Joe Biden spoke of the verdict against the former cop who murdered George Floyd: “This can be a giant leap in the road to justice.

The president of the United States, Joe biden, returned this Tuesday to verdict against Derek Chauvin, the former cop who killed George Floyd in May 2020 and whose actions, after being captured on video, catalyzed a massive wave of protests against racism both in the United States and in other parts of the world.

“Nothing can bring him back, but it could be a giant leap in the road to justice in the United States,” the president said. Biden further indicated that while he agrees with the verdict, it is “too rare” in cases of this nature. “For many, it took a unique convergence of factors to achieve this result. It was a homicide that lasted nearly 10 minutes in broad daylight, ”he said.

In another passage of his speech, Biden announced that he had appointed a series of Justice Department officials in charge of “Restore trust between the security forces and the communities they have sworn to protect”.

He also called on Congress to pass reforms to the police system, especially the one introduced by Democratic lawmaker Karen Bass in February, who goes by Floyd’s name and effectively seeks to reform the police and civil rights system. Part of this initiative aims to combat racial prejudice in the security forces.

“It shouldn’t take that long to get approved», Declared the president, who in the afternoon had shown the same will to ratify the project as quickly as possible during a phone call with the family of Floyd.

“We can do a lot more, a lot more. And we will continue until we do, ”said Biden, who was with Vice President Kamala Harris and First Lady Jill Biden. “This could be our first opportunity to truly fight systemic racism,” he added.

The jury in the case unanimously found Chauvin guilty of all three charges he faced: second degree involuntary murder, punished up to 40 years in prison; third degree murder, with a maximum penalty of 25 years, and second degree manslaughter, which results in up to 10 years of deprivation of liberty.

After the verdict was read, Chauvin was handcuffed in the courtroom and taken into custody by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office. Judge Peter Cahill said sentence would be known within eight weeks.

The president had already hinted at what his expectations were during the day, making sure the evidence was “overwhelming” and that “he prayed for the right decision”.

Many other American political actors – most of them Democratic officials – celebrated the news. Attorney General of the State of Minnesota Keith Ellison, who led the legal team that pleaded against Chauvin and his defense, highlighted the result but clarified that he would not characterize it as a “justice” fact.

“This is so because righteousness involves an act of restoration, and it is not. It is responsibility, which is the first step towards justice. It is now up to the people to generate real justice. And not by a business, but by a social transformation where no one is above the law and no one is belowEllison said in a public message shortly after the verdict.

In a similar vein, former President Barack Obama spoke out, who celebrated the jury’s decision that found Chauvin guilty, but warned that the country should take him as a hard-core to “pursue reforms that eliminate racial prejudice ”.

“Although today’s verdict was a step on the road to progress, it is far from sufficient. We cannot rest. We will have to pursue concrete reforms which reduce and finally eliminate racial prejudice in our criminal justice system, ”he said in the text published a few minutes after the verdict of the Minneapolis court.

The court ruling came after the Minnesota state attorney’s office and Chauvin’s defense on Monday present their final arguments for approximately four hours in front of the jury. After hearing the arguments of both parties and the instructions the judge gave them for their deliberation, the jury members, six whites and six blacks or other ethnic groups, isolated themselves and locked themselves in a hotel to review. all evidence presented at trial and reach sentence Deliberation lasted less than 11 hours.

Chauvin was filmed kneeling for over nine minutes on Floyd’s neck, who was handcuffed and immobilized face down and begging, “I can’t breathe”.

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