Following the Chauvin verdict:
Stay in the streets! Abolish the police!
Workers World Party expresses its solidarity with the family of George Floyd, along with the Minneapolis community and anti-racist activists everywhere, who understandably applaud the three guilty verdicts against the racist, white, killer cop, Derek Chauvin, who wantonly lynched Floyd May 25, 2020.
Chauvin was found guilty today, April 20, 2021, of second-degree manslaughter, second-degree intentional murder and third degree murder. Three other cops, who stood by as Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck and body until he died, have been fired and will face charges for aiding and abetting in subsequent trials.
We are in solidarity with those who will be in the streets tonight and throughout the coming days and weeks who express relief with the verdict and at the same time, acknowledge its limitations. In the long run, more than the jailing of Chauvin or any individual killer cop is needed for eradicating police terror and white supremacy — two evils which go hand-in-hand.
We demand that not one person be arrested or assaulted by the police or National Guard for being in the streets to express themselves on the verdicts — however they see fit to do this. Hands off the protesters!
Chauvin’s trial before a racially mixed jury began three weeks ago. But a decisive factor for the unanimous verdicts began much earlier in the streets of the U.S. and throughout the world. Throughout months, massive protests, including the torching of a Minneapolis police station, began the day Floyd was murdered.
To bring justice for others who have lost their lives, were maimed and traumatized in so many other ways by police violence, more is needed than the conviction of one killer cop — even though this conviction is unprecedented in the U.S. In the vast majority of these cases, none of the killer cops were even arrested or charged, much less convicted for these crimes against humanity.
The issue of police brutality cannot be confined to weeding out some individual bad apples. Policing in the U.S. is all about maintaining social order, oppressing the masses of the people. It includes the occupation of Black and Brown communities, all forms of racial profiling, physical and mental assaults and killings of Black and Brown bodies, especially young people.
The Chauvin verdict alone will not stop this war against Black and Brown people, because the police exist to protect private property and profits of the superrich at the expense of the poor and workers of all nationalities.
One thing is perfectly clear: This verdict will not halt police terror or the struggle against police terror. It should help take it to a higher political level, to the point that more and more activists and revolutionaries will be making the demand to abolish the police through revolutionary struggle, not simply reform.
This is the only way to win true, lasting justice for George Floyd, Daunte Wright, Adam Toledo, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Rekia Boyd and countless others whose lives police violence tragically cut short. Black and Brown Lives Matter!
