Even as white cop is convicted of George Floyd's murder, a 15-year old Black girl is gunned down by police in America

WASHINGTON: America's militarized cops gunned down a 15-year old Black girl in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday, moments before a jury in Minneapolis convicted on-duty police officer Derek Chauvin of murdering George Floyd nearly a year after a viral video of the Black man gasping for breath under his knee triggered nationwide racial tensions.
Bodycam footage released quickly by authorities, ostensibly to forestall more charges of trigger-happy policing, appeared to show the Black teenager wielding a knife in a row with two other women. But relatives and friends of the girl said she was the one who had called the police for help after a domestic quarrel. In either case, the rapid discharge by cops of four shots at the young girl resulting in her death ignited another protest against what is widely seen as endemic racism and intimidating policing of Black people that was at the heart of George Floyd murder.
A few minutes after the killing of the girl identified as Makhia Bryant, a jury of six whites and six Black/multiracial jurors, after ten hours of deliberation, pronounced 45-year old fired cop Derek Chauvin guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Chauvin was led away in handcuffs and will await sentencing that could get him a maximum of 40 years in prison, in what is a rare instance of an on-duty white policeman being held accountable for the killing of a Black person in America.
The two events underscored the fervid debate on racism in policing that has drawn the attention of the country's leaders and activists, with vice-president Kamala Harris remarking that the "measure of justice" achieved in the Floyd case, "isn’t the same as equal justice."
Harris and President Biden also underlined the utility of smart phones in recording killing of Black people, unlike scores of unrecorded murders of Black people in America's racial history. It was the cellphone video shot by teenager Darnella Frazier that brought Floyd's murder to national and global attention, shining an unsparing light on Chauvin's brutality that had been reported, but unrecorded, before the incident.
"Because of smartphones, so many Americans have now seen the racial injustice that black Americans have known for generations, the racial injustice that we have fought for generations, that my parents protested in the 1960s," Harris, whose father is Jamaican and whose late mother was South Indian, said. "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. We are all a part of George Floyd’s legacy, and our job now is to honor it and to honor him," she added.
Biden, in his remarks, acknowledged that the Floyd murder has "ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic racism -- which he called a 'stain on our nation's soul -- the Vice President just referred to," while hoping that the verdict can be a giant step forward in the march toward justice in America.
"We can’t stop here. In order to deliver real change and reform we can, and we must do more to reduce the likelihood that tragedy like this will ever happen to occur again, to ensure that black and brown people or anyone, so they don’t fear the interactions with law enforcement, that they don’t have to wake up knowing that they can lose their very life in the course of just living their life," Biden said.
But even as he was speaking, doctors at a hospital in Columbus were pronouncing a 15-year old girl dead, shot four times by the police.