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      A Minnesota Candidate Went Into Labor During Her Convention Speech

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      The pause, three minutes into a candidate’s speech about the toll of climate change, the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd, was not just for rhetorical effect.Erin Maye Quade had been making her case for why she should receive her party’s endorsement to represent the Minneapolis suburbs in the State Senate when she started having contractions.“Excuse me,” said Ms. Maye Quade, grimacing as she put her hand on her belly. She had opened her speech with the disclosure: “So they broke the news that I’m in labor, yeah?”Ms. Maye Quade completed her convention floor speech and a question-and-answer session that followed. She was trailing after the first round of voting and she withdrew from the proceedings to seek medical care. The convention, held by the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party on April 23 in Rosemount, Minn., carried on without Ms. Maye Quade, 36, a former state representative.The party’s treatment of Ms. Maye Quade, who gave birth to a girl about 10 days before her scheduled due date, drew intense criticism as several videos of Ms. Maye Quade’s speech ricocheted across the internet.Those seeking to empower female candidates faulted party officials and Ms. Maye Quade’s male opponent, Justin Emmerich, for not suspending the proceedings — a move that Mr. Emmerich told The Star Tribune he would have supported.He declined a request for comment on Friday, and Ms. Maye Quade wasn’t available for an interview. Reached briefly by phone, she said she had just returned home from the hospital.Emma McBride, a political director of Women Winning, a Minnesota campaign organization that endorsed Ms. Maye Quade, said in an interview on Friday that she was troubled by the scene.“While we were in awe of her strength, it was horrifying to watch a woman go through this vulnerable experience while nobody with the power to do so stepped in to put an end to it,” Ms. McBride said.Ms. Maye Quade, who had been seeking to become the first Black woman and first openly gay woman elected to the State Senate in Minnesota, hasn’t said whether she will run in a primary against Mr. Emmerich in August. The candidates who receive their party’s endorsement during the convention in the spring — marathon proceedings decided by party stalwarts — typically gain an upper hand for the primaries, when nominations are at stake. There is no requirement for candidates to be present while voting takes place on an endorsement, according to the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.The party referred questions on the matter on Friday to local convention officials, who said in a statement that they put the endorsement session for Senate earlier on the schedule at Ms. Maye Quade’s request.“For reasons of fairness, our convention chairs cannot unilaterally close or delay the endorsement process,” the statement said. “If a delegate had wanted to postpone the endorsement, they could have made a motion for postponement, which the convention would have then voted on. No such motion was made.”Created in the 1940s when the Minnesota Democrats merged with the Farmer-Labor Party, the party said it was “committed to ensuring as many people as possible can participate in our convention and endorsement process.”At the end of Ms. Maye Quade’s eight-minute speech, it took another 20 minutes to get through a question-and-answer session and an additional 30 minutes to finish the first round of voting, Ms. McBride said. When it became clear that Mr. Emmerich was leading but had not reached the 60 percent threshold required to clinch the party’s endorsement, Ms. McBride said, Ms. Maye Quade asked to suspend the proceedings and move to a primary.“Erin was expected to grin and bear it, as Black women are so often expected to do in the face of injustice,” Ms. McBride said, adding: “That sends a direct message to women and particularly women of color of where they fall on the priority list.” More

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      Republican Royce White isn’t the average jock turned politician

