A verdict has been reached in the high-profile trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is accused of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.After hearing closing arguments Monday, the 12-member jury – comprising six white people and six people who are Black or multiracial — met to discuss the process of working toward a verdict, which is expected to be announced shortly.President Biden, during a meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the Oval Office, said that he is ‘praying the verdict is the right verdict’ in the trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Dereck Chauvin. “I’m praying the verdict is the right verdict,” Biden said during an Oval Office meeting with Latino lawmakers. “I think it’s overwhelming in my view. I wouldn’t say that unless the jury was sequestered now.”As the case nears its end, authorities in Minneapolis are bracing for possible street protests after the verdict. Many stores are boarded up to prevent a recurrence of the damage and looting that took place after Floyd’s death almost a year ago. “We cannot allow civil unrest to descend into chaos. We must protect life and property,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said Monday. “But we also must understand very clearly, if we don’t listen to those communities in pain and those people on the streets, many of whom were arrested for speaking a fundamental truth that we must change, or we will be right back here again.”Protests, some of them violent, broke out in many cities in the United States and throughout the world after Floyd’s death. The Black Lives Matter movement was at the forefront of the demonstrations, but thousands of people who had no previous connection to the Black-led protests joined in to condemn Chauvin’s actions, and more broadly, police treatment of minorities.The same issues raised by Floyd’s death came to the forefront in the community again when a now-resigned police officer in a Minneapolis suburb fatally shot a 20-year-old African American man during a traffic stop on April 11.
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