Following a jury’s verdict today convicting Derek Chauvin of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd, state and local officials weighed in on its meaning.
Statement from Senator Cory Booker
This verdict is justice served—but it is not justice for George Floyd. True justice would be a country where George Floyd would still be alive today. True justice demands action—it demands change & that we do everything we can to stop this from happening again & again & again.
Statement from Governor Phil Murphy
George Floyd, like countless other Black Americans whose futures have been unjustly stolen from them, should be alive today. While today’s verdict provides some measure of justice and accountability for the Floyd family and millions of our fellow Americans, all of us must remember that systemic racism is still pervasive in American life. While we are glad that justice has prevailed in this case, George Floyd’s murder is a painful reminder that inequality has deep roots in American history, starting during slavery and continuing to the present day in areas such as wages, health care, housing, education, and treatment by law enforcement. This has been a trying moment in our nation’s history, but we must be resolute in our fight for justice to ensure that the pain of yesterday, and the pain of today, does not become the pain of tomorrow.
Statement from Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal
This was the right verdict. But as a career prosecutor, I know how even a successful trial verdict can leave the families of victims with a sense of emptiness. A conviction cannot undo the trauma; it can never bring back a lost loved one. We simply hope it can bring some closure to those most in pain.
A flawed system laid the groundwork for the death of George Floyd. It’s a system that too often fails to recruit police from the communities they guard, fails to train officers properly, fails to place just limits on the use of force against citizens, and fails to create mechanisms for the independent investigation of misconduct. It’s a system that badly needs reform—here and across the country.
While I am heartened to see some justice done for Mr. Floyd, it is not enough. We must seize this moment, when the nation’s focus has turned to how our communities are policed, to ensure something meaningful comes from a man’s unnecessary death, and to continue with urgency the reforms we have begun to policing practices in New Jersey.
To learn more about what we are doing in the Garden State, visit www.njoag.gov/policing. There’s much more work to be done.
Statement from the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey
Today, the jury delivered justice not only for the family and loved ones of George Floyd, but for the millions of Americans of color who for decades have experienced a different reality of uneven treatment by law enforcement. What we witnessed in Minneapolis last May was not policing, but was murder and an absolute abdication of the values of protecting and serving. With this verdict, our country can begin the long and complex process of healing, which we know will also involve continued dialogue between communities and law enforcement, as well as ongoing police reform, increased transparency, and accountability. We thank the Jury for their service.
Statement from Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop
Today justice was served by the jury in the Derek Chauvin trial returning a verdict of guilty on all three counts. The sadness and loss that George Floyd’s family and friends feel will unfortunately never totally go away. That sadness is shared throughout our country and here in Jersey City.
This verdict also serves as proof that there is still justice and accountability in our country, and I am hopeful that it can be a starting point for bringing more meaningful reforms nationally and locally so that we will no longer be hearing name after name of black lives that were taken too soon by law enforcement that swore to protect them.
Statement from Jersey City Councilman At-Large Rolando Lavarro
Today, justice has been served. George Floyd’s life and humanity is affirmed. While this is a major verdict, and countless people are breathing a sigh of relief, this verdict will not bring George Floyd back. Nor will it bring back so many black and brown lives who have suffered senseless deaths. One verdict does not correct institutional racism and generations of injustice.
Rather, we will need to work together to root out systemic bias in the criminal justice system. We need to reimagine policing. We need to pass legislation to create a strong Civilian Complaint Review Board in Jersey City.
But the truth is that the only way we will see real systemic change is if we each make the change in our own hearts. Because at the end of the day, collectively we all make up this unjust system, and there is something each of us can do and own up to, getting off the sidelines and fighting for a more just system.
Statement from Jersey City Ward E Councilman James Solomon
George Floyd should still be alive today. The jury’s verdict convicting his murderer does not change that. It does, however, deliver justice and a small piece of mind to his family. It affirms the fact that his life mattered.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” — Emma Lazarus
“I can’t breathe.” — Eric Garner/George Floyd/Black America
Juneteenth is a two-sided coin that has always left me with a feeling of ambivalence. Ostensibly a celebration of freedom from slavery that dates back to 1865, Juneteenth is sometimes wryly known as “the Fourth of July for black people.”