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      Republican Royce White isn’t the average jock turned politicianWhile the 30-year-old’s self-determined streak might have cost him a lucrative NBA career, he has a decent shot at being elected to Congress It appears the US has entered the age of the jock politician. First ex-Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville wins a US Senate seat in Alabama. Then Heisman trophy winner Herschel Walker kicks off his own Senate run in Georgia. And now former NBA player Royce White jumps into the fray as the Republican challenger to Ilhan Omar in Minnesota’s 5th congressional district.After going public with his candidacy from the steps of Minneapolis’ Federal Reserve, White, 30, published a 3,500-word open letter rallying Black voters away from the leftist “plantation” and their “globalist” agenda while heading off opposition research into his legacy of legal trouble, his personal debts and unpaid child support allegations, and his overall mental fitness. He made sure to address the letter to “Democrats”, dismissing Omar and her ilk as bought and paid for while promoting himself as a populist. In between he invoked God, raged against Big Tech and its overlords and, well, came off more than just a little unfocused. “You motherfuckers don’t own me,” he wrote, hitting back at the tech bros. “You don’t own my mind. I will die for the rights and freedoms that this nation’s constitution affords me before I see myself, my family or my countrymen returned to chains. Your arrogance and petulance insults me to my core.”His political ambitions, while certainly bold, aren’t entirely out of bounds. White is a longtime friend of the conservative movement and Omar, his opponent in the upcoming election, is a progressive Muslim who is a favourite target for the right. White has also appeared as a guest on Steve Bannon’s show and Donald Trump’s former strategist was one of the first prominent Republicans to endorse his run for Congress.But the 6ft 8in White didn’t exactly maintain a low profile even before he started his political career. After being voted Minnesota’s 2009 ‘Mr Basketball’, an honor reserved for the state’s standout high school prospect, White signed on for the University of Minnesota but never played after pleading guilty to shoplifting and assaulting a mall cop. After his second semester he transferred – “reluctantly” he says – to Iowa State, where he proved to be an analytic nerd’s dream: the only player in the country to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks.After posting 23 points, nine rebounds, four assists and three steals in a loss to eventual champion Kentucky in the 2012 NCAA tournament, White declared for the draft and was selected 16th by Houston. Whatever concerns NBA teams had about White keeping his head down were confirmed when he made his appearance in training camp contingent on the league adopting some form of mental health policy and the Rockets making allowances for travel.At Iowa State, he had relied on Xanax and Benadryl to cope when the team flew to games and had hoped to manage the NBA’s far more intense flight schedule by taking the bus when possible. And despite the Rockets accommodating him, White remained at odds with Houston and was eventually traded to Philadelphia in 2013. When he no-showed on the Sixers, they cut him after three months. The following season White resurfaced with the Sacramento Kings on a pair of 10-day contracts. His NBA debut – a home game against San Antonio – lasted 56 seconds and saw him record no significant statistics. Two games later, after fewer than 10 minutes played all together, he was out of the league once again.But that wasn’t the end of White’s athletic career. He played professionally in Canada, dabbled in MMA and popped up again on the basketball radar when he was picked first in the BIG3’s 2019 draft. When he wasn’t being ejected for tussling with Josh Smith, he was tarrying on court to bring attention to the plight of the Uyghurs and working behind the scenes to help shape the BIG3’s mental health safety net. Before Kevin Love, Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles were being celebrated for prioritizing their mental health, White was being pilloried for the same thing. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, White emerged as a prominent figure in anti-racism protests.All of this is to say White hardly fits the profile of the jock Republican. Unlike Tuberville he’s not an out-of-touch entitlement seeker. (An advocate for financial fair play, White wrote another open letter encouraging NBA players to start their own bank.) Unlike Walker he not only doesn’t run from his mental health challenges, but can ably articulate them. And as the pandemic has plunged the US into deeper denial about its collective mental health, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone in Congress making more noise about this. Sadly for this country, civil discourse is much too broad for nuanced and practical discussions about anxiety, depression and the overhaul the US health system would need to even moderately address these issues. And so far White doesn’t seem to possess the discipline for that debate. (Did I mention his open letter was 3,500 words?) But that’s not to say he doesn’t have a chance of getting elected.Name recognition goes a long way in Minnesota, an electorate that’s more fawning of celebrity than it definitely cares to admit. This is a state that sent Saturday Night Live alum Al Franken to the Senate and had ex-wrestler Jesse Ventura for a governor. Most likely, if voters hold anything against White, it’s him not logging a meaningful second for the Gophers. His stubborn self-determined streak might have cost White a lucrative NBA career. But those same traits that crushed his hoops dream would well lift him to dizzying heights in an entirely new game.TopicsNBABasketballRepublicansUS sportsMinnesotaIlhan OmarUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Jim Hagedorn, a Trump Ally in the House, Dies at 59

