Justice has always been and remains elusive for victims of police violence, particularly for African Americans. We applaud the jury in the Derek Chauvin case for refusing to ignore overwhelming evidence against Officer Chauvin and for demonstrating that no one should be immune from legal accountability. Our thoughts are with the family of George Floyd who have had to relive the trauma that took his life through the course of this trial, and the countless other families who have lost loved ones to police violence.
This verdict, while welcome, cannot make up for the myriad cases of murder and assault by police officers who for too long have operated with impunity that allows the worst officers to prey upon the most vulnerable among us. We applaud local officials and advocates for their work on reforms to ensure a system that truly centers public safety and justice. And we will continue to support efforts to fundamentally restructure relations between governments and the communities they serve to reimagine law enforcement to reduce the damage policing has done and help communities heal. America will never know true equality until structural racism is eradicated.
—Alexander Soros, Deputy Chair of the Open Society Foundations