A troubled rule of law
America’s cities did not burn last night. But the terrified preparations in Minneapolis and elsewhere in anticipation of the George Floyd verdict—the razor wire and barricades around government buildings, the activation of the National Guard, the declaration in Minnesota of a “peacetime emergency,” the fortified police presence, the curfews, the cancellation of school, the boarded up businesses—raise serious questions about the rule of law in the United States. Had the jury failed to convict Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin on all three counts of murder and manslaughter, the ensuing riots would likely have made the conflagrations of 2020 look like a Girl Scout campfire.
This likely outcome was evident long before Congresswoman Maxine Waters encouraged such violence over the weekend. Last year’s precedent, the ensuing 12 months of wildly inaccurate rhetoric about white supremacy, and the recent looting in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, over a fatal police shooting made such rioting a virtual certainty. That inflammatory rhetoric poured forth from every institution in the country—from the presidency, Congress, corporations, law firms, banks, tech companies, academia, and the public school system. The mainstream media pounded home the narrative about unchanging black oppression. And even after the verdict, the White House (perhaps that name will be gone in another year) and the press have doubled down on the systemic racism conceit, despite the coordinated effort to convict among Minnesota’s public officials and the state’s most prestigious members of the private bar.
Going forward, it is an open question whether any police officer can receive a trial free from mob pressure, should he be prosecuted for use of lethal force.
The Chauvin jury may have pondered not just the destruction of American cities following any acquittal but its own safety. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune had published profiles of jury members minus their names on Monday, during closing arguments in the trial.