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      A two-term Minnesota conservative, he backed efforts to overturn the election of Joseph Biden as president on spurious grounds of voter fraud.Representative Jim Hagedorn, a second-term Minnesota Republican who was a staunch ally of former President Donald J. Trump and who joined with other members of his party in seeking to overturn the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr., died on Thursday. He was 59. His wife, Jennifer Carnahan Hagedorn, the former chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, announced the death on Facebook. She did not specify the cause or say where he died. He had long been public about his three-year struggle with cancer and announced in January that he had tested positive for Covid-19.Mr. Hagedorn was diagnosed with stage IV kidney cancer in 2019, shortly after he was sworn in as a first-term member of the House of Representatives. He underwent immunotherapy treatment at the Mayo Clinic, and doctors removed the affected kidney in December 2020. He said at the time that 99 percent of the cancer was gone, but he announced in July that it had returned.Mr. Hagedorn had run for a House seat three times without success, in 2010, 2014 and 2016, when he lost by a hair to the incumbent, the Democrat Tim Walz. In 2018, after Mr. Walz left to run successfully for governor, Mr. Hagedorn narrowly won his seat in a race against the Democrat Dan Feehan.In a rematch against Mr. Feehan in 2020, Mr. Hagedorn won by a slightly larger margin, despite his health issues, and was raising money in anticipation of a re-election campaign in November.“He’ll forever be known as a common sense conservative who championed fair tax policy, American energy independence, peace through strength foreign policy and southern Minnesota’s way of life and values,” his campaign said in a statement.Throughout his short tenure in office, Republicans were in the minority in the House. All the while, Mr. Hagedorn remained a strong conservative, worked on behalf of small businesses and rural entrepreneurs, and stood as an ally of Mr. Trump, who won Mr. Hagedorn’s district in 2016 by 15 percentage points.“I’ve said repeatedly since 2016 that of course I support Donald Trump,” Mr. Hagedorn told the Minnesota newspaper The Star Tribune in 2019, “because I felt like if he’d lost, we’d have lost the country.”In December 2020, Mr. Hagedorn was one of 126 Republican members of the House who filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn the election of Mr. Biden as president, a brief based on spurious and disproved allegations of widespread voter fraud. The court rejected the suit, which had sought to throw out the election results in four battleground states.Just hours after the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by a mob of Trump supporters, Mr. Hagedorn was among 147 Republicans who objected to certifying Mr. Biden’s election.“There was no stronger conservative in our state than my husband,” his wife wrote in her statement, “and it showed in how he voted, led and fought for our country.”Mr. Hagedorn, right, was on hand when President Donald J. Trump arrived in Minneapolis in 2018. At center was Dave Hughes, a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. Tom Brenner for The New York TimesJames Lee Hagedorn was born on Aug. 4, 1962, in Blue Earth, Minn., near the Iowa border. His father, Tom Hagedorn, was a U.S. House member and represented some of the same southern Minnesota territory as his son later did. His mother, Kathleen (Mittlestadt) Hagedorn, was a homemaker.Jim was raised on the family farm near Truman, Minn., and in McLean, Va., while his father served in Congress, from 1975 to 1983.He graduated from George Mason University in Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in government and political science in 1993. While a student, he worked as a legislative aide to Representative Arlan Stangeland, another Minnesota Republican. He later worked as a congressional liaison at the Treasury Department and as the congressional affairs officer for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing until 2009.During the early 2000s, Mr. Hagedorn wrote a blog called “Mr. Conservative,” which has since been deleted. His posts took aim at Native Americans, gay people and women, among others.In 2005, when President George W. Bush nominated a woman, the White House counsel Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court (she ultimately withdrew her name), Mr. Hagedorn described her nomination as an effort “to fill the bra of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.”The blog posts resurfaced during Mr. Hagedorn’s unsuccessful run for the House in 2014; he told The Star Tribune that they were old and had been satirical in nature. They surfaced again in 2018, when he won the seat chiefly by proclaiming his loyalty to Mr. Trump.Complete information on his survivors was not available.The final piece of legislation that Mr. Hagedorn introduced, on Feb. 9, was a resolution to place a national debt clock in the House chamber.“The American people deserve full transparency about this nation’s fiscal affairs,” he said, “and this resolution will be a strong reminder to lawmakers as they vote on proposals that could put our country further in debt.” More

