‘This verdict is a step.’ Chauvin case stirs strong emotions for Missouri’s Cleaver, Bush

Black lawmakers huddled together Tuesday around a television in the U.S. House as they awaited the jury’s decision in the murder trial of the police officer who knelt on the neck of George Floyd.

Missouri Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver stood on a chair so he could see over his colleagues. He descended in tears when the verdict for former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin was announced: Guilty on all counts.

They were tears of relief for a man whose career began as a civil rights activist, as founder of the Kansas City chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He quelled unrest as Kansas City mayor in 1992 when another act of police brutality caught on video, the brutal beating of Rodney King, resulted in an acquittal of the officers and triggered rioting in Los Angeles.

Cleaver said the fact that people and businesses in cities around the country boarded up their windows in anticipation of a similar outcome shows the “faithlessness in the system.”

But Tuesday, Cleaver, a Methodist minister, led the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in prayer, thanking God that justice had been done.

“Today is not a day for celebration, but rather a day for restoration,” Cleaver said in a written statement later that evening. “Restoration of faith in our justice system. Restoration of accountability in law enforcement. Restoration of humanity in a system that too often dehumanizes entire swaths of the American population.”

Missouri Democratic Rep. Cori Bush called the verdict accountability, but she said justice would take longer.

“You know listening to the verdict and hearing, ‘Guilty, guilty, guilty,’ as much as I want to be overjoyed, the fact is that should be the regular thing,” Bush said at a news conference held by the CBC moments after the verdict. “Black folks in this country, all we’re saying is our lives matter. We’re not asking for more than somebody else is asking for.”

Bush rose to political prominence as an activist in Ferguson after the 2014 death of Michael Brown in a police shooting.

The officer was not charged and has maintained he shot Brown in self-defense. But the case spawned a broader movement for police reform and racial justice. That movement crystallized last summer with Floyd’s murder.

Bush said one question, however, was whether Chauvin would have been convicted if he had used a gun rather than his knee or if he hadn’t been recorded on video.

She and other Democrats used Tuesday’s verdict to renew their call for the Senate to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a bill with new restrictions on the use of force by officers and new tools for holding them accountable.

“This verdict is a step. It’s a popping of the lock to be able to get to the place to open the door to really do the work to save lives. This egregious murder that happened — we can call it murder now — this egregious murder that happened, it should not be that it has to look like that for us to have some semblance of justice,” Bush said.

“This was accountability, but it’s not yet justice. Justice for us is saving lives.”

Cleaver told The Star that he’s faced stories of police violence against African Americans since his childhood. He’s hopeful that one day Black parents will no longer have to deliver “the talk” to their sons, warning them about potential danger from police.

Cleaver, who was joined by Kansas Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids after the verdict, noted that he was heartened by how many Johnson County residents he met at protests against police brutality last year in the wake of Floyd’s murder— a sign that all side of the Kansas City metro are embracing the call for racial justice.