 

“There are so many others so justice hasn’t been served,’’ he stated. “I’m nonetheless not glad. We bought one. But how far more of this do we have now to endure?”

Contributing: Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY; Roberto Villalpando, Austin American-Statesman; Tessa Duvall, Louisville Courier Journal; Maryann Struman, Detroit Free Press; Dean Narciso,The Columbus Dispatch; Chris Maag, The Bergen Record in New Jersey; Angelia L. Davis, Greenville (South Carolina) News

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