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      Judge Says States Can Investigate WinRed’s Fund-Raising Tactics

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      The Republican digital donation platform is facing inquiries from four state attorneys general into its use of prechecked boxes to withdraw donations automatically.A federal judge in Minnesota on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by WinRed, a company that processes online donations for Republicans, that sought to block state attorneys general from investigating fund-raising tactics that have triggered complaints of fraud.The attorneys general from four states — New York, Minnesota, Maryland and Connecticut — first sent letters to WinRed last April, asking for documents after a New York Times investigation revealed the company’s use of prechecked boxes to automatically enroll donors in recurring contribution programs. The boxes resulted in a surge in demands for refunds from supporters of former President Donald J. Trump.WinRed declined to provide the documents and instead went to federal court to argue that federal law should pre-empt any state-level consumer investigations. Chief Judge John R. Tunheim of the U.S. District Court in Minnesota ruled against the company on Wednesday.Judge Tunheim dismissed WinRed’s attempt to stop the attorneys general investigating outside Minnesota, ruling that he did not have jurisdiction. He ruled in favor of the Minnesota attorney general, Keith Ellison, writing that federal law would not pre-empt a state inquiry.“The court has confirmed an important principle that has nothing to do with politics: State attorneys general can use the laws and investigatory tools of their states to protect the consumers of their states from harm, deception, and abuse,” Mr. Ellison said.Judge Tunheim also denied a request to block a subpoena from the attorneys general, which was issued last July 16, shortly after WinRed went to federal court, according to the ruling issued on Wednesday.“WinRed will appeal,” the company said in an emailed statement.WinRed has argued that the attorneys general, all Democrats, are politically motivated. However, the four also sent a similar request for documents last year to ActBlue, the leading Democratic donation-processing platform. ActBlue said on Wednesday that it had also received a subpoena and that it had shared the requested information.After the ruling Wednesday, Attorney General Brian Frosh of Maryland urged WinRed to cooperate with the inquiry.“Now that its case has been dismissed, it is our hope that WinRed moves from a strategy of attack, attack, attack and cooperates in the investigation of allegations that it deceived consumers around the nation,” he said in a statement.New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, said, “It’s their responsibility to be honest and transparent with their services, and it’s the responsibility of the states to fight back against deceptive behavior in all its forms.”In the fall of 2020, the Trump campaign used prechecked boxes to get a donor’s permission to withdraw extra donations every week — then obscured that fact below extra text unrelated to the additional withdrawals. In the following weeks and months, demands for refunds increased sharply as supporters said they were duped into unwitting contributions.All told, the Trump operation, working with the Republican Party, refunded more than 10 percent of every dollar raised through WinRed in the 2020 campaign — a rate more than four times that of the Democrat Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s operation.The bipartisan Federal Election Commission voted unanimously last year to recommend that Congress outlaw the practice of prechecked recurring donation boxes. Legislation has since been introduced in both the House and the Senate.Kitty Bennett contributed research. More

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      Minneapolis votes on whether to replace police department

