Addressing the nation on Tuesday evening, Joe Biden said the guilty verdict for the former Minneapolis police office Derek Chauvin was “a start”. But, he said, “in order to deliver real change and reform, we can and we must do more”.
“Protests unified people of every race and generation in peace and with purpose to say enough,” Biden said. “Enough. Enough of the senseless killings. Today’s verdict is a step forward.
“The guilty verdict does not bring back George,” he continued, noting that he had called the Floyd family after the news had come. “George’s legacy will not be just about his death, but about what we must do in his memory.”
Many lawmakers and public figures celebrated the verdict while also calling for more to be done, echoing years-long demands by Black Lives Matter activists for systemic change.
Cori Bush, the Black Lives Matter activist who was elected last year to represent a Missouri district in the US House of Representatives, said the verdict “is accountability, but it’s not yet justice”.
Kamala Harris, who spoke before Biden, said the administration would work to help pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a bill that Harris – as a senator – introduced last summer along with Senator Cory Booker and Representative Karen Bass. “This bill is part of George Floyd’s legacy,” she said. “The president and I will continue to urge the Senate to pass this legislation, not as a panacea for every problem, but as a start. This work is long overdue.”
Democratic lawmakers echoed Harris, while Republicans, who have obstructed the bill’s passage for nearly a year, remained largely silent.
Bass, a Democrat of California, said she hoped the verdict today would re-energize efforts to pass the police reform bill into law. The bill passed the House this year with no Republican support – and it faces a major hurdle in the Senate, where Republicans are expected to block it with a filibuster.
“We need to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and put it on President Biden’s desk,” she said, speaking with members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) on Capitol Hill. “Because that will be the first step to transforming policing.”
In any case, she later told reporters, the Chauvin verdict “gives us hope” for some sort of policing bill. Bass has been in informal talks with Republican lawmakers to develop a bipartisan compromise and hopes a deal can be reached “by the time we hit the anniversary of George Floyd’s death” on 25 May, she told reporters.
The rare guilty verdict came as a shock and a relief to many lawmakers and public figures. Following its announcement Bass hugged Gwen Moore, a Democratic representative of Wisconsin and fellow member of the CBC. “I was knocked off my feet,” Moore told Bass, as they embraced.
.@RepKarenBass and @RepGwenMoore in an emotional embrace on the heels of the Chauvin guilty verdict.
— Kadia Goba (@kadiagoba) April 20, 2021
“I was so stunned. I was knocked off my feet. I thought maybe we would get manslaughter,” Moore said to Bass before hugging her. pic.twitter.com/nNwuuOQewR
Ilhan Omar, the US representative for Minneapolis, said the verdict represents a type of justice that feels “new and long overdue”, adding: “Alhamdulillah!”
Remarks by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, however, raised some eyebrows. In an address from Capitol Hill, she said: “Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice. For being there to call out to your mom, how heartbreaking was that, call out for your mom, ‘I can’t breathe,’” she said.
As many listeners and watchers pointed out, Floyd didn’t choose to sacrifice himself or to be a martyr – he was killed.
“I know someone wrote this for her. Someone else edited the draft. Most likely yet another person approved it. And then she said it,” said the writer Mikki Kendall. “This is a long trail of fail.”
Barack Obama praised the efforts of Black Lives Matter activists and people around the world who protested in the aftermath of Floyd’s killing.
“As we continue the fight, we can draw strength from the millions of people – especially young people – who have marched and protested and spoken up over the last year, shining a light on inequity and calling for change,” Barack and Michelle Obama said in a joint statement. “Justice is closer today not simply because of this verdict, but because of their work.”
In a call to Floyd’s family, Biden reiterated his promise to enact meaningful change. “We’re going to stay at it until we get it done,” he said.
