By Associated Press
While the verdict against Derek Chauvin was read in a Minneapolis court for the murder of George Floyd and there was jubilation in the streets for what many considered an act of justice,
blood continued to flow through the streets of the country as a result of police violence .
At least six people were fatally shot by police officers in the United States in the
24 hours after the jury's decision found Chauvin guilty
. The list of the deceased is regrettable: a 16-year-old girl in Columbus, Ohio; a man arrested in Escondido, California; a 42-year-old man in eastern North Carolina, an unidentified man in San Antonio, another murdered in the same city a few hours later, and a 31-year-old in central Massachusetts.
The deaths, in some cases,
sparked new cries for justice
.
Some demanded radical changes in policing, a request that Chauvin's verdict cannot disguise.
For others, the shootings are a tragic reminder of the difficult and dangerous decisions that police officers face on a daily basis.
[The trial against the other three ex-officers involved in George Floyd's death will be in August]
The circumstances surrounding each death are very different.
Some occurred while officers were investigating serious crimes.
Police say
some of the people were armed
with a gun, knife or metal stick.
One man claimed to have a bomb that he threatened to detonate.
In several cases, few details are known about the lives of the murdered and what happened in their last moments.
Rarely do the thousands of interactions that occur daily between police officers and civilians lead to murders.
Non-incident encounters between the police and the population are common and do not create any problems.
But it is a very different story when
you draw a gun and take a life.
The trial against the other three ex-officers involved in the death of George Floyd will be in August
April 21, 202102: 02
Almost simultaneously
As the nation watched the judge read the verdict against Chavuin Tuesday afternoon, an officer hundreds of miles away heard on his patrol radio in a Columbus, Ohio neighborhood that a co-worker
had just shot and killed. to a teenage girl
.
Police had been called to the home after someone contacted 911 and reported being physically threatened.
Body camera footage shows an officer approaching a group of people at the entrance of the house as the teenager,
Ma'Khia Bryant
, wields a knife.
Moments later, the girl charges a young woman immobilized against a car.
A Black Lives Matter activist holds a banner reminiscent of the young age of MaKhia Bryant, shot by police officers at age 16.
SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
The agent shoots four times before Bryant falls to the ground.
A black-handled pocket knife, similar to a kitchen or steak knife, lies on the sidewalk next to her.
["A glorious day," says an activist upon hearing Chauvin's guilty verdict for Floyd's murder]
"You didn't have to shoot her!
She's just a girl,
" a man yelled at the agent.
The officer responds: "she had a knife and he went to attack her."
Later a distraught neighbor yells at the officers: "Do you see why black lives matter? Do you understand now?"
Bryant, who was in foster care at the time, was a shy and quiet girl who liked to make hair and dance videos on TikTok, her grandmother, Debra Wilcox, told the Associated Press news agency.
His family says his actions that day were misplaced.
"
I don't know what happened there, unless he was afraid for his life
," Wilcox said.
Although authorities have said Bryant's death was a tragedy, they point to laws that allow police to use deadly force to protect themselves and others.
[Department of Justice to Investigate Police Practices in Minneapolis Following George Floyd's Murder Conviction]
The agent's performance was "an act of heroism" with tragic results, said the president of the National Police Order, "one more demonstration of the situations" faced by the police.
Around the same time that the radio reported to Columbus the news of Chauvin's verdict,
two San Antonio agents were confronting a man on a bus
.
It's unclear how it all started, but police say the unidentified man who ended up being fatally shot by officers was armed.
That same night, in the same city, authorities say a man killed a person who worked in a shed outside his home.
When the officers arrived, the suspect began shooting at the police.
They fired back and killed him.
Authorities have not released his name yet.
More shootouts
As the country absorbed the news from Minneapolis, in Worcester, Massachusetts, the night was marked by another firearms confrontation in which the police were involved.
[Biden calls George Floyd's relatives after the verdict against Derek Chauvin is known]
Phet Gouvonvong, 31, called 911 and
threatened to set off a bomb
in his possession.
Agents were able to locate him, saying he was wearing a bulletproof vest, a backpack and what appeared to be a rifle.
