Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC Good morning, everyone. Yesterday at this time we were breaking down the closing arguments and the legal considerations for the jury in the trial of defendant Derek Chauvin. This morning the way we described the former police officer is officially different. He is convicted murderer Derek Chauvin according to the judge.

Judge Peter Cahill: State of Minnesota County of Hennepin, District Court fourth the Judicial District. State of Minnesota plaintiff versus Derrick Michael Chauvin, defendant. Verdict count one, court File Number 27 CR2012646. "We the jury in the above-entitled manner as to count one unintentional second-degree murder while committing a felony, find the defendant guilty. This verdict agreed to this 20th day of April 2021 at 1:44 PM."

Brian: Judge Peter Cahill reading the jury's verdict yesterday, on the most serious count second-degree murder in case you hadn't heard it from his own lips and wanted to hear it from his own lips. This is not a hoax. There was the murder of George Floyd accountability trial. Now Congress will debate the George Floyd Accountability Act. States and local police departments are having different conversations than a year ago, before the murder of George Floyd. Can the end of jury deliberations in the one case be the beginning of something more systemic? Here's Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison speaking yesterday after the verdict.

Attorney General Keith Ellison: The work of our generation is to put unaccountable law enforcement behind us. It's time to transform the relationship between community and the people who are sworn to protect them from one that is mistrustful, suspicious, and in some cases terrifying, into one that is empathetic, compassionate, and affirming. That will benefit everyone, including police officers who deserve to serve in a profession that is honored in departments where they don't have to worry about colleagues who don't follow the rules.

Brian: Ellison went even further than that, further than the work of this generation being to hold police merely accountable.

Attorney General Ellison: The work of our generation is to put an end to the vestiges of Jim Crow and the centuries of trauma, and finally put a end to racism. We can end it. It doesn't have to be with us into the future if we decide now to have true liberty and justice for all. The work of our generation is to say goodbye to old practices that don't serve us anymore and to put them all behind us. One conviction, even one like this one can create a powerful new opening to shed all practices and reset relationships.

Brian: Has that reset begun in a meaningful way? What comes next concretely? Back with me this morning as our first guest, just as she was yesterday is WNYC legal editor and race and justice editor, Jami Floyd. Hi, Jami.

Jami Floyd: Good morning, Brian.

Brian: Let me ask you the same first context question for this morning's listeners, that I asked you on special coverage last night, why you think this turned out differently than so many other police killings, even in the rare instances when they do go to trial?

Jami: Nine minutes and 29 seconds, Brian, on video that shot around the world. That video that was initially taken by a 17-year-old young woman who testified at the trial and then, of course, there were other videos, there were other bystander videos, there was body camera footage, but that video in which we all suffered together, we all partook, that became the critical piece of evidence in the courtroom and the critical impetus for a new movement.

It is like the Rodney King video. It is like the march across Selma photographs taken by photographers in the 1965 civil rights movement, but now we have social media so it is a watershed moment, I think in our history, and certainly a critically important case in American legal jurisprudence.

Brian: We'll talk as we go about whether it is a watershed moment in our history, or whether it's an anomaly in the context of a bigger picture of same old, same old, but listeners, we'll put that question to you. I know it's not joy this morning listeners nothing brings George Floyd back to his loved ones and there has been so much traumatization and retraumatization in the weeks of the trial.

Later in the hour, we'll talk with Jamil Smith just about having to view that video on television and others like it so many times, not to mention all the other police killings of unarmed black people that have occurred since George Floyd was murdered back on Memorial Day last year that had not been caught on video. Part of what Attorney General Ellison did in his speech last night was to recite a long list of names. We know many of those names. We know that civilian crime is up taking more lives too.

Listeners, feel free to call in and say whatever you're thinking and whatever mixed feelings you're feeling this morning at 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. People who live in neighborhoods you consider over-policed, you're welcome to call in, people for whom when you see a police officer on your block you feel more threatened and afraid than protected and reassured, that varies so much by neighborhood and by people's backgrounds, you're welcome to call in on what you're thinking and how you're feeling after the conviction of Derek Chauvin 646-435-7280.

Also, people who work in law enforcement, like the Attorney General there, did you relate to what the Attorney General said in one of those clips hoping you as a law enforcement officer don't have to worry as much in the future about fellow officers who don't follow the rules? Do some of your colleagues make it harder for you? And you're ready to call that out in a different way than before? Have you been thinking differently about your work in general and its place in society since George Floyd was murdered, and the current racial justice movement broke out? 646-435-7280.

