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For the second time this year, a jury in Minneapolis has ruled against a former police officer for killing a Black man.<\/p>\n
Like the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, the verdict on Thursday against Kimberly Potter on two counts of manslaughter for the shooting death of Daunte Wright during a traffic stop represented an unusual decision to send a police officer to prison.<\/p>\n
And yet, despite the two high-profile convictions in Minneapolis, a review of the data a year and a half after America\u2019s summer of protest shows that accountability for officers who kill remains elusive and that the sheer numbers of people killed in encounters with police have remained steady at an alarming level.<\/p>\n
The murder of Mr. Floyd on a Minneapolis street corner drew millions to the streets in protest and set off a national reassessment on race that touched almost every aspect of American life, from corporate boardrooms to sports nicknames. But on the core issues that set off the social unrest in the first place \u2014 police violence and accountability \u2014 very little has changed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Since Mr. Floyd\u2019s death in May of last year, 1,646 people have been killed by the police, or about three people per day on average, according to Mapping Police Violence, a nonprofit that tracks people killed by the police. Although murder or manslaughter charges against officers have increased this year, criminal charges, much less convictions, remain exceptionally rare.<\/p>\n
That underscores both the benefit of the doubt usually accorded law officers who are often making life-or-death decisions in a split second and the way the law and the power of police unions often protect officers, say activists and legal experts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The convictions of both Mr. Chauvin, the former Minneapolis officer who was captured on an excruciating bystander video pinning Mr. Floyd to the ground for more than nine minutes as he gasped for air, and Ms. Potter strike some experts as tantalizing glimpses of a legal system in flux. Ms. Potter\u2019s case, in particular, reflected the kind of split-second decision \u2014 she mistakenly used her gun instead of her Taser after Mr. Wright tried to flee an arrest \u2014 that jurors usually excuse even when something goes horribly wrong<\/p>\n
Chris Uggen, a sociology and law professor at the University of Minnesota, said that even though the number of people killed by police remained prevalent, high-profile cases could still send a message to the police. \u201cThe probability of punishment is not zero,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it moves the needle to some degree, and it can certainly affect the behaviors of police officers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
But many experts are reluctant to read too much into a few isolated cases carried out in the glare of media scrutiny.<\/p>\n
\u201cCriminal trials are not designed to be instruments of change,\u201d said Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a former prosecutor. \u201cCriminal trials are about bringing individual wrongdoers to justice. So while there have been high-profile prosecutions of police officers for killing Black people, that doesn\u2019t in and of itself lead to the kind of systemic reform that might reduce police violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philip M. Stinson, a criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, who tracks police criminal charges and convictions, said Ms. Potter was the first female police officer convicted of a murder or manslaughter charge in an on-duty shooting since 2005. He said he believed that the number of deaths from excessive police force was higher than what was recorded and reflected in news coverage.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany police officers exhibit a fear of Black people,\u201d he said. \u201cUntil we can address that, it is very difficult to bring about meaningful reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, a constitutional law professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said accountability also needed to be aimed at prosecutors who gave officers \u201ccarte blanche\u201d for a century until the recent show of public outrage. Change is not likely to come soon, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn these individual cases, justice won in the end,\u201d she said. \u201cBut there is a lot of work that still needs to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n