Chauvin was charged with second and third degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. He was found guilty on all counts  and faces up to 40 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled  in eight weeks.

Minneapolis streets erupted with joy.

Tears of celebration at George Floyd Square as the verdict on Derek Chauvin was read, guilty on all charges. #GeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/IDMdjfbMvD

— Omar Jimenez (@OmarJimenez) April 20, 2021

Ms. L, a COTA bus driver in Columbus, Ohio, reacts after hearing the guilty charges for Derek Chauvin. Ms. L was listening to the verdict on her phone and pulled the bus over on North High Street when she heard.

Photo Credit: @hanks_t99 pic.twitter.com/0dnArpWnF6

— The Lantern (@TheLantern) April 20, 2021

The verdict comes one day after lawyers on both sides delivered their final closing arguments, which was the zenith of three weeks and over 45 witness testimonies. Thirty-eight  from the prosecution side and seven from the defense. Among the 38 witnesses was the young woman who used her cell phone’s camera to document the now-viral video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck, and keeping his knee on his neck even after the paramedics found a pulse-less Floyd laying lifeless on the ground.

History should remember the incredibly 17 year old Darnella Frazier who had the strength and composure to capture the murder of #georgefloyd on video. Without her video there may never have been #justice.

— Valerie Jarrett (@ValerieJarrett) April 20, 2021

Chauvin’s encounter with Floyd ignited a wave of protests across the country that triggered racial discord and conversations regarding defunding the police and enforcing police reform. During the  duration of the trial,  heavy security and barricades were placed outside the courthouse in expectation of civil unrest and protests resulting from the verdict.

The trial of officer #DerekChauvin into the murder of #GeorgeFloyd last year starts on 8th march In #Minneapolis court house heres a video clip of all the barracades they’ve put up hit link https://t.co/GUQKDeHjXU#BLM #DerekChauvinTrial #GUILTY pic.twitter.com/sU0vT9DAco

— #Innzopinion (@Graham1974Shane) March 2, 2021

 During the trial, Chauvin’s lawyer Eric Nelson honed in on three arguments: Floyd died as a result of the drug overdose Fentanyl and heart disease; the crowd that gathered around the scene distracted Chauvin and caused him to lose his composure and that Chauvin was within his rights of using his police academy training to restrain Floyd. But the jury was not swayed.

Derek Chauvin used ‘reasonable force’ with George Floyd: defense lawyer https://t.co/gY618hi5sZ pic.twitter.com/3R1IODLED3

— New York Post (@nypost) April 19, 2021

New York congressman Jamaal Bowman tweeted that the verdict does not solve the racism that plagues policing.

We’ve known Chauvin was guilty since the second we saw him murder George Floyd on film — but we also know of the racism inherent in our carceral and policing systems.

This verdict doesn’t change that racism, or the work ahead needed to transform those systems to serve us.

— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) April 20, 2021

While many are satisfied with the verdict, questions still remain of the future of policing.    On April 11,  Daunte Wright, 20, was gunned down by Minneapolis police  in what they called “an accidental discharge”. Wright was stopped because his tags’ registration had expired . He also had an outstanding arrest warrant.

An individual is being held to account. That’s not the same as the whole system being held to account.

This trial is meaningful, but not total. Justice remains malnourished when it comes to police use of force. There’s still work to be done.

But still, grateful for the verdict.

— Erik Reagan ✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿 (@ErikReagan) April 20, 2021

The post Derek Chauvin convicted of murder in the death of George Floyd appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

At 4:50 pm at Young’s Asian Massage in Acworth, G.A. Delaina Ashley Yuan, Paul Andre Mitchels, Xiaojie Tan and Daoyou Feng were murdered. At 5:47 pm at  Atlanta, G.A’s Gold Massage Spa Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Kim, Suncha Kim and Yong Ae Yue were similarly massacred. Of the eight murder victims, six were of Asian decent – four were Korean. Like me.

It is impossible not to grieve. If you are a human being, any loss of life, even a stranger’s, and especially any loss caused by violence is heartbreaking. But the coverage of this particular atrocity was as predictable as ever. Reasonable questions are always asked; how could this have happened? Why did this happen?i Who did this? But then – inevitably – come the other questions. The ones that humanize the perpetrator. The questions that attempt to remind us that once (or maybe still) this young man had value, was important, was loved. Like the eight people he slaughtered weren’t. 