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      MinnesotaMinneapolis votes on whether to replace police department Future of policing is on the ballot in the city where Floyd’s death in May 2020 launched a nationwide reckoning on racial justice Associated Press in MinneapolisTue 2 Nov 2021 08.51 EDTVoters in Minneapolis will decide on Tuesday whether to replace their police department with a new Department of Public Safety, more than a year after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer launched a national movement to defund or abolish police. ‘I had a big gasp’: George Floyd jurors speak on the trial, the video and the verdictRead moreThe Democratic mayor, Jacob Frey, is also in a tough fight for a second term, facing opponents who attacked him in the wake of Floyd’s death.Frey opposed the policing amendment. Two of his leading challengers in a field of 17, Sheila Nezhad and Kate Knuth, strongly supported the proposal. Voters will also decide whether to replace an unusual “weak mayor, strong council” system with a more conventional distribution of executive and legislative powers.While results on the ballot questions were expected on Tuesday night, the mayoral race uses ranked-choice voting. If no candidate reaches 50% in the first round, the winner will be determined after a tally of second- and potentially third-choice votes. The future of policing in the city where Floyd’s death in May 2020 launched a nationwide reckoning on racial justice overshadowed everything else on the ballot. The debate brought national attention as well as out-of-state money seeking to influence a contest that could shape changes in policing elsewhere. The proposed amendment to the city charter would remove language that mandates Minneapolis have a police department with a minimum number of officers based on population. It would be replaced by a new Department of Public Safety that would take a “comprehensive public health approach to the delivery of functions” that “could include” police officers “if necessary, to fulfill its responsibilities for public safety”. Supporters of the change argued that an overhaul is necessary to stop police violence, to re-imagine what public safety can be and to devote more funding to approaches that don’t rely on sending armed officers to deal with people in crisis. But opponents said the ballot proposal contained no plan for how the department would operate and expressed fear it might make communities affected by gun violence more vulnerable. The details, and who would lead the new agency, would be determined by the mayor and the council. Two prominent progressives – Ilhan Omar, who represents the Minneapolis area, and state attorney general Keith Ellison – supported the policing amendment. But some leading mainstream liberals, including Governor Tim Walz and Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, opposed it, fearing backlash could lead to Democratic losses across the US in 2022. Opponents included several Black leaders, some top voices in the police accountability movement. Minister JaNae Bates, a spokeswoman for the pro-amendment campaign, told reporters that even if the proposal fails, it has changed the conversation. “No matter what happens,” Bates said, “the city is going to have to move forward and really wrestle with what we cannot un-know: that the Minneapolis police department has been able to operate with impunity and has done quite a bit of harm and the city has to take some serious steps to rectify that.”TopicsMinnesotaGeorge FloydUS politicsUS policingRacenewsReuse this content More

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      Minnesota politician backs fundraiser for alleged Capitol attackers

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      US Capitol attackMinnesota politician backs fundraiser for alleged Capitol attackersRepublican state senator Mark Koran encourages donations to family after four members charged in 6 January riot Victoria Bekiempis in New YorkSat 23 Oct 2021 10.57 EDTLast modified on Sat 23 Oct 2021 10.59 EDTA Minnesota politician has promoted a fundraiser for several constituents who are charged with participation in the deadly 6 January attack on the US Capitol, saying they come from a “good family”.The Republican state senator Mark Koran, who represents the town of Lindström, made this entreaty for the Westbury family in a Facebook post on Friday.Four members of the Westbury family are accused of participating in the insurrection, comprising half of all Minnesotans charged for alleged involvement.“Here’s a local family in Lindström who can use some help. They attended the Jan 6th Rally and have been accused and charged with a variety of crimes. Some very serious and some which seem to be just to punish opposing views,” Koran wrote. “All I’m asking is that they need assistance to mount a fair defense from an over bearing Dept of Justice. They are a good family!”It’s not clear whether Koran is calling the storming of Congress, when thousands broke in, attempting to stop lawmakers certifying Joe Biden’s victory over Trump, simply a “rally” or whether he is conflating the riot with the rally held prior near the White House, at which Trump urged his supporters to march on the Capitol and try to overturn the election result.More than 50 police officers were injured as they tried to stop the riot, some beaten and seriously hurt. Five people died during the storming, including a police officer. About 500 people have been charged in connection with the events. Donald Trump was impeached for a historic second time, charged with inciting the insurrection, although he was acquitted by the Senate.House Capitol attack committee votes to recommend Steve Bannon prosecutionRead moreWashington DC federal prosecutors charged Robert Westbury, Isaac Westbury, and Aaron James, alleging crimes such as assault on Capitol police officers and interfering with government operations.The charges against them came in early October, about six months after another relative, Jonah Westbury, was charged for his alleged participation in the riot, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.The online fundraiser was launched by Rosemarie Westbury, who claims to be Robert Westbury’s wife and the mother of these other three men.The fundraiser is called “Legal Fees 4 family fighting tyranny 4 you” and is posted on GiveSendGo, which bills itself as a Christian fundraising site. The Star Tribune appears to have first reported on Koran’s support of this fundraiser.“First amendment, second amendment, right to privacy have been ripped away from our peaceful law abiding family. A million people attended January 6th for one purpose, and one purpose only to pray,” she wrote.“My family is being targeted by this illigitimate (sic), tyrannical government…Please understand that we are the forerunners….What’s happening to us is coming to a Theatre near you,” she said, later writing: “We have an attorney who is willing to stand up for us, but this isn’t going to be an inexpensive endeavor.”She hopes to raise $50,000. By Saturday morning, the fundraiser had received more than $1,000. The Guardian has contacted the senator and the fundraising site.Reached by phone on Saturday morning, Rosemarie Westbury said: “I don’t know how the Guardian is – I don’t know if you’re good guys or bad guys, so I don’t know what to say,” and deferred comment to an attorney, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.TopicsUS Capitol attackMinnesotaUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      George Floyd: will Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict change US policing?

