OPINION | The Multnomah County district attorney says he’ll keep doing what he can to make a difference, and so will you
Mike Schmidt is the Multnomah County district attorney.
Like many of us throughout Oregon and the nation, I’m having a hard time both watching and not watching the trial of Officer Derek Chauvin.
As a prosecutor, I can’t help but be drawn to it, arguably the most prominent prosecution of a law enforcement officer since the trial of the officers who assaulted Rodney King in 1991. At the same time, it’s hard not to close my eyes against the enormity of the tragedy involved.
I’ll be honest: I lay awake at night thinking about the ramifications of an acquittal, the pain and anger it could understandably and justifiably unleash, and what that could mean for cities across America, including Portland. But I wonder almost as much about the meaning of a conviction, for who we are as a nation, for our process of healing and moving forward.
I fear that it won’t mean enough. It’ll mean that 12 people made one decision, one time, one way or another. But it won’t mean that the system has changed. It does not signify an arrival, or an invitation to relax, or to turn away and move on to other matters. It will not, by itself, protect the next George Floyd. It will not find justice for Breonna Taylor or Daunte Wright, or the many, many others who did not make the news. It will serve to remind us only of the tremendous gulf between where we are and where we truly must be.
As a white man who has not experienced police violence, who has not lost family members to police violence, and who does not come from a community which has experienced the impact of disproportionate policing, it is not my place to describe the pain that this national moment is bringing. The best that other elected leaders and I can hope to do is to make space for healing and the regrowth of trust, and to recognize the unaccountable trauma that we have inflicted — and are continuing to inflict — on our Black and brown communities through our failure to deliver the changes that would allow the mother of a Black or brown teenager to stop worrying about the possibility of violence being visited on them every time they walk out the door.
The recognition that this journey toward equity hasn’t ended — is not ending — is heartbreaking and exhausting. I will keep doing what I can to attack the structures that I believe continue to drive the inequities of our system — things like the use of cash bail, the reliance on mandatory minimum sentences and the criminalization of race and poverty. You will continue to hold your elected leaders accountable to the changes they’ve promised and that you deserve, no matter what happens tomorrow.
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