The business of sports merchandise can be quite lucrative, particularly in the NFL. Some fans of the sport are prepared to pay a staggering amount to get their favorite player’s signature on an item.
American Gambler have done some analysis to work out what are the most expensive items in history and which player, past or present, can boast the tag of ‘Most Valuable Signature’.
Joe Namath Claims The League’s Top Prize Again
Former New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath was the Most Valuable Player at Super Bowl III, he can now claim the tag of ‘Most Valuable Signature’. A signed jersey from ‘Broadway Joe’ has sold for $61,036.08, the highest on record for an item.
Namath, who retired from the NFL in 1977 following a spell for the St Louis Rams, still tops the list ahead of Tom Brady, who is the highest active player on the list. The recent Super Bowl winner’s signed jersey once sold for $36,030.69.
A man died hours after being shot Sunday in East Garfield Park on the West Side.
About 7:10 p.m., the 32-year-old was in the 600 block of North Spaulding Avenue when someone opened fire, striking him multiple times, Chicago police said.
The man was identified as Carl Taylor Jr. by the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:37 a.m. Monday, according to the medical examiner’s office. An autopsy ruled his death a homicide.
No arrests have been reported. Area Four detectives are investigating.
A person is in custody after a woman was fatally shot Monday in south suburban Harvey.
Officers responded to a call of shots fired Monday afternoon in the area of 159th Street and Gauger Avenue and found the woman with two gunshot wounds, city officials said.
The woman was taken to Ingalls Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 5:37 p.m., the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
She was identified as Alexis Woods, 29, by the medical examiner’s office. An autopsy released Tuesday ruled her death a homicide.
Chicago plans to spend at least $60 million to boost the arts and local artists citywide.
The Arts 77 recovery and reopening program will focus on employing creative workers through city services and programs; increase public sector investments in the arts through financing and cultural policy; and expand involvement in the creative and cultural sector across the city’s 77 community areas.
The program was announced Tuesday by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events and the Chicago Park District.
“Before the pandemic struck, our arts and culture sector was a significant employer and economic driver that generated thousands of jobs and billions of dollars for our city,” Lightfoot said in a news release.
“With this incredible program, we will not only be able to revitalize this critical sector and provide support to our artists, creative workers and organizations, but also place the arts at the center of our city’s recovery efforts.”
Among the new and expanded programs launched Tuesday under Arts 77:
o The new Neighborhood Access Program offers $1 million in grants — up to 40 grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 — for individual communities.
o The new Culture in My Neighborhood initiative supports cultural programming at the Chicago Cultural Center, 18 Chicago Park District neighborhood cultural centers and Chicago Public Library regional libraries.
o Through Chicago Presents, DCASE will provide up to 100 grants of $5,000 to $30,000 for cultural programs that meet public health guidelines in neighborhoods this summer.
o Under a new Artist Response Program, DCASE has awarded six artists and four artist teams $100,000 grants and will give seven arts organizations between $50,000 and $100,000 to be granted to 60 artists.
o The city plans to spend $40 million to upgrade theater, music, dance, and visual art presentation capabilities at the network of cultural centers. It has also added public art into the Capital Plan for the first time, investing $15 million in public art projects over the next five years.
o DCASE has collaborated with the Chicago Department of Aviation for a $3.5 million public art project plan as part of the Terminal 5 expansion project at O’Hare International Airport. Involving 30 local artists, this program is the largest single acquisition of Chicago artists’ works by the city in 30 years.
“Chicago’s arts sector has been decimated by the global pandemic. We have assembled an unprecedented array of resources to bolster our vital arts sector, and today’s announcement is the first of several to follow,” said Mark Kelly, commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
The message to come out of last week’s team meeting was nothing new.
It’s been the same message that’s been preached since Day 1 of training camp, but for some reason hadn’t gained a foothold with this roster.
Either roster.
The one that existed before executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas brought in five new players on Mar. 25, and the post-trade deadline roster the Bulls have been left with.
What matters to guard Garrett Temple is it’s being heard now.
Over the last two games, the veteran has watched his teammates dive for 50-50 balls, play with urgency, understand what’s at stake, and guard as good as they’ve guarded all season long.
“That’s what happens in the NBA when you have a young team, a new staff,” Temple said, when asked why it took so long for this group to be accepting of doing the grimy things to win a basketball game. “It doesn’t happen overnight. Hopefully, those [messages] are finally seeping in. Obviously, we’re in a fight for our life. We want to continue to strive and get to the playoffs if we can. We have to win games to do that. Hopefully, guys are understanding how important these games are. Every detail, every play matters. Guys are playing really hard. And I like that.”
There aren’t many in the current travelling party that aren’t embracing that mentality finally being shown.
Holding Cleveland and Boston to 96 points in back-to-back games is a small sample size, but with just 15 regular-season games left, it’s the only sample they really have to try and build on.
Where it will get interesting, however, is what happens when a certain No. 8 is ready to return?
The Bulls had their team meeting after an embarrassing loss to Orlando, and have played three games since Zach LaVine went into the league’s healthy and safety protocol, first losing to Memphis, and then putting together their best back-to-back defensive efforts of the year.
To a man, no one inside the organization feels like the roster is better without LaVine. It’s not. The Association is still a score-first, ask questions later league, and LaVine is one of the elite players at carrying out that art form.
