George Floyd's death trial brings America back to face with its ghosts

"Have you ever seen the video of George Floyd's death?"

"Did you, or anyone close to you, participate in any of the protests or marches against police brutality that took place in Minneapolis after George Floyd's death?"

“If you participated, did you carry a banner?

What did he say?".

"What newspapers do you read?"

"What podcasts do you listen to?"

"Do you have training or experience in martial arts?"

"How are you for or against Black Lives Matter?"

"Do you think our criminal system works?"

The 16-page questionnaire began to reach hundreds of mailboxes in the city of Minneapolis late last year.

"You are a potential jury in the trial of four former police officers indicted in connection with the death of George Floyd," the text began.

At the end, one last question followed by an intimidating two-and-a-half page blank space: "Why do you or do you not want to serve as a jury in this case?"

The exhaustiveness of the questionnaire reveals the importance of the trial that begins this week in Minneapolis with the beginning of the selection of the jurors.

George Floyd's death sparked the largest mobilization for racial justice in the United States since at least the 1960s. It forced Americans, in the middle of the election year, to decide whether to prioritize “law and order” that Donald Trump demanded, or the racial justice demanded above all by the Democrats.

In the midst of an open debate, it will be the jury that comes out of this selection process, which will drag on for weeks, the one that decides whether Dereck Chauvin, a white police officer, is guilty or not of two counts of murder in the second degree and murder in the second degree, for the death of the African American George Floyd.

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the court on Monday, demanding Chauvin's conviction.

The judge, who was about to start the jury selection process, decided to pause it for at least a day until he processes an appeal on a possible additional charge of third degree murder.

Legal experts say that the inclusion of a third charge would increase the chances of a conviction.

Chauvin's attorney said he will ask the Minnesota Supreme Court to review the appeals court's decision ordering the judge to consider the new crime.

On the afternoon of May 25 of last year, George Floyd, 46, bought a packet of cigarettes from a South Minneapolis store.

A store clerk accused Floyd of paying with a counterfeit $ 20 bill and, after he refused to return the cigarettes, called the police.

The officers arrived and handcuffed Floyd, but when they tried to put him in the patrol car, he resisted, leading to a struggle that ended with the detainee on the ground, face down.

Then numerous pedestrians began to record the scene with their mobiles.

Officer Dereck Chauvin, 44, places his knee on Floyd's neck and holds it there, pressing, for seven minutes and 46 seconds.

Two other agents help Chauvin and one more prevents the witnesses from intervening, who ask the agent to let the detainee breathe.

Floyd says more than 20 times that he can't breathe.

The videos show how he runs out of strength and the agents take him away.

His death is confirmed an hour later at the hospital.

The next day the four officers were fired (the other three will be tried in the summer).

An angry mob took to the streets of Minneapolis and set fire to the police station where the officers worked.

The protests, in the midst of the pandemic, spread throughout the country and, by the sixth night, there were them in more than 75 cities.

Black Lives Matter, an anti-racist movement that quietly emerged in 2013, became a powerful social force.

Various administrations, including the federal one, introduced legislative reforms aimed at combating police abuses.

The conversation soon expanded into a broader debate about systemic racism in America and the legacy of slavery.

The trial comes after nearly a year of heated national debate triggered by the very facts that are being tried.

Police homicide prosecutions are rare, and this is preceded by two disappointments for those who fight against impunity: refusals to prosecute two officers for the deaths of Breonna Taylor, in Luisville (Kentucky), and Daniel Prude, in Rochester (New York).

The video of Floyd's arrest, which went around the world, will be the prosecution's most valuable weapon in trying to convince the jury that Chauvin committed murder by keeping his knee on the detainee's neck, even when he said no he could breathe and it was fading.

The defense will try to argue that the true cause of Floyd's death was his poor health and drug use.

The three successive concrete barriers interspersed with barbed wire that surround the courthouse, city hall and prison, in downtown Minneapolis, are a reminder of all that this process means, of the anxiety that still hangs over a city that almost a year ago it burned for the facts that are now being judged.

Anything short of a guilty verdict will put Democratic state and local authorities to the test again, harshly criticized last year for failing to stop the destruction and looting.

The mayor, Jacob Frey, has explained that more than 3,000 police officers from across the state, as well as members of the National Guard, will be prepared when the case, probably in early May, goes to the jury.

Authorities fear that at some point members of the same racist militias that stormed the Washington Capitol on January 6 may turn up in the city.

The enormous expectation has led the defense to request the transfer of the trial to another place.

Something that the judge initially rejected, but has said he could reconsider.

Your goal, in any case, will be to keep the jurors safe from all noise.

They will not be publicly identified.

They will be isolated during the deliberations and probably throughout the process.

But first it will be necessary to decide who will be those 16 people, 12 regular members and four alternates, called to issue a historic verdict.