I'll say that it may surprise some of you that the head of the New York City Police Benevolent Association Pat Lynch, of all people, said just a few days after George Floyd was killed last year that Derek Chauvin, "Was not a police officer. He was a criminal" and Lynch said, "There is no one that is defending him at all in the New York City Police Department or law enforcement as a whole." We know Pat Lynch would deny that there's anything wrong systemically with policing in New York or in America.

Whoever you are in the police community equation, what are your thoughts and feelings after the conviction of Derek Chauvin for murder, and what should come next? 646-435-7280 or tweet @BrianLehrer. Jami on systemic change that could follow the one trial, did you see the breaking news this morning that following this verdict, the US Justice Department led by Attorney General Merrick Garland will reportedly announce, many news organizations are saying this, Merrick Garland will announce that the Justice Department will investigate patterns and practices of police behavior in Minneapolis? I'm curious what that means they will look at and why you think that could fit into meaningful, bigger picture change.

Jami: Well, here is the thing Brian, the Justice Department has already investigated Minneapolis. There was a long investigation brought on by the then chief of police back in 2015 and the Department of Justice began to look at the policing structures initiated let me say again, by the then Chief of Police, a woman at the time, black woman, and they began to make rigorous review and issued a report about the many things that were wrong there.

Then, in came the Trump administration and Jeff Sessions rolled back oversight as we know, not just in Minneapolis, but nationwide consent decrees, the one tool that has been effective since the 1960s in the federal government, having oversight over municipalities, we have 18,000, Brian, you and I talked about this last night, 18,000 police departments in this country. The federal government can only do so much.

I learned this when I worked in Washington, but Jeff Sessions ensured that they would do not even that much. The report lay fallow for all of these years, including when George Floyd was murdered. This is a reup that Merrick Garland is doing, he's bringing it back to life so they will investigate anew I think with that report on the table and begin again the work of the Obama justice department, Eric Holder, of course, and Attorney General Lynch.

Brian: Let's take a phone call. Elizabeth in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling in. Hi, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Yes. How are you? I'd like to say I'm so happy that they reached the right decision in the Georg Floyd case. We have to remember that a life was lost and God bless George Floyd and his family. Even though Chauvin was wrong, my heart goes out to him too because he made the wrong decision. Also, police should deescalate and if they have use their gun, they shouldn't be shooting to kill.

If they have to shoot a person, what about a leg or a knee? We have to remember we are here together and our military is made up of all races and we fight against each other, how are we going to protect each other from an enemy that might come in here to hurt us? That's what I have to say. Thank you.

Brian: Elizabeth. You have a big heart. I should say that. Thank you very much. Vas in Oakland Gardens, Queens. You're on WNYC. Hi, Vas, thank you for calling him.

Vas: Hey, how are you. It's a first time. Just real quick, what I'm really seeing in my neighborhood, in particular, is, unfortunately, I'm seeing under-policing. Certain neighborhoods are seeing over-policing and then we're seeing like a laissez-faire attitude in areas that need to be policed, that aren't being policed because from my understanding, cops are just putting their hands up and saying, "You know what? You deal with it," because of all the backlash from the over-policing.

I really think there's got to be a balance between what the-- Basically, the public has to manage their expectations of what police are here to do. I'm all for police reform especially in these over-policed areas, but like I said, these under-policed areas that white-collar crime or white drug dealers are getting away with, whatever they want to do because they're not being targeted. That's basically all I really wanted to talk about. I appreciate it. Thank you for taking my call.

Brian: Thank you very much for making it. Jami, what do you think about that last caller, or either of them really but on the last call or I cited the Pat Lynch quote from last year, and I'm curious if in your reporting you get the sense that the police of the United States generally think Chauvin was a bad apple, whether or not they believe systemic racism is real and if police unions are directing their people to pull back and the way the caller says potentially deadly side effect of a real movement for racial justice.

Jami: It's too early to say, Brian, but do believe that these police departments-- Look, there's an abolition movement, first of all, there is a movement. There are some people, Paul Butler your frequent guest, and my very good friend among them who believe that we need to completely deconstruct policing in this country and prisons in this country. The prison industrial complex of which policing is apart and rethink law enforcement writ large. There's that movement, but then there are others.