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      Oliver Laughland, the Guardian’s US southern bureau chief, covered the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd on Tuesday – a landmark moment in US criminal justice history. Oliver looks at what the verdict means for America

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      Former police officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted of murder for killing George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes, a crime that prompted waves of protests in support of racial justice in the US and across the world. The jury swiftly and unanimously convicted Chauvin on Tuesday of all the charges he faced – second- and third-degree murder, and manslaughter – after concluding that the white former Minneapolis police officer killed the 46-year-old Black man in May through a criminal assault, by pinning him to the ground so he could not breathe. Anushka Asthana talks to the Guardian’s US southern bureau chief, Oliver Laughland, who has been in Minneapolis covering the trial. He discusses the case and whether the verdict will usher in police reforms. On Wednesday, US attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced that the Department of Justice would investigate the practices of the Minneapolis Police Department. More

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      in US Politics

      Derek Chauvin verdict: ex-police officer found guilty of George Floyd’s murder – live

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      Key events

      Show

      5.08pm EDT
      17:08

      Chauvin guilty of manslaughter

      5.07pm EDT
      17:07

      Chauvin guilty of third-degree murder

      5.07pm EDT
      17:07

      Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder

      4.25pm EDT
      16:25

      Jurors reached verdict after nine hours of deliberations

      3.38pm EDT
      15:38

      Verdict reached in Derek Chauvin murder trial

      Live feed

      Show

      5.50pm EDT
      17:50

      At a press conference after Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict was read, Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General, has thanked the community for giving his prosecutors the opportunity to pursue the case. Ellison has emphasized, however, that more work must be done.
      “I want to thank the community for giving us that time, and allowing us to do that work,” he says. “That long, hard, painstaking work has culminated today.”
      “I would not call today’s verdict justice, however, because justice implies true restoration, but it is accountability—which is the first step towards justice.”
      “George Floyd mattered,” he says. “He was loved by his family and his friends. His death shocked the conscience of our community, our country, the whole world,” Ellison also says. “But that isn’t why he mattered. He mattered because he was a human being.”
      “This has to end, we need to justice,” Ellison later says.
      “This verdict reminds us that we must make enduring enduring, systemic, societal change.”

      5.38pm EDT
      17:38

      The Council on American-Islamic Relations’s Minnesota chapter has commented on Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict.
      Jaylani Hussein, CAIR Minnesota’s executive director, says in a statement: “We are encouraged by the jury’s decision to convict Derek Chauvin. It is by no means the end of our efforts to build a more just and equitable Minnesota and nation, but it is an important milestone on our journey and a step to healing deep, generational traumas.”
      “While today’s verdict is encouraging, it does not diminish the urgency with which we must continue our efforts to combat the epidemic of police violence in our communities,” Hussein’s statement says. “George Floyd received justice today in that courtroom, now we must continue advocating for justice for all, everywhere: in the legislature, where we’re fighting to pass bills to increase police oversight and end qualified immunity, in our own communities, where we come together to heal and build trust and mutual understanding, and in the streets, where every day we are organizing, marching, and strengthening our movement.”
      By the way, here’s a recap on what the charges meant:

      The Recount
      (@therecount)
      Here’s a rundown of what the prosecution has to prove to convict Chauvin of three charges: pic.twitter.com/RbQnh4mXol

