Stateside s conversation with Tracey Brame and Jennifer Cobbina.
Now that a jury in Minnesota has convicted Derek Chauvin on three counts for the murder of George Floyd, the United States has entered a new chapter in its national conversation about police and use of force. But how different will this chapter be from what’s come before and how much might change within the country’s criminal justice system and the violence it disproportionately enacts against Black Americans?
Tracey Brame, the associate dean for Western Michigan University’s Cooley Law School, says that while this wasn’t the first time the nation saw an image or video of Black death at the hands of police, the circumstances of Chauvin’s case raised the stakes in the country’s conversation about police brutality.