In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday’s verdict, I felt a visceral sense of relief.
Though a single verdict is far short of justice — and cannot restore George Floyd to his family and community — my relief was real. I felt deep in my spirit that the promise of equal justice under the law would have seemed unobtainable had the jury acquitted Derek Chauvin for a brutal murder the whole world saw.
But this relief was quickly overshadowed by righteous anger and dread: anger because I’d been so worried about a verdict that felt like a modern-day lynching, dread because we probably won’t see the same degree of accountability for the recent killings of Adam Toledo, Daunte Wright, and the 319 other people who have been killed by police in 2021. I wondered how soon the next case of police violence would capture our headlines, not knowing that just minutes before Chauvin’s conviction was announced, Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old Black girl, was killed by the police in Columbus, Ohio.
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