The NPR Politics Podcast - George Floyd's Family, White House Push For Police Reform Law After Guilty Verdict

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

The jury has found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on all the counts he faced over the death of George Floyd. After the verdict, President Biden and Vice President Harris joined Floyd's family in calling on the Senate to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.This episode: White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe, political correspondent Juana Summers, and national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Juana Summers. I cover politics. And I'm Keri Johnson, National Justice Correspondent. It is 7.48 p.m. on April 20th. The jury has found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on all counts he faced over the death of George Floyd. We, the jury, in the above entitled matter, as to count one unintentional second-degree murder Mark Chauvin guilty on all counts he faced over the death of George Floyd. We, the jury, in the above entitled matter, as to count one, unintentional second-degree murder while committing a felony, find the defendant guilty. As to count two, third-degree murder perpetrating an eminently dangerous act,

find the defendant guilty. As to count three, second-degree manslaughter, culpable negligence creating an unreasonable risk, find the defendant guilty. He was remanded into custody as the jury was dismissed. Sentencing is expected in eight weeks. Let me just say this. This is a moment that was far from certain. Even with all the video evidence and the witnesses and the experts,

the history of this country shows us how unusual it is for a police officer to be convicted of something he was doing while in the line of duty. This is one case that captured the world's attention and the outcome was different here. But to be clear, a man, George Floyd, is still dead. He was a father, a son, a brother. He is dead. And in this country, at this very moment, there are people who will have interactions with the police today, tomorrow, and the next day. And some of those interactions will be violent. Yeah, you know, Aisha, that's one of the things I think about a lot is the fact that, you know, George Floyd's killing sparked a racial reckoning in this country over the span George Floyd's life. But there are encounters like this that are happening in many other places, and many other families who are reckoning with

the same grief. And it's something I've been thinking about as we've watched at what at times has been a very difficult trial to take in, quite frankly. Carrie, in this case, where, you know, as I said, it's a rare case, but he was found guilty. What type of sentence is Derek Chauvin looking at now? Yeah, found guilty, Aisha, and taken out of the courtroom in handcuffs, his hands cuffed behind his back, immediately remanded into the custody of the county sheriff. When he's sentenced in about two months, he faces a sentencing guidelines call for about 12 and a half years on the most serious charge, which would be the second degree murder.

The third degree murder also carries a kind of a similar sentence. And then that slightly less stiff charge of the manslaughter charge would carry about four years. But we know that the attorney general's office is going to ask for some enhancements in the penalties. Derek Chauvin, though, is looking at some very serious time in prison. And after the verdict, the Floyd family started speaking out. Here is his niece, Brooke Williams, talking about the verdict. We won today, but there's so many other families that have not received justice,

so the fight has to continue. So we're going to continue to fight for those families, and as well, make sure that people remember my uncle's name. And so Juana, the rest of the family had a press conference. What are they saying? What are they really urging right now? So we've heard a lot from Floyd's family in a press conference earlier today. You know, they made clear that the killing of their loved one that they hoped would be a catalyst for change. It shouldn't have happened. They are obviously pleased with the jury verdict. They believe that the jury landed in the right place. But over and over again, you heard them kind of signal the fact that they wanted

this moment to mean something. They wanted George Floyd's name to mean something. Frankly, a number of them brought up the fact that they want to see legislation at the federal level pass so that there's not another loved one like theirs who is killed in an incident such as this one. And you did have President Biden and Vice President Harris, you know, coming out tonight and talking about that George Floyd law at the federal level, but also just talking about, you know, their reaction to this verdict. I was struck when Harris said, you know, flat out that this isn't just an issue for Black people. Here's the truth about racial injustice. It is not just a black America problem or a people of color problem. It is a problem for every American. It is keeping us from fulfilling the promise of liberty and justice for all.

And it is holding our nation back from realizing our full potential. You know, I was really struck by something that Biden, President Biden had to say. He said that this can be a moment of significant change, that we can't let George Floyd's last words, I can't breathe, die with him. We have a chance to begin to change the trajectory in this country, to really think about how we want to be and who we want to be. And I think, you know, one of the commitments to diversity that he has struck in his administration, and that I saw, to some extent in the Obama administration, too, I mean, I had the former Attorney General Eric Holder tell me about instances when he got pulled over by police. And so these are important

experiences for people to have, terrible experiences, but also experiences that inform their work as law enforcement officials and judges and the kinds of things that they bring to the table in these conversations about what needs to happen next. And Carrie, one thing that Biden touched on, and maybe you can talk about this, is just how much it took to get this guilty verdict. It seemed like the case was stacked so and all of these different things had to come together to even get to the point where you could get a guilty verdict. Oh my goodness, Aisha, you've got that right. I mean, you know, the legal system, generally speaking, leans on behalf of law enforcement in these cases. If they can

