Save the applause for when justice is the norm – Las Vegas Sun

By Erika Smith

Sunday, April 25, 2021 | 2 a.m.

Shortly before jurors returned to the courtroom Tuesday, George Floyds girlfriend, Courtney Ross, was asked by TV reporters what it would mean to get convictions on all three charges against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

Itll mean change, she said through nervous tears. And that, maybe we, the people can start to believe again in justice.

After deliberating for less than 12 hours, the jury found Chauvin guilty of manslaughter, second-degree murder and third-degree murder for using his knee to pin a terrified Floyd to the concrete until he stopped breathing.

Chauvin could spend up to 40 years in prison. His sentencing will come later, but for now, it was enormously cathartic to sit on my couch and watch him blink in confusion before being led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

Amen, is what my mother said, nodding in that way old Black women do.

Indeed, justice was served, for once. But once isnt good enough anymore.

Cops like Chauvin, who are so arrogant they think they have a right to intimidate, assault and kill Black and Latino people with impunity, cant continue to be so common in American policing. Nor can what happened to Chauvin, who was convicted for breaking the same laws that those of us without a badge must follow, continue to be the exception.

President Joe Biden accurately described the outcome in Minneapolis as much too rare in delivering what was essentially basic accountability to the public.

Or as Chris Stewart, an attorney for the Floyd family, put it during a news conference: The whole world should not have to rally to get justice for one man.

The familys other attorney, Ben Crump, went on to cast what happened Tuesday as a precedent for overcoming systemic oppression. And, in a phone call with Floyds relatives, Vice President Kamala Harris promised that were going to make sure his legacy is intact, and that history will look back at this moment and know that it was an inflection moment.

Id like to believe that. But I also know that, if were not careful, America will easily slip back into the status quo, with millions upon millions of dollars going to law enforcement agencies to enable more officers like Chauvin to intimidate and brutalize communities of color.

Enacting the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would certainly help avoid that. Harris, who helped introduce the legislation when she was a senator, has called it a start. It would ban chokeholds, end qualified immunity and make it easier to hold cops accountable by tracking those with a history of misconduct. It passed the House in March, but faces long odds in the Senate.

Still, even if it passes, it would do nothing to slow a rising national homicide rate and the excuse that uptick provides to rely on the same flawed crime-suppression tactics, rather than reimagine policing either by shrinking departments, rebuilding them or abolishing them altogether.

Last year, fatal shootings jumped 46% across California, starting with the COVID-19 pandemic. Its a trend in mostlyBlack and brown communities that played out in other states as well and has continued well into 2021.

Its not hard to imagine police chiefs and sheriffs lobbying for even more money, arguing they need to add officers and deputies to catch more gun-toting criminals. Its also not hard to imagine a majority of Americans demanding the same, out of fear, perhaps, or merely out of habit.

After all, nearly 60% of Americans said theyd rather fully fund the police departments in their communities than shift some of that money to community programs, according to a recent Ipos poll.

To one day be able to truly look back at Chauvins conviction as a precedent, more people will need to let go of the idea that more cops equal more safety. Thatsjust not true, especially in communities of color, which for decades have borne the brunt of over-policing.

In reality, more cops equal more George Floyds, more Daunte Wrights and more Adam Toledos.

Fernando Rejn, executive director of the Urban Peace Institute, is right when he says we should be building an ecosystem of community-based alternatives to law enforcement.

That includes gang intervention, for which LA Mayor Eric Garcetti has proposed spending additional money this year. And it includes programs such as TURN, or Therapeutic Unarmed Response for Neighborhoods, which will, according to Garcetti, enlist social workers and mental health experts to respond to some calls now answered by the Los Angeles Police Department.

The goal of both is to reduce opportunities for gun violence andpolice brutality.

If you want sustainable, longer-term safety, you have to create new systems, Rejn said. Thats what were trying to do.

He blamed the spike in homicides on trauma and economic fallout from the pandemic, noting that the neighborhoods where there have been the most shootings are the same neighborhoods where the most people have died from COVID-19. It also didnt help that many outreach workers and case managers were sidelined, trying to follow public health guidance for social distancing.

As we emerge from the pandemic, new thinking is a must. So is funding.

Harris, speaking alongside Biden on Tuesday, acknowledged what should be plain to everyone by now. That Black Americans, and Black men in particular, have been treated throughout the course of our history as less than human.

Their lives must be valued in our education system, she continued, in our health care system, in our housing system, in our economic system, in our criminal justice system, in our nation.

Sometimes that means we must stop investing in old, broken systems and start creating and investing in new ones.

Erika Smith is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

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Save the applause for when justice is the norm - Las Vegas Sun