Observed on June 19, Juneteenth — the word itself a blending of “June” and “19th” — is an odd day to commemorate. Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863. While many slaves had already escaped to non-Confederate states by then, slavery actually still existed in some places until passage of the 13th Amendment in December 1865. Yet no one throws an Emancipation Proclamation party or a 13th Amendment barbecue (maybe because they’re in winter?). No. Instead, the festivities happen on the day when Gordon Granger, a major general with the Union Army, traveled to Galveston, Texas, and informed the black population there that “all slaves are free.” The former slaves learned of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, during which time they continued to serve as slaves, unaware they were no longer bound to stay on plantations, working for free.
Given the history, Juneteenth is a story about freedom delayed and a cruel ruse that was perpetuated on the freedmen. Thus, how can we celebrate this holiday without also acknowledging the trickery attached to it? As companies like Nike move to recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday, I wonder, which side of the holiday is being celebrated? Are we celebrating the freedom — or are we celebrating the ruse? How do we embrace the promise of the Reconstruction era that followed the end of the Civil War without also acknowledging that some of those promises have yet to be fulfilled?
These are questions worth asking in this moment of protest when people, white people in particular, seem more willing than ever to address systemic racism head-on. Meaningful discussions around inequality and the unfinished business of civil rights in our nation are at the center of a national dialogue we haven’t had in generations.
II.
Jersey City was once part of the Dutch colony known as New Netherlands and was home to a slave port in the 1640s. Because we’re a northern city in a northern state, it’s easy to forget that New Jersey (what the English renamed New Netherlands) was a slave state. But documents at New Jersey City University note that many prominent families here in the 17th Century were large property owners who held slaves. Nicholas Tuers and his wife Jane Van Reypen Tuers, the Van Vorst (Voorst) family, the Van Reypens, and Gerrit Newark and his brother Mattheus Cornelissen Newkirk are among the slave-owning families whose names would be familiar to current residents.
Van Reypen Street sign. Photo by Aaron Morrill
Slavery in New Jersey was slowly phased out over time beginning in 1804 and wasn’t eliminated entirely until 1846. New Jersey was regarded as a hostile state for freedmen and slaves alike even after 1846 because it enforced the Fugitive Slave Law that allowed escaped slaves to be captured and returned to their owners. But Jersey City’s proximity to New York and Connecticut made it a popular site for the Underground Railroad. Four major Underground Railroad routes where escaped slaves would cross the Hudson River from New Jersey to New York came through Jersey City in the Harsimus Cove/Newport area; the home at 79 Clifton Place that was once owned by banker and abolitionist David Lee Holden and his cousin Edward Singleton Holden is also an Underground Railroad site in Jersey City — and believed to be the last remaining one here.
Prominent abolitionists of the period are also memorialized with street names: Former slaves John Vreeland and his brother Thomas Vreeland Jackson, Dr. Henry Holt, and John Everett helped escaped slaves reach New York via the Underground Railroad.
Which parts of our history will current Jersey City residents lean into at this moment of change? Will we be agents of change like the Vreelands and Holdens, or will we cling to the status quo, making only small changes at the margins?
III.
The essential question of this moment is who belongs? Who is this society going to work for? Who belongs downtown? Who belongs in Jersey City? Who belongs in Central Park? Who gets to sit on the public bench? Who among us gets to enjoy the full benefits of citizenship and civil rights and human rights — and who among us are second class citizens? Who does the law represent? Who is above the law — and who has the law on their necks?
These questions are directly tied to the issue of policing because police are the armed guards used by those in power to regulate people’s lives. They exist to confine physical movement in the way banks confine economic mobility, in the way voter suppression tactics limit political advancement. They’re all part of the same stew, and they all impart the same message: Stay in your place. That is, stay in the places we assign to you. Nothing connotes second-class status more than knowing you can be harmed, injured, maimed, or killed by a state entity without either accountability or punishment.
This is why there is discussion about “defunding” and “dismantling” police departments. No one is in favor of anarchy. Not really. What people are demanding is a reimagining of how we do law enforcement so that a possible drunk sleeping in a car doesn’t end up dead while a white double-homicide and home-invasion suspect from the University of Connecticut is captured without incident.
The international protests over the killing of George Floyd would not have forced the conversations we’re now having had it not happened in the context of a global pandemic and in the midst of a presidential primary and back-to-back-to-back incidents of racially motivated violence. The Covid-era ad slogan that “we’re all in this together” begins to ring hollow even for the least politically engaged among us. Consider these recent news stories:
While African Americans comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population, we are 30 percent of the coronavirus deaths in the nation. Local efforts by black mayors throughout the south to protect their constituents — from stay-at-home orders to mandatory mask use in public — have largely been overriden by white governors. This despite the fact that black and brown workers are less likely to be able to work from home and are more likely to have jobs that require them to work in unsafe conditions (warehouses, mass transit, nursing homes, food processing facilities and the like).
