Each Case Brings Us Closer to Ending Qualified Immunity for Killer Cops
Convicted ex-cop Derek Chauvin seemed genuinely stunned to learn he actually will be held responsible for the murder of a Black man
For an instant, Black America and Derek Chauvin aligned in a singular emotion: disbelief. It flashed in Chauvin’s eyes just as the weight of decades of unjust acquittals was shifted from our shoulders onto the murderer’s, where it had always belonged. The convicted killer cop couldn’t conceive that a jury would dare hold him accountable.
Neither could many of us.
Chauvin will now wait eight weeks for sentencing but relief was much briefer. The verdict hadn’t even been read before a Columbus, Ohio, cop killed Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old Black girl, in front of her own house. Police said Bryant had a knife, but witnesses added the context that she was armed in self-defense and that Bryant herself had called the police because she was being jumped by other girls. As the news spread, our collective sigh flipped back to anger and exhaustion at yet another flashpoint in the battle to bring a permanent end to police violence against Black bodies.
New York’s city council voted to end the use…