Eight lives were blasted off this planet, and all because they could have been affiliated with sex work – which somehow makes their murders more publicly palatable. And all while his name, his age, his potential motivations are blasted on the cover of every single noteworthy publication or broadcast – news anchors struggle to pronounce the names of the very victims he made. Erasing them further. Cloaking them in further obscurity or anonymity. 

The shooter had assumed that the Asian-affiliated massage parlors he attacked were inexplicably linked with sex work and that justified his masacre. This is a common popular culture belief. While it is true that some Asian-affiliated massage parlors or spas are also covertly used for sex work, it does not diminish the lives or experiences of those who work in these facilities and it certainly does not give agency to anybody to kill these workers simply because they were consumed with sexual “temptation”.

Asian women in particular have historically been sexualized. The assumption that Asian women have been sexual commodities stems from the fetisization of them and their race. Because Asian women can be seen as simultaneously hyper-sexual and also hyper-docile and submissive, we face unique and overt violences and violations simply because of inaccurate and degrading racist assumptions based on pop culture depictions.

The mass shooting addresses many of the fears in this country that Asian and Asian American individuals face today, particularly those who identify as women and those who are sex workers. According to a study by Stop AAPI Hate, since the COVID-19 pandemic began nearly 3,800 instances of discrimination, violence and harrasment have been reported in this country. “Probably more,” said Jeehae Fischer, the executive director at the Korean American Family Service Center in Queens, N.Y. “People are afraid to come forward to even say ‘hey something happened to me and I’m scared’’.

When I lived in Tübingen, in southern Germany for a year, I was the victim of numerous verbal and physical hate crimes. The area is more conservative than neighboring states, but I still experienced hatred and othering in nearly every town I visited throughout the country. Ranging from a hollered slur out the back of a car window speeding by, to beer bottles being thrown at my legs (resulting in scarring), to waking up one day to plastered graphic images of Holocaust victims covering the common area in my dormitory. I had many bad days there. But never once did I use those experiences, those bad days to harm a German individual physically or verbally. Not even those who were repeatedly perpetrating crimes against myself and my peers. I didn’t report every instance, but the ones I did were met with less than lukewarm responses. I could have done more to advocate for myself, but I was scared.

Today, and every day, I think about the beautiful people whose lives have been taken away from us through violence. Through selfish acts of cowardice, ignorance and falsely-perceived superiority. I’m thinking about Hyun Jung Kim and her life as a single mother, wondering if we both liked jjajangmyeon or if it was too salty for her. I’m thinking about Xiaojie Tan, who was only two days away from her birthday. I’m thinking about all of them. Wondering if they had anything they were looking forward to that day. Wondering if they were tired of this pandemic just like me. Wondering if they were scared.

The post Living with the sting and fear of racial hate appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

A postmortem examination in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital confirmed that Kadija Saccoh was raped and killed according to the country’s national broadcaster SLBC Television.

“I received a call that my daughter Kadija is dead and they were preparing her for burial. On suspicion, I was shocked, opposed to the rush burial and called for a postmortem examination,” Abu Bakarr Saccoh, the father of the victim, a Sierra Leonean based in the U.S., posted on his Facebook account. The postmortem result proved that the girl was repeatedly raped and killed.”

The death of Kadija has sparked protests across the country’s capital as activists are calling on the government to be clamp down on fighting rape against girls and women.

A report from the Family Support Unit, a police unit that handle rape cases said in a 2019 report  that, the small West African nation of 7.5  million people recorded over 3,260 cases of sexual penetration. Over 90 % of them were done by perpetrators known to  family members of the victims, the report said.

After the report was launched, President Julius Maada Bio declared rape as a national emergency. The sexual offenses  act was amended to 15 years in jail for perpetrators found guilty of raping an adult and life imprisonment for raping a minor. 

The country’s First Lady Fatima Maada Bio who heads a campaign called  “Hands Off Our Girls” has vowed to ensure justice is done for the child. 