A survey by the U.S. Census Bureau found that 38 percent of businesses overall received needed aid through the Paycheck Protection Program, the emergency loan program passed by Congress to help small businesses hurt by coronavirus closures. But a survey of black- and Latino-owned companies by Global Strategy Group discovered that only 12 percent of these businesses received PPP loans.
On Super Tuesday, voters throughout Harris County, which is 43 percent Latino and 19 percent African American, waited up to six hours to cast ballots. Between 2012 and 2018, Harris County closed 52 polling sites. More recently, voters in and around Atlanta, which is 54 percent black, waited even longer — up to eight hours — to cast ballots in the Georgia primary due to long lines. Given that many black and brown people will have to miss a day of work and wages to vote, advocates have likened these wait times to a back-door poll tax.
Ten years after a Detroit police officer killed seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones during a no-knock warrant violently served on the wrong address, 26-year-old Breonna Taylor was similarly killed by officers with the Louisville Metro Police in Kentucky. Taylor was sleeping in her bed moments before she was killed; Stanley-Jones had been sleeping next to her grandmother. In 2013 a jury failed to convict Joseph Weekley, the officer who killed Stanley-Jones, of involuntary manslaughter, and charges against him were eventually dropped. Weekley returned to the Detroit Police Department in 2015. To date, no charges have been filed in the Breonna Taylor case. Tens of thousands of no-knock warrants are executed each year as part of a war on drugs that disproportionately targets black communities. Investigative reporter Radley Balko estimates that eight to 10 innocent people die annually due to no-knock warrants.
The confluence of these events seemed to demonstrate that, to the larger society, black (and brown) lives actually don’t matter whether we’re taking about our health, economic survival, or our ability to govern our communities. Even when we’re recreating or sleeping, we can still be subject to racially motivated violence.
This ether was already hanging around us, and then Derek Chauvin, hand in pocket, put his knee on George Floyd’s neck. The match was lit, both literally and figuratively.
IV.
So, on the eve of Juneteenth, how hopeful should we be about the apparent reckoning around race we are seeing right now? When corporate entities like the National Football League declare that Black Lives Matter, after years of quashing peaceful protests against police brutality and ostracizing Colin Kaepernick from the league, there’s reason to be cynical. Still, there are signs of progress. The multiracial demonstrators who are in the streets now are pressing for a slate of sweeping changes that were not being broadly discussed in the aftermath of the 1991 Rodney King beating or the acquittals of the officers involved a year later.
There is reason to hope, but I dare not hold my breath. We’ve been here before, the promise of freedom just within reach only for it to be snatched away. The ruse of Juneteenth. The promise of the post-Civil War Reconstruction-era, when the freedmen were supposed to be integrated fully into the American society and economy. What must it have felt like on June 19, 1865, to hear Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger declare “all slaves are free,” then wind up being a sharecropper indebted to a former plantation owner? The Jim Crow era came on the heels of Reconstruction. The Civil Rights Movement ended with Reaganism and the long, slow chipping away at some of the movement’s biggest achievements from affirmative action to voting rights.”
Given the leadership vacuum in the White House, the most promising reforms will likely come at the state and local levels. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop has taken the Obama Foundation pledge to reform some policing practices, including the use of chokeholds. But he has faced criticism for not engaging local black activists about what reforms they’d like to see, a criticism he has faced in the past. And his reforms nip at the edges; they don’t get to the heart of systemic inequities.
In the end, perhaps it won’t matter. If the tide has truly turned and we’re ready to complete the difficult work of Reconstruction, our leaders and neighbors will join us or get left behind. If that were to happen, in my lifetime, I’d give up Juneteenth — because then I could fully celebrate the Fourth of July.
Chorus of Residents Calls For Police Department Reforms
In the wake of recent protests spurred by the killing of Minnesota resident George Floyd, residents of Jersey City called on the City Council to divest the police department of funding and invest more money in social services instead. To that end, the council voted Wednesday night to pass a resolution, initiated by Council President Joyce E. Watterman, that establishes an advisory committee to review the department’s “policies and procedures relating to police enforcement and discrimination.”