persuade a jury that they had some kind of reasonable fear that their life was at risk, or that the life of a bystander was at risk. Police officers very rarely get convicted, but Biden talked here about the very brave 17-year-old woman with a smartphone camera who videotaped this for all the world to see. A brave young woman with a smartphone camera. A crowd that was traumatized. Traumatized witnesses, a murder that lasts almost 10 minutes in broad daylight for ultimately the whole world to see, officers standing up and testifying

against a fellow officer instead of just closing ranks, which should be commended. A jury who heard the evidence, carried out their civic duty in the midst of an extraordinary moment, under extraordinary pressure. For so many, it feels like it took all of that for the judicial system to deliver a just, just basic accountability. Those things almost never come together in that way in other cases. Yeah. Let's take a quick break and we will talk more about this when we get back. Support for this podcast and the following message come from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, developing solutions to support strong families and communities to help ensure a brighter future for America's children.

More information is available at AECF.org. And we're back. Let's talk about what comes next. Biden has pledged to help end this really scourge of black people being killed by the police. This is a decades old issue, but he has pledged to try to address it. aside from the policing overhaul bill that was named for George Floyd that's currently stalled in Congress, that Biden doesn't really have a clear agenda for how he's going to deliver on that promise. Yeah, so it's tricky, right? You know, the president is someone that as a candidate and since his inauguration has spoken openly about systemic racism. If you recall during the campaign, he said it was one of four urgent crises facing this country that he wanted to address if voters brought him and Kamala Harris into office.

But the way in which the Biden administration, so far at least, has looked to make meaningful change in policing of communities of color is to pin their hopes on this bill, the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, which passed the House in March. But so far, there's not a bipartisan deal or any sort of movement in the Senate. Now, we did hear the president say in his remarks tonight that he believed that state law enforcement, local law

enforcement must step up, so must the federal government. There was a recording of the call that he had with some of George Floyd's family members released by attorney Benjamin Trump. And President Biden said in that call that he looks forward to doing a lot more. So I think that for folks who have been looking for presidential leadership here, we're now thrust into this debate about what policing should look like in this country. And I think they're going to be anticipating what kind of next steps the administration might take, even potentially using the executive authority of the presidency, if there are any options that he is able to do through those routes. Because he was supposed to do a commission on policing,

but he decided not to move ahead with that because civil rights groups and policing groups said they, you know, weren't really in support of that. They felt like it was just kind of kicking the can down the road. And but there was talk of an executive order on, you know, dealing with some of the military grade equipment that that police departments get. Carrie, are you familiar with that? Had you heard of or know anything about that? Yeah, that was an issue that was floated during the Obama years, too. And Obama did do some action on it. But it was an open question as to whether it made much of a difference. There are a number of things this new Justice Department can be doing in this space. And I do think that the Justice Department does have a role to play here, not just a bully pulpit in terms of leading the way, but also trying to

work with police and really give money, grant money to police departments that are doing the right thing to support officer wellness and body cameras and things like that, but also to do more investigations of police departments that run amok over people's constitutional rights. We heard this afternoon a statement from the new Attorney General Merrick Garland. He confirmed that a federal investigation is underway when it comes to the death of George Floyd, but he wouldn't say much more than that. And he basically said that there's more work to do with the Justice Department in terms of racial justice. And he wants to see some of Biden's nominees, including Vanita Gupta, who ran a lot

of the policing overhaul efforts in the Obama years, and Kristen Clark, a longtime civil rights advocate. He wants to see both those women on the job soon confirmed by the Senate. Juana, when you talk about the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, what exactly would it do to address some of these issues or concerns about policing? Yeah, so this proposed legislation is a pretty expansive overhaul bill aimed at changing what policing looks like in this country. It would do a number of things, including banning chokeholds, establishing a national database to track police misconduct, prohibiting certain no-knock warrants. There's also some provisions in the

legislation that would make it easier to hold officers accountable for misconduct in civil and criminal court. There's one proposal included that I know Carrie has done some work on, I think, that would change the legal doctrine of qualified immunity of George Floyd ignited this initial debate about what policing should look like in the United States. And in the weeks following George Floyd's killing, those conversations were happening on the Hill. Congress tried to pass legislation then, and they were unable to do so. And now we're kind of almost back at the same juncture, though we now have this guilty verdict. There are still negotiations happening on a bipartisan basis on Capitol Hill. Congresswoman Karen Bass is the lead sponsor of the legislation, and she said this week that she's optimistic that they will be able to get a bill to the President Biden's desk in the coming months. But just like so many issues on Capitol Hill, there's the politics to reckon with too,

right? There's the 60 vote threshold in the Senate. And it's just not clear to me how they will kind of break this logjam and get any sort of meaningful Republican support for this legislation, when so far it has been met with a lot of opposition, except for a couple of lawmakers who seem open to some compromise. And politics will certainly play a part in whether this bill is able to become a law. All right, let's leave it there for tonight. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House. I'm Juana Summers. I cover politics. And I'm Keri Johnson, national justice correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.