“Rapists have no place in our society,” the First Lady said on Facebook Live. The little girl didn’t deserve to die like that. I will pursue justice for the kid and the family. That’s why I set up the ‘Hands Off Our Girls’ campaign to protect kids.”

Female in Sierra Leone, a coalition of women activists has condemned the act and has called for justice. In a street protest broadcast on Facebook they said the act is unacceptable.

“For the past three years, we have seen an unprecedented increase in the cases of rape,” said coalition  president Emma Fumi Turay to the protestors. “Most of these perpetrators have received less punishment while some have been protected by big guns in society. We will leave no stone unturned to acquire justice for the victim and her family”.  

Deputy Inspector General of Police Elizabeth Turay  said in a press conference that already have four people in custody 

The post Sierra Leone activists protests the rape and killing of a 5-year-old U.S. Citizen in Freetown appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Natasha Christopher, mother of slain 14-year-old, Akeal Christopher, implores residents to turn over their firearms. Photo by Gabrielle Wright.

Three blocks away from Evergreen Baptist Church, the site of yesterday’s Bushwick gun buyback event, Akeal Christopher, 14, was shot in the head after a middle school graduation party. He died on his 15th birthday this July.

“My son was murdered in the community he grew up in,” said his mother, Natasha Christopher. “This community is on mute and everyone is acting like this is a normal. This community should be mad.”

But yesterday’s gun buyback event, in the church at 455 Evergreen Avenue, was organized in response to the burgeoning number of homicides and gun violence in the Bushwick community.

According to the New York Police Department January to June 2012, 791 people were shot or killed by a bullet, 1613 total arrests were made in which at least one firearm was recovered. The 83rd Precinct, which covers Bushwick, had two fatal shootings over the last month.

The gun buyback event was sponsored by City Councilwoman Diana Reyna in conjunction with the police department and hosted by the Evergreen Baptist Church.

Community Organizer Ariel Salazar hands out flyers and speaks to residents as they pass by Evergreen Baptist. Photo by Gabrielle Wright.

Flyers were handed out as far as 15 blocks in each direction to persuade community members to hand over their guns. The incentive was $20 for rifles and $200 for pistols and handguns. By 4 PM, the gun buyback collected 85 firearms.
As community members turned over their weapons, police officers stood by to collect them.

“In reality the people who are bringing the guns in aren’t the people most likely to use them in the wrong way,” said the church’s pastor Rev. Gary Frost. “If the guns are in their homes, there are others there who are less conscientious of proper use of a gun or would probably steal them. If you take the guns out of circulation, it’s a better environment.”

Some of the guns that went out of circulation were carried into the church in duffle bags.

“Some of these weapons are like military equipment,” said Frost.

Others brought weapons concealed in small tote bags, and purses. One man stopped a few yards away from the church. He asked church member Anita Haynes if she would turn in a plastic grocery bag half full of bullets for him.

When Rev. Frost watched the exchange, he said he believed the buyback event was like one person on a shore covered with thousands of starfish.

“You can’t save them all, but you can save this one,” he said.

Pastor Evergreen Baptsit Church pastor, Rev. Gary Frost and wife Lynette Frost hosted the gun buyback event. Photo by Gabrielle Wright.

Lynette Frost, the pastor’s wife, recalled a moment this summer when tears prevented gun crime. She called out to two teenagers running towards a fight asking them not to make their mothers cry that night.

“And the boys, they came back,” Lynette Frost said. “They asked me why I cared and I said, ‘because I love you’. They started to tear up and didn’t fight that night. That’s what we’re doing here today.”

Lynette Frost said that this year’s turnout was an improvement. Last year only 32 guns were collected. Out of the 85 guns collected this year were 74 handguns, 4 shotguns, 6 rifles, and 1 assault rifle.

Ariel Salazar, Councilmember Diana Reyna’s Community Liaison, said that the very last weapon collected was brought in by two teenagers. It was a Tech-9.

“The police department was very excited about receiving this specific weapon,” said Salazar. “It’s the one that could have done the most damage.”