I wanted to ask Dorothy about this who think we need police, we need community safety and we need reform rather than abolition, and the question though I have Brian and I would fall into that camp, but the question I have is whether it's possible. I'm grappling with this. We were talking about it last night with Kai Wright because these departments, here in New York, we're not talking about a department that's 50 years old, we're talking about a department that's ancient and the culture becomes calcified.

Then we have the five police unions that are intrinsic to that culture and we have powerful people that start out as line officers, but by the time they become commissioners or even chiefs of departments, they've been there a long time and to become powerful in the department, they have to make choices about the culture along the way it's very complicated. It's very complicated.

I don't know the answer, did this one moment cause everyone and every officer and commissioner and every one of these 18,000 police departments across the country to rethink the way they police to change the culture, to root out the bad apples? I don't know, is it a bad apple problem or is it a systemic oppressive white supremacist culture, not just in policing, but in America? When Dorothy called in and said that her heart goes out to George Floyd, I hear that, but how did we create-

Brian: You mean to Derek Chauvin?

Jami: -to Derek Chauvin, and of course, to George Floyd, but to Derek Chauvin I hear that, but how did we create this man in the first place? How did that happen? How did we get to that moment? That's what I want to talk about. How did we get to that moment that he could do such a thing? That's what we need to be talking about. It's not so much about the individual police officer. It's about the systems of oppression that allow a person to act with such impunity toward another.

Brian: Of course, that's where I think we heard Attorney General Keith Ellison go in those remarks right after the verdict to make that turn from the individual to the systemic. How would you answer your own question if you can do it in a radio soundbite for how we got here?

Jami: We just got a tweet, Brian, from someone who seems to disagree saying, "WNYC might want to ask itself how much of your business model is based on rhetoric that stokes hatred between police and the community?" This person David-- David, call us up man. David seems to think that I'm suggesting some sort of lack of reckoning and conversation between police and communities, but I'm suggesting precisely the opposite. In fact, I don't think the police are to blame for this. This isn't really about the police.

This is about our larger culture. The police and their behavior in my humble opinion are a symptom of the larger cultural problem. What happens in policing, police are just actors in our larger systemic structure is they act out some of them, the racism that we're all taught from a very early age and view, and I've heard this actually this week in my conversations with some police officers here in New York, they view Black and brown people as sub-human, that's not my language, Brian.

That's what I've heard from some police officers who've talked with me off the record this week. They come to view us, Black people, as different from the other citizens in New York, as less valuable, devalued, and subhuman and that's what has to change. That's not just police officers. That's what we learn as Americans in this country because that's what's rooted in our history that has to change.

Brian: Jack in Monticello. You're on WNYC. Jack, you're on right now. Hi.

Jack: Oh, hi, Brian, can you hear me?

Brian: I can hear just fine. Hi there.

Jack: Okay. Thank you, a long-time listener, first-time caller, thank you for taking my call. For the record, I wanted to say that I have a brother who's a captain in a major police force down south. I'm a retired US Marine and I love police officers. I'm glad we have them and I support them. However, over the 60 years that I've been alive, there have been times where I've done 34 in a 25 mile an hour zone, or maybe 43 in the 35, and most of those times I was issued a citation. It was a very unpleasant experience.

I noticed in the officer an arrogance, almost as if I was being goaded into a confrontation and it was very unpleasant and I'm a white male. I can imagine when I hear my Black friends talk of this, how they must feel. As I watched the Derek Chauvin video over and over again, as most people have when George Floyd was on the ground, I tended this from a slightly different perspective.

I didn't see George Floyd as being Black, I saw him as just being an American. As I watched the officer's face, Derek Chauvin, he looked as almost as if "This is what I'm supposed to do. I'm a hard guy. I can be a hard case. I can be a tough guy." That could've easily been me on the ground, and I don't think it would have made a difference and the guest is correct. We have a system that produces these men and it concerns me.

Once again, I was in the Middle East, I carried a weapon, a had a machine gun. I had to deadly force authority at an American Embassy, and it's not to be used. All too often, police officers go to the weapon too quickly, and how about de-escalation? I would like to say this to police officers everywhere. The next time you're writing a traffic citation, how about coming to the car and saying, "How are you sir, good afternoon may I see your license, please?" That would go a long way. Thank you for taking my call.

Brian: Jack, thank you for making it. I'm going to go right onto Craig in Queens. Craig, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Craig: Hey, good morning to you and Jami. I love both of you guys. I want to say something to Jami's point and then I'll get right to what I'm calling about. Jami, you know the pedestal that we place police on, forget the ones that are not good, but just the pass that the public gives police officers because they have a dangerous job. It's unlike any other profession, not fireman, not military, military get into battle and they kill some civilians.

