High school 2 miles from where George Floyd died plays unusual role in Chauvin trial

MINNEAPOLIS – One was crowned homecoming king. One was voted the nicest of the class. One was a member of the African-American club.

All three played pivotal roles in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd.

And all three – Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, attorney Eric Nelson, and high school student Darnella Frazier – spent their formative years at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis.

Chauvin’s conviction this week sent a wave of relief throughout the school and his community in southern Minneapolis and ushered in a wave of pride for Frazier, who helped make it happen.

“She set the stage for girls like me who look up to her,” said Markeanna Tyus, 16, a junior and friend of Frazier. “She’s a heroine.”

Frazier was 17 when she recorded video of Floyd’s cell phone arrest that brought much of the public understanding to what happened on May 25. intervening before Floyd’s death.

“I go to school with a revolutionary,” Markeanna said. “I feel powerful knowing that I have a black woman attending my school who has been through all of this.”

Roosevelt High School is 2 miles from the intersection of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in southern Minneapolis, where Chauvin pinned Floyd below his knee during what prosecutors said was 9½ minutes. The neighborhood is now known as George Floyd Square.

Arradondo graduated from high school in 1985. He was part of the gymnastics team. He joined the Minneapolis Police Department four years later and was inducted into the Roosevelt High School Hall of Fame in September 2018.

Nelson served on the student council, sang in the choir, and was inducted into the National Honor Society. He graduated in 1992.

It was Nelson, Chauvin’s defense attorney, who made the connection between the three during his closing argument on Monday.

“We all went to the same high school, obviously at different times,” Nelson told jurors. “We had the same perspective, we sat in the same classrooms, saw the same blackboards or whiteboards, the same perspective. But our perception of our experiences there will be very different.”

Some members of the school community were not very keen on claiming the lawyer as their own. (Markeanna said he was a “jerk” and harnessed Floyd’s feelings.)

“Our school has some of the most ardent young adult social justice activists I’ve ever seen,” said Marcia Howard, 47, whose teaching career began at Roosevelt High School in 1998. “ What’s special about this school is our commitment to creating civic-minded students. Our model is this: come in to learn and go to serve. “

Howard, who teaches English, said that at the start of the civil unrest over Floyd’s death, she encouraged her students to learn from the moment. She said she told them, “Classes are over, you all have credit. Just take care of yourself, practice social distancing, and seek justice.”

Members of the school community were pushed into action.

Greta Boogren, 18, a senior, said she took part in demonstrations every weekend last summer and took part in the state strike on Monday to protest racial injustice .

“We’ve had so many protests this year and people continue,” she said, “which is great because we can’t stop now.”

She believes the policing profession needs major changes. “From its very roots, it’s just evil,” said Boogren, who is white.

Markeanna said she had attended hundreds of protests since Floyd was killed and pepper sprayed and hit with rubber bullets on some of them. She lives down the road from Cup Foods, where Floyd allegedly used a fake $ 20 bill to buy cigarettes in May.

She said she wished the school had done more to support students this past year who have faced the pandemic, distance learning and racial calculus brought on by Floyd’s death. School district spokesperson Dirk Tedmon did not return a request for comment.

“I don’t think people realize that this here, this racism, this white supremacy here is also a virus,” she said, adding that it was the equivalent of two pandemics stacked up l ‘one on top of the other “.

Howard, who said she lived “260 steps” from where Floyd died, is still going through the emotional stress of her death.

“I never really went back to teaching after that,” she said. “Because I was suffering from trauma.”

Chauvin’s conviction on Tuesday of second degree murder, third degree murder and second degree manslaughter will not lessen calls for racial justice, members of the school community say.

In fact, Markeanna wants people to stop portraying Chauvin’s conviction as justice.

“It was bittersweet. It wasn’t justice, but responsibility,” she said. “George Floyd is not here. His daughter has no father.”

Markeanna, one of the presidents of the Black Students’ Union, said the group was planning to hold a walkout on Wednesday in solidarity with Floyd and the race justice movement. Students will walk from high school to George Floyd Square, she said.

Howard, who has kept in close contact with his students, plans to participate. She will be waiting for them when they arrive at George Floyd Square, which she helps supervise.

Minneapolis Public Schools said students would not be punished for participating in protests “as long as the protest remains peaceful.” Leaving school is counted as unjustified absence, according to district policy.

“You have to understand that on May 25, the students were grappling with a global pandemic, distance learning, quarantining their friends and relatives,” Howard said. “They had been through a lot already.”

They were exposed to flash bangs, rubber bullets and helicopter drones night after night, she said.

“Our students are probably still dealing with the trauma of the early days of the uprising,” Howard said. “They saw the National Guard driving down their street. They saw a phalanx of policemen marching towards the demonstrators. That’s a lot to deal with when they might have thought of a prom, an exam or a diploma or university applications. “

Howard said she was initially ambivalent about Arradondo because the city’s blacks and Maroons suffered under the Minneapolis police and he is the captain of a force that “continually abuses people.” His opinion changed after his testimony.

“In a way, he kind of took the stand,” she said. “He crossed the blue line.”

As the students walk on Wednesday, many may be thinking of Frazier, who told the Minneapolis Star Tribune a day after Floyd’s death that she had started recording “as soon as I heard him try to fight for her. life”.

“The world needed to see what I was seeing,” she said. “Stuff like this happens too often in silence.”

Boogren, Markeanna and Howard all said they were astonished and admired Frazier.

“There is nothing she could have done differently,” said Boogren. “Everyone at Roosevelt is so proud of her.”

“She did more than she had to do,” added Markeanna. “She could have kept walking. She could have gone home and gone to bed.”

Below a photo from Frazier’s yearbook from his sophomore year reads: “Some people say you just can’t win, when people choose to judge you by the color of your skin.”

Howard said Frazier was one of her students last year, and she also taught two of her older siblings. She holds Frazier, who she says “has done our city a service and our country justice,” in high regard.

“Being in Minneapolis in Roosevelt, the epicenter of a global movement for social justice, and knowing that one of their classmates helped start the game that kindled the world’s fervor for social justice,” Howard said, “Personally, I couldn’t be prouder to be from the school where I taught for 23 years.”