'A watershed moment': Johnstown region reacts to Chauvin guilty verdict

Apr. 21—The Rev. Reginald Floyd emotionally let out the words "yes, yes, yes, yes, yes" when he was told former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd.

"Justice appeared to be served," Reginald Floyd said, shortly after the verdict was announced on Tuesday.

Chauvin, a white cop, knelt on the neck of George Floyd, a unarmed Black man, for several minutes, while other officers stood nearby and onlookers pleaded for his life, all of which was recorded. He was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

"What we saw was really not so much a racial incident — it had racial overtones — but it was right versus wrong," said Reginald Floyd, a Black man who served on the Johnstown police force for 26 years. "And right versus wrong should not have a color."

Reginald Floyd, an associate minister at St. James Missionary Baptist Church in Hornerstown, added: "In my mind, nobody has the right to take anybody's life. God is the giver of life. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. We, as individuals, should not take anybody else's life."

'We have a voice'

The verdict came almost a year after George Floyd's death sparked peaceful protests and violent riots across the United States and world, including when approximately 500 people rallied in downtown Johnstown.

"The Black community knows now, we can — we will — get these people prosecuted if we speak up," said Kirsten Vazquez, organizer of the Johnstown rally.

She added: "It shows the Black community that we have a voice and allies."

Vazquez said that "the best thing to come out of such a horrible situation" is "that it shows other officers, who otherwise would think that there's no repercussion that can come of their actions, that there are consequences to what you can do and what you cannot do as a police officer."

From a legal standpoint, Cambria County District Attorney Greg Neugebauer said it "appears he had a fair trial" and expects Chauvin to appeal the verdict.

"I think it's important to respect the jury, respect the process, and hopefully society can learn from what happened and we can all work together to be better neighbors and have better communities," Neugebauer said.

Chauvin's conviction is a statistical rarity.

For comparison, on-duty police officers are involved in about 1,000 fatal shootings in the United States each year.

From 2005 through March 2021, 139 police officers have been arrested for murder or manslaughter due to an on-duty shooting, according to information compiled by Philip Matthew Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University. Forty-four have been convicted, only seven of murder, per a vox.com article about Stinson.

"If I was a betting person, I thought (Chauvin) would have been acquitted," said Ross Kleinstuber, a University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown associate professor of criminology. "But that, if he was convicted, it would have been just on one of the two lesser charges, not the second-degree murder charge. ...

"In my experience, with the research that's out there, people tend to have a lot of trust in the cops. We tend to trust cops. We see them as the good guys. They're putting their lives on the line to protect us. So, as a society, we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt in these situations. So I didn't expect a jury to come down on the harshest sentence, on the harshest charge anyway."

Kleinstuber said the case and verdict could be "a watershed moment."

"This is sort of a turning point, it seems to me, to have the police come and testify against one of their own and sort of say 'enough is enough,' " Kleinstuber said.