They can't use, "We were in a hostile place and we felt danger and we just shot civilians." It's not acceptable. People say the police should be able to have the benefit of the doubt, but they have jobs, they have to be professional. We spent all these millions of dollars training them. It's not us against the police. We all live this together. Every time somebody tells me they're pulling back on communities of color and we're going to feel the ramification. We feel the ramifications every day. Police walk with a gun.

We civilians, walk without a gun in the same neighborhoods facing the same criminals. You think if the police don't show up-- We do what we do every day when they're not there. We navigate these places. I've seen, where I come from in Queens, police stations, one of those little hubs on [unintelligible 00:21:49] and Fox Boulevard station for a year and two murders take place, maybe three within yards of that place and one where the kid got killed in a playground, with the police steps away.

Don't tell me it's the presence of police that's going to stop these things. My point is this, Congressman Meeks, this idiot, the man has said they're going to build a new precinct in Jamaica, Queens, and whatever in the greater Southeast Queens. When we still have kids going to school in trail wheels at PS 116, gyms are not open. I'm not anti-police. We have more police than in the history of policing in New York City if you count the numbers of police. Then, if you add what Cuomo is sending with the state troopers, we have enough police.

They're not being utilized properly. They're not made to do their job properly. You go by a police that's out and about sitting. Two in the police car both on their cell phone. They have work. They're like the people at McDonalds' when you go to order and somebody is checking their phone. I'm not coming down on them, but they go to work to work. It's a hard job. It's a job. We need accountability.

Brian: I hear you. They may say in some of those cell phone in the car instances, that they're overloaded with paperwork after every stop like many people would say about their jobs, but Craig, thank you for all of that. Jami, what are you thinking over the course of those last two callers?

Jami: Oh, my goodness. I want to give those two guys a show together, Craig and Jack. That was amazing. Boy, I can't respond to it all. It is interesting what he said about Congressman Meeks, wanting to put a new precinct in the district when we do have schools that are literally crumbling and we've done series about lead in schools and there's just so many other places we could put our resources.

We have 36,000 police officers in New York. That's a city in and of itself. Los Angeles only has 9,000 police officers, probably too few in Los Angeles, but probably too many here. There certainly could be, even if we don't completely defund the police a reorganization of our department to be more efficient, leaner perhaps, and not meaner, kinder I would say. I appreciated both calls. I found fascinating Jack's feelings about the police given that his brother is a police officer and that his interactions with police have been-- He could relate to what Black people are saying, even though he's a white man so that was quite fascinating and insightful.

Brian: He didn't like the attitude and he was coming from a patriarchy place. Makes me think of your friend and our frequent guest, Paul Butler, who we cited before., he had an article that we had on the show to talk about that, about how toxic masculinity is one of the underlying causes of what happened to George Floyd.

Jami: Yes. In fact, when Jack was talking, I pulled up that article. I'm glad you brought it up about toxic masculinity. As Jack said, you don't always have to prove that you're a tough guy. You don't always have to reach for your gun and we don't know what was going on in the mind of Derek Chauvin.

That is something that everyone has been talking about throughout the trial because state of mind was an issue in the trial, but as Jack was speaking, I thought about Paul's article, "Toxic masculinity and the death of George Floyd." Of course, you did a brilliant segment. People can listen to it, April 14th with Paul talking about that article, but that's precisely what Jack our caller is saying about both policing and the militarization of our police departments nationwide.

Brian: Jami citing the date of a past Brian Lehrer Show segment. We're going to take a short break and then we're going to ask Jami to put on her legal analyst hat because there are things that will happen in this case post the conviction of Derek Chauvin that we'll go over before we bring on our next guest. Brian Lehrer on WNYC

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC with our race justice editor and legal editor, Jami Floyd. Jami, the defense has already pretty much said that they will appeal these verdicts and you said on our special coverage last night that they have some grounds that are already apparent on which they will try. Can you go over some of that for us?

Jami: Sure. Of course, there was the tragic shooting of Dante Wright which complicated the matters inside this courtroom. Ironically, I do think the defense will argue interfered with Chauvin's right to a fair trial. It was also just from the beginning, one of those trials in American history that was horribly impossible for the defendant to get an impartial jury and we've had those cases over the course of our history.

