Local activists said Tuesday’s verdict rendering Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, guilty of murdering George Floyd, was not justice but accountability.
A jury found Chauvin guilty of second- and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the case that drew national attention and drew protesters to the public eye across the country, calling for police reform — including in the Walla Walla area.
Chief Troy Tomaras of College Place Police Department said at the time of the murder he directed his officers watch the video and discuss it.
In light of the jury’s verdict, Tomaras said he hoped this would be a step in the right direction.
“It is my hope the Floyd family receives some sense of justice by the verdict of Derek Chauvin,” Tomaras said in an emailed statement. “It is also my hope as a police leader that we continue to reflect on how this happened and take steps to ensure it never happens again.”
The Walla Walla Police Department did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday, April 21. City council officials didn’t return calls asking for comment by press time.
Within minutes of the Derek Chauvin verdict read, news broke of Columbus, Ohio, police who shot and killed Ma’Khia Bryant, a Black teenage girl, who swung at two other people with a knife Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
Organizers here said this showed there is still much work to be done.
“For the first few minutes while I was watching the verdict, I cried,” co-founder of the local Black Lives Matter Walla Walla organization Lindsey Luna said.
“I felt joy. I felt anger. I felt relief, and then not moments later, it was full of despair to the fact that Black bodies have to be violently taken for white people to listen.”
With the news of Ma’Khia Bryant, she said she didn’t get 24 hours to breathe. That nobody got 24 hours to breathe.
Cia Cortinas, a Black Lives Matter Walla Walla organizer, echoed similar sentiment.
“I am glad he was found guilty, but I hate that we live in a country where we weren’t 1,000% sure that would be the case,” she said.
“I am thinking of all the other officers and white folk who haven’t been held accountable and other families who haven’t got the tiny scrap of closure. This isn’t going to change itself. We can’t be lulled to sleep by one guilty verdict.”
Marc Adams, a Walla Walla resident who attends the local demonstrations, said he intentionally did not watch most of the trial because the whole episode was traumatic.
“For my own self-care I decided not to tune in. However, I was able to tune in for a brief time to watch the verdict as it came,” he said.
“My initial reaction was a sense of relief that for the first time in a long time, the system is saying a wrong was committed.”
Though Adams felt relief, there was also worry many people will look to this as proof the criminal justice system works, which he said he does not believe.
“Until we see every police officer held to account for using excessive force when they use excessive force, until there is a significant decline of officer-involved shootings and deaths, especially deaths of Black and brown people at the hands of police, I don’t think the verdict means a whole lot,” he said.
Luna said the energy surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement in Walla Walla does not come to an end. It wasn’t just the activism in large metropolises like Seattle and Portland impacted the trial, but the work in smaller cities like the Tri-Cities, Pendleton and Walla Walla, as well.
Her exhaustion allows Luna to “revel” in the moment of accountability, the organizer said, pointing out people of color are chronically exhausted by the overwhelming numbers among them killed at the hands of police.
According to a Saturday, April 17, New York Times story, since testimony in the Chauvin trial began on March 29, at least 64 people have died at the hands of law enforcement nationwide, with Black and Latino people representing more than half of the dead. As of Saturday, the average was more than three killings per day.
Luna said the Walla Walla group has been asking the city of Walla Walla to listen to their concerns and instead felt their demands have been ignored.
The city of College Place did, however, put together a boardfocused on diversity and inclusion, she said.
Luna resigned from Walla Walla Police Chief Scott Bieber’s Advisory Committee, feeling her efforts were better spent elsewhere and that the group lacked transparency.
Although she feels the committee was created in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the call for police reform and accountability, there was little focus on the voices of Black, Indigenous and people of color.
Luna said many of the Black Lives Matter Walla Walla organization’s demands were not met, including implementing body cameras for the Walla Walla Police Department.
The College Place Police Department did begin using body cameras this year, however.
By Chloe LeValley of the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin.
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