“In May, the situation that happened to George Floyd was horrible,” Council President Watterman said. “Being a black woman, I know what it’s like to be discriminated against. To deal with racism, you have to start somewhere. It’s an ugly thing and not easy to tackle. We have an opportunity now to get rid of some of the ugliness black folks have been facing for centuries.”
The council voted to designate May 25 as Black Lives Matter Day. It also voted unanimously to appoint Elizabeth Castillo chief financial officer of Jersey City, to re-appoint Carlo Abad chief judge of the Jersey City Municipal Court, and on an urban farming initiative and other ordinances and resolutions.
Divesting and Investing
During the public comments section of the meeting, Jersey City resident A’driana Williams spoke to the City Council about attending a rally outside City Hall, last week, where more than 4,000 people voiced their support for Black Lives Matter. Williams and several other callers advocated defunding the police department and re-allocating that money to Jersey City’s public schools and to public programs that serve the needs of the community.
“I’m a student, and I know how much this district has failed me in terms of how much money has gone into the resources in our schools,” Williams told the council. “We have more security guards and police than nurses. We need to put more resources into our communities instead of more police. Our city’s budget is a reflection of its priorities. We need to show the city that our black citizens matter. Our education matters. Our tax dollars matter. Everything about us matters.”
Septuagenarian Doud David Williams said he believes a community review board is necessary to get rid of “bad apples” on the police force. He also said Jersey City police officers should be required to reside in Jersey City.
“If we had policemen who lived here, there would be a different attitude,” Williams said. “I remember Glenn Cunningham and Charlie Jackson, all of them lived in Jersey City in the black community. We need good policing and redistribution of funds that could go to social services that perhaps would be better in some areas than police.”
Another resident, Stanley Smith, presented a list of stipulations for police reform in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. He is seeking increased accountability for the use of excessive force, a community policing model that puts officers back on the beat, mandatory police de-escalation training, and increased mental health support for law enforcement.
Scott Welfel of Jersey City called in to say this moment in time presents a unique opportunity to re-imagine what Jersey City residents want from their police department.
“If you have a family member who suffers from addiction or has a mental illness and has an episode, who do you want to show up?” Welfel said. “Do you want someone with a gun who is trained with a command and control mentality, or do you want a professional and what they know about mental illness, what they know about addiction? What they know is to respond to this person as a human being to talk them down from that crisis, to get them the resources that they need. So, a council resolution that talks about an advisory committee? That is not re-imagining … no. Let’s take this moment to fully and fundamentally re-imagine the society we want to live in.”
The council voted 8–1 in favor of the resolution to establish an advisory committee with Ward C Councilman Richard Boggiano abstaining.
Urban Farming
Up for a vote was a resolution authorizing Jersey City to contract with AeroFarms for $987,646 to construct and maintain indoor vertical gardens at 11 city-owned properties.
Back in September 2011, the city contracted with Friends of the Lifers Urban Farming Initiative to create a fully-sustainable hydroponic farm and farmer’s market in impoverished areas of Jersey City, but it was eventually abandoned. Now, the city hopes to grow vegetables (specifically lettuce) hydroponically to give away to Jersey City residents.
“We used to have community gardens; now they’re gone,” Councilman Boggiano said. “At a time like this, we don’t need this.”
Ward E Councilman James Solomon said he didn’t see the need to rush the resolution forward. “Without local job guarantees in the contract, there’s way more detail to go through,” he said.
Council at Large Rolando Lavarro, Jr., pointed out that although the vegetables would be free to Jersey City residents, they should only go to those in need.
“While it’s great the vegetables are free, I’m not sure of the cost analysis,” Councilman Lavarro said. “The one thing I will point out is that it is eligible to anyone who is a Jersey City resident, and I would urge Jersey City to put income qualifications on this. We should provide food for those who need food.”
The resolution was approved 6–3 with Councilmen Boggiano, Solomon, and Lavarro dissenting.
Black Lives Matter Day
To honor the death of George Floyd, Ward F Councilman Jermaine Robinson introduced a resolution declaring May 25 Black Lives Matter Day. The council voted unanimously to approve it.
“That horrific incident prompted communities all over the globe to acknowledge the inequalities of black life in the United States,” Councilman Robinson said. “I grew up in a household where I was told by my parents I mattered. On May 25, the world recognized that black lives really matter.”
For other coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement in Jersey City, click here.