I have a book here right on my shelf, Brian, at home, Great Trials in American History is a two-volume book. It's basically all of the trials that were hugely celebrated cases going back to the colonial era and in all of them, one of the issues is could the defendant possibly get a fair trial and a jury that was impartial?

That's an issue here and then we had people waiting into the case like Maxine Waters who felt the need to fly out and speak about unrest if there wasn't a conviction. Even President Biden weighing in, and that will certainly be raised on appeal, but I think the one successful ground that he might have is in the jury instructions themselves. The judge went, Brian, with an objective person standard. If you listened carefully, you and I talked about the instructions, I think it was yesterday, this all happened so quickly.

The Supreme Court, Brian, The US Supreme Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist has ruled that in police officer killings, the standard to be used is the reasonable police officer standard. The judge veered away from that a bit, arguably not enough for reversal, but the defense really wanted to use the language from that case, the Graham case. I think they're going to try and argue on appeal that that's an issue. We'll see where it goes, but I think that's their best issue on appeal.

Brian: With an appeal likely to come is the world, and is the Floyd family going to go through this all over again in a similar way in an appeals case at some point?

Jami: An appeals case is never as traumatic for the public as is the trial. It's not on TV, for example. Yes, it might get to the US Supreme Court. My guess is it will not be taken by the US Supreme Court. I think for the public we can exhale as a collective America, but certainly, for the Floyd family, it will continue to haunt them. They've lost George Floyd and there will be these stops and starts along the way.

Brian: Rebecca in Manhattan. You're on WNYC with Jami Floyd. Hi, Rebecca.

Rebecca: Oh, hi. I just wanted to mention something that's struck me that's interesting that perhaps you could comment on. We all remember the Rodney King beating. I really can't think of anything that was more graphic than those two cops. Maybe there were three, beating Rodney King with clubs, with sticks. It just went on forever, you would think he was dead. Of course, in that case, the cop got off.

The thing that really brought the Chauvin trial to everybody's attention was this sweet-- Not sweet, this short video or whatever taken by that young teenager. Everybody saw what Chauvin was doing, and it was just intolerable, but how many years have passed between Rodney King and this one? Maybe some difference has been made somewhere, I don't know. Just interesting that we've got to see both things the cop did or policeman, excuse me, and there were two totally different verdicts. So I don't know what that means.

If I may just say one more thing. Defunding the police, it seems to me that the police need much more money, they need regular counseling, that's got to be millions of dollars into their budget, so that every policeman no matter who and no matter what his beat, gets a regular time with some counselor, so that if there is something's going on with that fellow or that woman's life that might indicate they were-- They need more money, they need counseling, and they also need to be taught how to shoot better, to shoot to maim, but not to kill. These policemen are shooting to kill.

Brian: Rebecca, you put three big things on the table. I know that I've heard over and over again, Jami, tell me if you've heard differently, that there's no such thing as shooting to maim. You can't be that fine, and it's not how they're trained. On whether the police need more money or less money to do their jobs, well, obviously, that's a huge ongoing discussion in America. Let me go to her first point and see if you have a specific response to that. The Rodney King video and the verdict that it still allowed versus the Derek Chauvin video and the verdict that we saw yesterday, compare and contrast.

Jami: Right. I think I mentioned at the top of our conversation that I see distinct parallels between this case and the Rodney King case. I was a brand new right out of law school attorney when the Rodney King case happened. Then, of course, I think also about the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, now the John Lewis Bridge, those images, it's about the images that Americans see and respond to. The March on Selma, those photographs, very, very strategically placed by the civil rights activists, Dr. King, and John Lewis, and others in the New York Times and elsewhere, really started the civil rights movement, as did, of course, the open casket photos of Emmett Till.

Imagery, critically important to start a movement. Then, the Rodney King videotape, at a time when videotape was pretty new. Camcorders were new. That videotape, of course, those officers and I want to remind Rebecca, I think it was, that there wasn't one officer, there were four officers beating Rodney King, while others if you go back and look, you can watch on YouTube. Horrifically you can, others stood around as did these officers here stood around and did nothing, encouraged this beating.

The four officers who did the worst of the beating were put on trial and you are quite right, in 1992, the beating was in 1991. In 1992, they were acquitted because the trial was moved to an all-white County, Simi Valley in California. Most people and I agree, say that that decision secured their acquittal. Then, of course, the unrest, some people call them riots, uprising. Then, subsequently a federal conviction, the feds come in and convict the officers. That's the history there, but I agree entirely with the parallel, the visual of it, the horror of it, and the psychology that would allow these people to treat another human being again, Brian, as subhuman.

