OPINION: Chris Kelly Opinion: Chauvin verdict is progress, but don't call it justice

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Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
·6 min read
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Apr. 25—Derek Chauvin deserves to die in prison for the murder of George Floyd, but Myron Williams won't call it justice.

"Justice would be George Floyd restored to his family," Myron said Tuesday after a racially diverse jury found the former Minneapolis police officer guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

"George Floyd is never going to walk through his family's door again," Myron said. "They're not going to see him anymore, just like my sister. I haven't seen my sister in 11 years, and I'm not going to see her until I make the transition to the other side.

"So I don't see (the verdict) as justice, but it is accountability. Finally, someone was held accountable. It gives me hope that things are getting better."

Myron and I became friends through tragedy — the fatal shooting of his sister Brenda by Scranton police on May 28, 2009. She was a 52-year-old mother and Air Force veteran diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She was also Black. A neighbor called police to report Brenda was in the throes of a "manic episode."

Police knew Brenda was schizophrenic and likely off her meds. Four Scranton police officers were thrust into a situation they weren't trained to handle and shot Brenda five times in her North Scranton apartment. The police said she lunged at them with a knife. Myron doesn't believe that, or much else in the official narrative.

The shooting was ruled "justified." The family filed a civil rights suit against the city and the officers. A federal judge tossed the suit, ruling that Brenda's behavior caused the shooting. There was plenty of blame to go around, but Brenda is the only soul ever held accountable for her death.

I spoke with Myron last spring as the cellphone video of George Floyd's murder played on an endless loop. He said then that he hoped the footage of a white police officer murdering a handcuffed Black man would be a call to action for Americans of all colors.

Myron called me Tuesday evening to say his hope was rewarded.

"We finally won one," he said of the verdict. "Someone was finally held accountable for treating Black folks like our lives don't matter."

Juries are notoriously loath to convict cops. I asked Myron if he was surprised by the verdict.

"I was cautiously optimistic, but I wasn't really expecting this outcome," he said. "I thought he'd be convicted of manslaughter, but not murder, or all three counts. ... So many of these incidents have happened, and time after time after time, police have immunity from prosecution. Until bad cops know they will be held accountable, these incidents will keep happening."

"Qualified immunity" protects government officials from legal liability for bad acts — accidental or intentional — in the course of their official duties. It protects police who make honest mistakes, but also shields bad cops who abuse their authority with a sense of impunity. The Ending Qualified Immunity Act was introduced in Congress last summer. It has languished since.

Bad cops are also protected by unions and peers who look the other way and maintain "a thin blue line" of silence. Chauvin was involved in three police shootings and had 18 complaints on his record before he ground his knee into George Floyd's neck.

At trial, the Minneapolis police chief and several fellow cops testified against Chauvin. Myron — who is no "cop-hater" and belongs to police associations and law enforcement reform groups — praised the officers who stepped forward to uphold their oaths and defend a noble profession stained by criminals like Chauvin.

"The key is that the blue line broke down," Myron said. "That was the turning point because going all the way back to the Rodney King incident, you see it with your own eyes and then it comes to court and they say, 'Don't let your eyes fool you. What happened is not what you think happened.'

"Well, these officers stood up and said, 'We saw what you saw, and what you think happened did happen and it was wrong. This is not the way we train people. This not acceptable.' "

This week, more than 130 Scranton police officers resumed ongoing training in recognizing and rejecting bias in policing. Myron called the program "a good step forward," but said it's no substitute for familiarity and connection with the community.

"The militarization of policing — the 'us against them' mindset that's promoted in some departments, the 'good guys vs. bad guys mentality, make police the good guys and everyone else the bad guys,' " Myron said.

"These departments take these kids, and that's what they are —20-some-year-old kids — with all this military training and they have them policing communities where they don't live and don't know anybody and they're scared. They see people like me as the enemy."

Proof of bias in policing — and its lethal consequences — is everywhere, Myron said. Just this month in Minnesota, Daunte Wright, an unarmed 20-year-old Black man, was shot to death as he tried to drive away from police. Contrast that with the experience of Luke Alvin Oeltjenbruns, a white Minnesota man who rammed two police cruisers and dragged an officer clinging to his pickup truck. He hit the officer in the head with a hammer. He was arrested.

Kim Potter, the 26-year veteran officer who killed Wright, claimed she confused her gun with her Taser. She was arrested and charged with second-degree manslaughter, but Daunte Wright is dead.

"If you can't tell the difference in weight between a gun and a Taser after 26 years on the force, you shouldn't be a cop," Myron said. "You shouldn't have the power of life and death in your hands."

Good cops exercise that power reluctantly. We agreed the officer who fatally shot Ma'Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old Black girl in Columbus, Ohio, was justified, but Myron questioned whether it was necessary to fire four times. Maybe it wasn't but body camera video appears to show Bryant wielding a knife as she lunged at another girl. Her death is tragic, but the officer had little choice but to fire.

Nearly a dozen years later, Myron still believes officials covered up the circumstances of his sister's death. No one was there to film. If a 17-year-old girl named Darnella Frazier hadn't captured George Floyd's murder on video with a cellphone, the initial official narrative — that Floyd died in a "medical incident" — would likely have stood. Chauvin would probably still be a cop, terrorizing those he swore an oath to serve and protect.

Myron takes some comfort in knowing his sister's death led to reforms. Scranton police now wear body cameras and receive frequent training in de-escalation, bias awareness and community engagement.

He's thankful the equipment and training that might have saved his sister's life is standard now, but she will never walk through her family's door again.

"Call it progress," Myron said of the Chauvin verdict. "Call it accountability. Call it a reason for hope. Just don't call it justice."

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, is proud to call Myron Williams a friend. Read his award-winning blog at timestribuneblogs.com/kelly.

Contact the writer:

kellysworld@timesshamrock.com;

@cjkink on Twitter.

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