      April 20, 2021

      Updated
      at 5.45pm EDT

      5.35pm EDT
      17:35

      We now have a pool report detailing the scene inside Judge Peter Cahill’s courtroom for the verdict in Derek Chauvin’s case.
      Philonise Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, was sitting “with his head bowed and his hands folded in front of his face, perhaps in prayer,” prior to the reading of the verdict.
      Cahill enters the courtroom around 4:04 pm local time. The jurors walk in, “all looking serious, none appearing teary,” per the pool report. As Cahill reads the verdict, which found Chauvin guilty on all counts, the former Minneapolis police officer “stares at the empty witness podium.”
      Cahill ultimately thanks jurors for “heavy duty jury service” and they leave. Chauvin stands, hands “hands clasped behind his back.” When a deputy handcuffs Chauvin, he doesn’t resist.
      Philonise Floyd hugs prosecutor Jerry Blackwell, Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison, and the other prosecutors, the pool report says.
      Here is a tweet from Keith Boykin, which speaks for itself.

      Keith Boykin
      (@keithboykin)
      Derek Chauvin handcuffed. pic.twitter.com/D0KoTJllE6

      April 20, 2021

      Updated
      at 5.38pm EDT

      5.23pm EDT
      17:23

      The Guardian’s Lois Beckett is outside the Minneapolis courthouse where Judge Peter Cahill just announced a guilty verdict in Derek Chauvin’s murder case.
      Beckett reports that the crowd has shouted “Guilty!” once news emerged. There have been huge cheers, with people shouting “Yes!”
      The crowd has chanted “George Floyd!” and “all three counts!” People have been screaming and crying.
      “Whose victory? Our victory” the crowd has chanted. Cars driving by have honked their horns in celebration.
      “Don’t let anyone tell you protest doesn’t work,” a man has told the crowd through a bullhorn.

      5.17pm EDT
      17:17

      The attorneys for George Floyd’s family have released statements following the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
      Attorney Ben Crump commented: “Painfully earned justice has arrived for George Floyd’s family and the community here in Minneapolis, but today’s verdict goes far beyond this city and has significant implications for the country and even the world. Justice for Black America is justice for all of America. This case is a turning point in American history for accountability of law enforcement and sends a clear message we hope is heard clearly in every city and every state.”
      “Today’s verdict is so critical in that it not only holds Derek Chauvin accountable for his horrific actions, but it reinforces significant police reforms underway in Minneapolis including use-of-force reporting, a requirement to keep body-worn cameras on, and a policy for officers to de-escalate non-threatening encounters by disengaging or walking away. Now we call on Minnesota state lawmakers to pass ” said attorney Antonio M. Romanucci.
      Attorney L. Chris Stewart said: “Today the world had its hope and faith restored in the American justice system. All that people crave is accountability when an officer kills a Black American. For far too long that had never happened. Now George Floyd’s soul can finally rest in peace. Justice has been served.”
      Lawyer Jeff Storms similarly stated: “The impact of George Floyd’s death on Minneapolis is impossible to explain, but today’s verdict is an important step toward healing. The community here has struggled to create accountability for officers who have used excessive force over many years and too many lives and caused so much pain and suffering. This jury has sent a clear and direct message that this can never happen again.”

      5.11pm EDT
      17:11

      Derek Chauvin was directed out of the courtroom in handcuffs moments after the guilty verdict was read in his murder case.

      5.10pm EDT
      17:10

      Derek Chauvin has been remanded in the custody of the Hennepin County Sheriff.

      5.08pm EDT
      17:08

      Chauvin guilty of manslaughter

      Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter.

      Updated
      at 5.10pm EDT

      5.07pm EDT
      17:07

      Chauvin guilty of third-degree murder

      Derek Chauvin was found guilty of third-degree murder.

      Updated
      at 5.10pm EDT

      5.07pm EDT
      17:07

      Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder

      Derek Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree unintentional murder.

      Updated
      at 5.10pm EDT

      5.05pm EDT
      17:05

      The judge in Derek Chauvin’s murder trial has taken the bench. We expect the verdict will be read momentarily. More