It goes to the psychology, what is going on in the minds of people? I wrote a post on media a while back called The Hunting, and I know it sounds hyperbolic, but it's not there. There's a hunting of Black men that goes on in this country, I believe it. I've kept a list of the Black men who've been killed, men specifically because I think it is different. White men hunting Black men, that's the psychology we're steeped in, in this country, and we have to break it. We have to break it, we have to talk about it. Why do we think this way about Black men? Why do white men fear and loath Black men as they do? It's so painful to talk about, but that is the conversation that has to be had?

Brian: Can you go one level deeper into that even? Because as you acknowledge, that's going to be a triggering word, and a lot of white people, especially are going to react to it and say, "Wait, even if police have a lot of implicit bias and act more aggressively against Black male suspects than they would against other suspects from other backgrounds because they see them as more threatening, or whatever it is, that's different than hunting, which has such a malicious sounding intentional sounding ring to it.

Jami: Right, but then why was Walter Scott shot in the back? I completely agree that sometimes you have to shoot to kill. If we're going to have police officers with guns, that's a big question right there. If we're going to have police officers with guns. We have a society steeped in guns, everybody's walking around with a gun, so I guess the cops have to have them too. There would be instances where they might have to shoot to kill because it's kill or be killed. Okay, so we'll put that aside, but why are you shooting the man in the back? What? Well, that's clearly hunting. What else is going on there? I'm sorry, but we have to call it what it is.

Policing goes back in many jurisdictions to slave catching, to Jim Crow, to The Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed police agency, sheriffs, to go up into the North, and find someone who had secured his freedom or her freedom, and bring them back to the plantation. That's what it was. We got to look at that history. We have to understand it, we have to embrace it.

By the way, here in New York, we are free of that history. We had slaves here in New York. There's a beautiful book written by Professor Harris about slavery in New York. She goes all the way back to the 1600s slavery in New York. Also, police engagement, and Wall Street engagement in the institution of slavery, and how much of New York is built on that institution. Historic Hudson Valley did a wonderful online exhibition about our legacy of slavery here in New York and in the Hudson Valley. We Northerners, we like to say, "Oh, New York, we had nothing to do with that. That was the South," but we did.

There is a culture steeped in America, steeped in this, and I say it to you Brian as the child of interracial marriage. My mother is white. I truly am not a racist. I want us to get along. Rodney King famously said, "Why can't we all just get along?" I am so with him on that. God rest his soul, but we can't just all get along, we have to have this conversation.

Brian: Yes, absolutely. Let me ask you one last thing, with your legal editor hat back on, following up on Rebecca's call, and here's a related tweet. Listener asks, "Can you touch on the subject of fraternity among police, what were the other three police doing when they saw what Chauvin was doing to George Floyd? Did they not see that Floyd was in distress? Why didn't they stop Chauvin?" That's the tweet. You told us last night there's going to be a separate trial this summer of those three officers, right?

Jami: Correct. I certainly can't speak for the officers and I'm not a police officer, so I can't even really speak to that fraternity. There was that documentary that won all the awards all those years ago, Thin Blue Line, but I don't know that that's what informed these officers. We will find out more when the three other officers facing charges in George Floyd's death will be tried together.

They're expected to be tried in August. That's the trial date that was set, and the judge is not severing their trials, he severed Chauvin's trial because he felt the other three couldn't get a fair trial if they were tied in the courtroom to Chauvin, but Tou Thao is one officer, Thomas Lane is the other, and J. Alexander Kueng are the third. You can see them all in the video at various points if you watch the video and they're all part with aiding--

Brian: Yes, you're answering the question. Sorry.

Jami: --aiding and abetting the second-degree murder and aiding, and abetting the second-degree manslaughter. Now, I do believe they'll ultimately also be charged with aiding and abetting the third-degree murder, the charge that was added on in the Chauvin case.

Brian: Aiding and abetting for not intervening?

Jami: Correct. As anyone can be charged with aiding and abetting a murder if you stand around and do nothing or if you engage in any supportive act. The judge and the prosecutors may add more charges, but that's what the charges are as of this moment.

Brian: WNYC legal editor and race and justice editor, Jami Floyd. As always, thanks so much.

Jami: Thank you, Brian.

 

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