The post Gun buyback event in Bushwick nets 85 weapons appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

The post Community group in Crown Heights hopes to reduce gun violence appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

Donna Giddings poses with young men from the Carson Valley School. Giddings joined Mothers in Charge after her mother, son and her son's best friend were murdered in a triple homicide. Photo by Jasmine Brown

PHILADELPHIA — Dorothy Johnson-Speight had a dream. She was in a boxing ring surrounded by a group of angry mothers carrying bull horns and shouting into the city streets. They were calling for people to join them in the fight against violence. When she woke up, Johnson-Speight, who lost her only son in a dispute over a parking space, began to develop Mothers in Charge, an organization that provides support to women who have lost loved ones to violence.

It is made up of mothers, grandmothers, aunts, wives and sisters who have lost loved ones to violence in Philadelphia. Their mission is to reduce the number of violent acts, particularly homicides, in the city. Through activism, grief support and a myriad of different programs, they are working to raise awareness and save lives.

Nine years ago, Dorothy Johnson-Speight’s son, Khaaliq Johnson, was murdered. He was shot eight times in front of his house over a parking space. The man who killed Johnson was out on bail — six months earlier, he had stabbed a teenager to death.

Ruth Donnelly, the mother of the teenager who was stabbed to death, helped Johnson-Speight found the organization.

Johnson, 24, had just been accepted into a Masters program in Delaware. He was planning to start school the following month.

Dorothy Johnson-Speight is the founder and executive director of Mothers in Charge, an organization that provides support to women who have lost a loved one to violence. Johnson-Speight founded the organization in memory of her 24-year-old son, Khaaliq, who was murdered over a parking space. Photo by Jasmine Brown

This was not the first time Johnson-Speight had lost a child. Her daughter, Carlena, died when she was 3 years old from bacterial meningitis. Johnson-Speight said that after the death of her children, her life was changed forever. She still attends counseling from time to time.

“You don’t even look at life the same way,” she said. “I guess what things were important to you before are no longer as important. Things that maybe didn’t mean much to you before mean a whole lot to you now. The friendships that you seek now are different and more meaningful in terms of purpose, living on purpose. You are changed forever.”

After the death of her son, Johnson-Speight made a conscious decision to live on purpose. She used the funds from a life insurance policy her son had to fund Mothers in Charge in his memory.

“I am a better person as a result,” said Johnson-Speight. “Nobody wants to lose their children to be a better person or understand life in a more meaningful way, but that is what truly has happened.”

The group’s beginning was humble. Initially, Mothers in Charge worked out of Johnson-Speight’s home. To raise funds, they held fish fries and bake sales and went door-to-door to gain support.

Now, Mothers in Charge is a household name in Philadelphia. In a little more than seven years, they have grown into a full-fledged business. Today, they are funded through grants, money from state representatives and local fundraisers.

Johnson-Speight is the executive director of Mothers in Charge. To the women employed by the organization, she is more of a den mother than their boss. Her black and white, jewel-encrusted BlackBerry is never far from her reach. They are always on her mind and she sends them constant texts and e-mail messages to check on them.

Johnson-Speigh said her faith, her work and the women in the organization keep her going, helping to sustain her in the aftermath of her son’s death and support her as she counsels grieving women almost every day.

The fight against crime is a never-ending battle and the names don’t stop coming in. Every Wednesday, the homicide list is placed on Johnson-Speight’s desk. The spreadsheet, which comes from the police department, provides the details for the previous week– the date of death, the name of the victim and the type of weapon used, usually a gun. There are about five to eight names every week, Johnson-Speight said.

Their membership is growing. It is the type of organization that no one wants to have to join and that everyone is glad exists. With every new victim, there is a family that needs support. The police provide the organization with contact information for the victim’s family.

Deborah Grant-Cook, 61, is responsible for sending out sympathy cards and information about the services and grief support offered free of charge by the organization.

“When I see that list that comes through, I am amazed,” Grant-Cook said. “You hear it on the news, when you turn on the news that is all you here. But then to see it up close and personal on paper, and then the ages of these youngsters, it’s a bit rough.”

According to the Philadelphia Police Department, there were 284 reported homicides between Jan. 1 and Dec. 8, 2010. Of that number, 247 were males, including 200 who were black. The highest number of homicides, 111, were young people between 18 and 24 years old. Of those, 102 were male and 89 were black.