A police SWAT team joined the negotiators
.
One of them contacted Gouvonvong by phone to try to calm him down, according to authorities.
Around midnight, Gouvonvong approached the police and
an officer opened fire
.
He was pronounced dead at the scene and the police have not publicly confirmed whether he actually had an explosive device.
Gouvonvong had problems with authorities over the years, including a conviction for assault and battery with a weapon, but an aunt said she had changed her way of life when asked by the Telegram & Gazette newspaper.
["There was accountability, not justice": reactions to the verdict against Chauvin]
His mother, Marie González, wept in despair and collapsed at the scene of the murder on Thursday.
He told the newspaper that he had called the police on Tuesday night to try to contact his son, but they did not communicate.
She believed that she could have prevented the event
.
"They had no right to take my son's life," she said.
"They had no right."
From Rodney King to George Floyd, a review of the cases of police abuse that have impacted the United States.
April 21, 202102: 34
Meanwhile, Minneapolis residents woke up the next morning to a city surrounded by the possibility of riots that never occurred.
Although
a 42-year-old black man from eastern North Carolina was shot and killed
as sheriff's deputies attempted to carry out drug-related search and arrest warrants.
A witness said Andrew Brown Jr. was shot and killed in his car in Elizabeth City while trying to flee.
A vehicle that authorities removed from the scene appeared to have multiple bullet holes and a smashed rear window.
His murder sparked a protest and hundreds of people demanded the release of the body camera recordings of the officers.
Seven officials have been put on leave since that time.
[Biden and Harris address the nation after Derek Chauvin's guilty verdict: "We can't stop here"]
Family members describe Brown as a loving father who always had a joke to tell.
He also had a difficult life.
His mother was killed when he was young and was partially paralyzed on the right side by an accidental gunshot.
In addition, he had lost an eye to a stabbing according to his aunt, Glenda Brown Thomas.
He was also in trouble with the law, including a conviction for a drug possession offense.
The day before he was killed, two arrest warrants were issued against him on drug-related charges, including possession with intent to sell cocaine, according to court records.
Officers
have so far not explained the reasons why he was shot
, but his family is determined to get answers.
"The police didn't have to shoot my baby," said Martha McCullen, another of her aunts.
"A glorious day," says an activist upon hearing Chauvin's guilty verdict for Floyd's murder
April 20, 202102: 21
Will charges be filed?
Southern California police received a call earlier that morning about someone hitting cars with the remains of a metal pole.
The man fled when police arrived, but another officer saw him carrying a two-foot metal pole across the street.
[This is how former police officer Derek Chauvin received the verdict for the death of George Floyd]
The white man charged at the officer, who ordered him to drop the blunt object before opening fire, according to the police record.
Police in Escondido, near San Diego, have not released the man's name, but did say that he
had been arrested nearly 200 times in the past 20 years
for violent assaults on police, drug charges and other crimes.
Efforts to get him help from mental health professionals had not worked, the police chief said.
Getty Images
It remains to be seen if any officers
will face charges for these shootings and deaths
.
Chauvin was largely condemned thanks to a video that showed him pressing his knee on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes.
Police shootings in a heated moment are notoriously difficult to process.
Jurors have generally been reluctant to question officers when they claim to have acted in life and death situations.
Following Tuesday's verdict, prosecutors in several states where killings have occurred in shootings with police officers announced different decisions on whether to bring charges against law enforcement.
[How can a policeman mistake his gun for an electric taser and kill a person?]
A Florida prosecutor announced Wednesday that he would not press charges against a Brevard County deputy sheriff who
shot and killed two black teenagers
.
A California prosecutor announced the filing of murder and battery charges against an East San Francisco Bay Area Sheriff's Deputy for the shooting of an unarmed Filipino.
None of these cases has garnered as much attention as the trial that concluded Tuesday.
Some people are hopeful that Chauvin's verdict could be a crucial juncture in the
national debate on race, police and the use of force
.
"We are at a time of reckoning," said Rachael Rollins, district attorney for Boston and surrounding communities and the first woman of color to serve as the Massachusetts county top attorney. "If we can be strategic and unite,
we can make profound changes
," he concluded.