BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Elected officials and others responded to the guilty verdict in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin on Tuesday.
Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd by a Minnesota jury on Tuesday aftenoon.
Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins responded in a statement, saying "The road to equality is long and uneven, but there was justice today. I am grateful to my fellow prosecutors and for the police who testified against Derek Chauvin."
Rollins stressed that there was still other work to do.
"The police don't get to try, convict, sentence, and execute... and that is precisely what happened to George Floyd," she said at a press conference.
Acting Boston Mayor Kim Janey said she was "truly grateful" for the guilty verdict, but said "the conditions that led to so many senseless killings still exist."
"George Floyd's name now represents the urgency of racial reckoning and police reform across our country," she said.
Community Reaction
WBZ's Matt Shearer was in Nubian Square when the news of Chauvin's conviction broke. He talked to Al, a resident who was in tears as he heard the news.
"It's a beginning! After four hundred years of having my people's neck under the knee, we're beginning to make progress," he said.
Community Organizer Monica Cannon-Grant told WBZ's Suzanne Sausville that she's grateful for the verdict:
"It's about damn time...as much as I hate the criminal-industrial complex, I'm okay in this moment," she said.
But Cannon-Grant said that the country still has a lot of work to do to dismantle systemic racism. She'll be back in Nubian Square for a demonstration planned tomorrow.
WBZ's Suzanne Sausville (@wbzSausville) has more from Nubian Square:
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Written by Chaiel Schaffel
(Photo: Getty Images)