On May 25th, 2020, the world watched in horror for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds as Derek Chauvin took George Floyd’s life. Over the past year, communities outraged by the deaths of Black and Brown people at the hands of police have mobilized protests and actions to demand justice and accountability. Today, after weeks of trial and almost a year of protests later, the officer who kneeled on the neck of George Floyd for those nine minutes has been found guilty on all charges.
At Common Justice, we know that regardless of the outcome, in this case, the harm that took George Floyd away from his family and community cannot be repaired by our current justice system. We need accountability, and that can only come from a fundamental change of our justice system to one that does not use police and prisons to keep us safe.
Our communities are safer when we invest in them. Our communities become safer when we have access to healthcare, mental health services, housing, economic opportunity, and well-resourced educational facilities for our youth. Investing in these things instead of our carceral system, which has caused irreparable harm to Black and Brown communities for generations, is how we begin the process of healing from our country’s racially violent past.
A week after the killing of 20-year-old Daunte Wright by police only 15 miles away from where George Floyd lost his life. And, at a time when the Mayor of Chicago had publicly admitted that the system had failed 13-year-old Adam Toledo, who was unarmed and had his hands up when the police gunned him down in Illinois. We are reminded that policing in this country has never been founded on principles of safety and never will be.
We offer our solidarity with the family of George Floyd and his community. We remain committed to fighting for a world where no one is killed by police and where safety is abundant in our communities through actual accountability and not prisons.
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