At this point, everyone in the entire country, and most likely everyone in the entire world (and even in orbit around it) knows what happened in Minneapolis. On the evening of May 25, George Floyd, an unarmed black man, died while in police custody after his pleas and protests that he couldn’t breathe were ignored by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. The entire, gut-wrenching scene was captured on video by bystanders, who were also pleading for help and pleading with Mr. Chauvin to remove his knee from George Floyd’s neck.
For most people, this would have to be the most clear-cut case in the world. A man died in police custody, and the entirety of it was captured on video and recounted by several eyewitnesses. Surely this is murder plain and simple, right? Unfortunately, it is far more complicated than first appears to be the case.
In my line of work, I often find myself having to tell people one of the more troubling aspects of what it means to fight for justice: what we expect as justice and what the law actually gives us are rarely the same thing. Protesters took to the streets for the past couple of nights all around the country, angry and frustrated at the ongoing lack of justice not just for George Floyd but for so many other black men who have lost their lives in…
