Bearing Witness

There will be plenty of people weighing in on the guilty verdict of the police officer who knelt on the neck of George Floyd for over 9 minutes.  I was driving home yesterday afternoon, and I heard the verdicts read live, in the non-excited voice of the judge.   I confess I was surprised.  I expected one guilty verdict, not three.

There will still be interactions with the police, and so many of them will be violent.  Some of them will be filmed, and some of that film will give us insights.  But will anything change?

I began the work day by getting students settled and then signing up to speak at the Broward County Commission meeting.  Then I needed to stay on the phone line, since it wasn't clear when our issue would come up.  I could do other work, of course, and I did.  My church is working to bring more supportive housing units to our county--more of this type of housing helps not only with the homeless issue, but also supports people with mental health issues, which means in the best case scenario, less people in jails, less violent encounters with the police.

I wish I could tell you that I spoke eloquently and that the Commission voted to fund even more units than we asked for.  But when one commissioner saw the cost of the request, he moved to have the issue moved to a budget workshop so that the commission could figure out how to fund it.  And all the waiting on hold was for nothing, as they went on to other issues that didn't cost money.

My hope is that our issue will be taken seriously as commissioners figure out the budget, that as they have seen us register to speak across 2 meetings now, they will do more for the less fortunate members of our community.  Perhaps we could have all the developers of luxury properties make a contribution to provide for supportive housing and the other elements that we need to make our communities safer for all.

In fact, we could go in all sorts of directions.  Will there be leadership?  Will there be follow through?  Are we still able to dream?  The 29 people on the phone waiting to testify to the county commission yesterday might have helped persuade the commissioners to do so.  Time will tell.

I have no doubt that we would have seen a different verdict in the police officer's trial if the teenager with a smart phone hadn't recorded the encounter.  Sometimes, bearing witness is important.  Sometimes it makes a difference.  In this case, it didn't save George Floyd's life, but maybe it will make the world safer.

Eventually.