Today on Boston Public Radio:
Throughout the show, we took listeners’ calls on the Derek Chauvin verdict.
Michael Curry shared his thoughts on the Chauvin verdict, urging that the fight for racial justice is not over. Curry is president and CEO of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers and a member of Gov. Charlie Baker’s COVID Vaccine Advisory Group. He’s also a member of the National NAACP Board of Directors and chair of the board’s Advocacy and Policy Committee.
Jamarhl Crawford talked about his work with Blackstonian and the Boston Police Reform Task Force and weighed in on how racial justice activists should continue their work. Crawford is a community activist, the publisher of Blackstonian and a member of the Boston Police Reform Task Force.
Rahsaan Hall explained how people may feel more emboldened to film police encounters due to the video evidence used in the Chauvin trial. He also talked about Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins’ decision to not prosecute low-level offenses. Hall is director of the Racial Justice Program at ACLU Massachusetts.
Juliette Kayyem argued for the elimination of elected law enforcement officials and a decrease in the number of police departments across the U.S. Kayyem is an analyst for CNN, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Andrea Cabral gave her legal analysis of the Chauvin verdict and discussed potential strategies that the defense teams representing the three other officers charged in George Floyd’s death might use in court. Cabral is the former Suffolk County sheriff and Massachusetts secretary of public safety. She’s currently CEO of the cannabis company Ascend.
The Revs. Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III shared their thoughts on whether Chauvin’s guilty verdict amounts to justice for George Floyd. They also talked about the generational trauma of police brutality and anti-Black violence. Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist, the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and a visiting researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at the Boston University School of Theology. Price is executive director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Together, they host GBH’s All Rev’d Up podcast.