Homicide is the leading cause of death among black males between the ages of 14 and 24.

“I see it as a health issue,” Johnson-Speight said. “I believe if some other cause of death was killing say white males 14-24, if it was some kind of incurable disease, we would be trying to find all kinds of vaccinations, vaccines or some type of cure to save those lives. Unfortunately, homicide is not an incurable disease, and there is no vaccine for it. But it is by the same token taking the lives of African American males at an alarming rate.”

Many think that Mothers in Charge is just a group of angry mothers who go out into the city to grieve and shout about violence, according to Johnson-Speight, but that is not all that they do, she said. Rather, they are trying to fight violence from all sides, using education as their foundation.

One of their many programs deals with juveniles at the Carson Valley School and in placement at the Philadelphia Industrial Correction Center. While many of the young men at Carson Valley have committed misdomeaner crimes, most of the young men at PICC are waiting to be tried as adults for crimes such as murder and armed robbery.

Mothers in Charge goes into the prison every Monday and Wednesday to mentor these young men. The mothers try to teach them how to change their mindset on violence. They tell the stories of their own loss and teach the boys about love and self respect. In order to prevent the boys who return home from going back to crime, the organization pairs them with older males who have gone down that same path and managed to turn their lives around.

Donna Giddings, 48, is one of the mothers who work with the youths at Carson Valley and PICC. She joined Mothers in Charge after her mother, her son, and her son’s best friend were murdered in a triple homicide in North Philadelphia. Working with the organization helps Giddings to keep her mind off of the pain, and she really loves working with the young men in the program, she said.

“When I look at them, I see my son,” she said. “Because I worked so hard with him and he was in and out of trouble — he was in placement twice. The last time he came home, five months later he was killed.”

Giddings says that Johnson-Speight and the other mothers in the organization have been a real comfort to her. She calls the organization a sisterhood. They support one another, even on the anniversaries of the death of their loved ones.

“It lets me know that what I am feeling and what I feel on a daily basis, on a regular basis, there is someone else that understands,” Giddings said. “Because to most people, it is like, ‘Oh my God, there she goes,’ or, ‘Oh God, how are you making it?’ But these Mothers understand, you know. They understand what we go through when we are sad, when we cry, because they can relate — they know what it feels like to lose a child.”

Johnson-Speight says that she is blown away by the work of the organization and the amount to which it has helped individuals.

“There are several mothers who I thought when I first met them that they just wouldn’t survive, that they would just be a basket case,” she said.

She mentioned Giddings in particular. She said that when Giddings first to came to Mothers in Charge, she was broken.

“When she came I said, ‘I don’t know how she is going to survive.’ She had a double funeral where she buried her mom and her son and it was just her 12-year-old daughter that was left,” Johnson-Speight said. “And today I see her and it is just amazing how she has grown. She has given back so much and is really making a difference. “

Johnson-Speight does not take all the credit for the organization. She says that it is not just her that has made Mothers in Charge a success.

I know it’s not just me. I know it’s God,” she said. “I know it’s like an intervention that is beyond me, beyond any human kind of, ‘OK, I am going to go and just do this.’ I believe it is our children that are looking out for us and rooting for us saying, ‘You go mom, we gon’ help you with this’ — our little guardian angels. I believe it is God. I believe it is the commitment of the women. It’s all of that; it is just amazing.”

Johnson-Speight says that the work is hard. Her schedule is often filled with rallies, one-on-one grief counseling, and all types meetings. Oftentimes, she works until 7 p.m. or 8 p.m.. But she believes in the fight against violence and that Mothers in Charge is making a difference.

Her son Khaaliq is still never far from her. His picture hangs behind the desk in her office and on one of the walls hangs with containing more pictures of Khaaliq. It reads, “His Love Surrounds You, Always!” Johnson-Speight calls him her guardian angel.

She looks forward to the Wednesday that no names come in on the homicide list. She believes it is possible.

“That is what I get up every morning believing. That is what drives me. That we are going to get there,” Johnson-Speight said.

The post Philadelphia Life: In memory of lost loved ones, women band together to fight crime appeared first on Pavement Pieces.