“I would not sit there and say with our current team, if we take [LaVine] off our current team that we’re a better team without him,” coach Billy Donovan said Tuesday. “I wouldn’t agree with that. I do think that because of maybe the last two games defensively, what the numbers look like and because Zach’s not here, it may look like, ‘OK, that’s the case.’ But I don’t necessarily agree with that at all.”
With LaVine possibly out for up to five more games, however, what if the winning with a defensive-first mentality continues? Would LaVine, who has improved that part of his game but still has a ways to go, see the lesson that’s being taught in his absence?
Donovan not only feels that it won’t be an issue, but that it hasn’t been part of his mentality throughout this year.
“I think he’s really searching for ways that he can help us win and win at a higher level,” Donovan said of LaVine. “He’s done a lot of things to carry us in a lot of different ways. And that load that he’s carrying, as someone that’s trying to get into that next level of player, it’s a learning curve for him. I’ll be totally honest with you – there is a learning curve. But I don’t see him being the kind of guy that says, ‘You know what? I’m a scorer. That dirty work is for somebody else, I’m not doing that.’ That’s never been his disposition or his attitude.”
MINNEAPOLIS — Former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted Tuesday of murder and manslaughter for pinning George Floyd to the pavement with his knee on the Black man’s neck in a case that touched off worldwide protests, violence and a furious reexamination of racism and policing in the U.S.
Chauvin, 45, could be sent to prison for decades.
People elated by the verdict flooded the surrounding streets downtown upon hearing the news. Cars blared their horns, and people ran through traffic, waving banners.
Floyd family members gathered at a Minneapolis conference room could be heard cheering from the next room as each verdict was read.
The jury of six white people and six Black or multiracial ones came back with its verdict after about 10 hours of deliberations over two days. Chauvin was found guilty on all charges: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
His face was obscured by a COVID-19 mask, and little reaction could be seen beyond his eyes darting around the courtroom.
His bail was immediately revoked and he was led away with his hands cuffed behind his back. Sentencing will be in two months.
As the judge asked jurors if they reached a verdict, a hush fell on the crowd 300 strong in a park adjacent to the courthouse, with people listening to the proceedings on their cellphones. When the final guilty verdict was announced, the crowd roared, many people hugging, some shedding tears.
People react after the verdict was read in the Derek Chauvin trial on April 20, 2021 In Minneapolis, Minnesota.Getty
At the intersection where Floyd was pinned down, a crowd chanted, “One down, three to go!” — a reference to the three other fired Minneapolis police officers facing trial in August on charges of aiding and abetting murder in Floyd’s death.
Janay Henry, who lives nearby, said she felt grateful and relieved.
“I feel grounded. I can feel my feet on the concrete,” she said, adding that she was looking forward to the “next case with joy and optimism and strength.”
An ecstatic Whitney Lewis leaned halfway out a car window in a growing traffic jam of revelers waving a Black Lives Matter flag. “Justice was served,” the 32-year-old from Minneapolis said. “It means George Floyd can now rest.”
The verdict was read in a courthouse ringed with concrete barriers and razor wire and patrolled by National Guard troops, in a city on edge against another round of unrest — not just because of the Chauvin case but because of the deadly police shooting of a young Black man, Daunte Wright, in a Minneapolis suburb April 11.
The jurors identities were kept secret and will not be released until the judge decides it is safe to do so.
Floyd, 46, died May 25 after being arrested on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill for a pack of cigarettes at a corner market. He panicked, pleaded that he was claustrophobic and struggled with police when they tried to put him in a squad car. They put him on the ground instead.
The centerpiece of the case was the excruciating bystander video of Floyd gasping repeatedly, “I can’t breathe” and onlookers yelling at Chauvin to stop as the officer pressed his knee on or close to Floyd’s neck for what authorities say was 9 1/2 minutes. Floyd slowly went silent and limp.
Prosecutors played the footage at the earliest opportunity, during opening statements, with Jerry Blackwell telling the jury: “Believe your eyes.” And it was shown over and over, analyzed one frame at a time by witnesses on both sides.
In the wake of Floyd’s death, demonstrations and scattered violence broke out in Minneapolis, around the country and beyond. The furor also led to the removal of Confederate statues and other offensive symbols such as Aunt Jemima.
In the months that followed, numerous states and cities restricted the use of force by police, revamped disciplinary systems or subjected police departments to closer oversight.
The “Blue Wall of Silence” that often protects police accused of wrongdoing crumbled after Floyd’s death: The Minneapolis police chief quickly called it “murder” and fired all four officers, and the city reached a staggering $27 million settlement with Floyd’s family as jury selection was underway.
Police-procedure experts and law enforcement veterans inside and outside the Minneapolis department, including the chief, testified for the prosecution that Chauvin used excessive force and went against his training.
Medical experts for the prosecution said Floyd died of asphyxia, or lack of oxygen, because his breathing was constricted by the way he was held down on his stomach, his hands cuffed behind him, a knee on his neck and his face jammed against the ground.
Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson called a police use-of-force expert and a forensic pathologist to help make the case that Chauvin acted reasonably against a struggling suspect and that Floyd died because of an underlying heart condition and his illegal drug use.
Floyd had high blood pressure, an enlarged heart and narrowed arteries, and fentanyl and methamphetamine were found in his system.
Under the law, police have certain leeway to use force and are judged according to whether their actions were “reasonable” under the circumstances.
People react after the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial April 20, 2021 In Minneapolis, Minnesota. Getty
The defense also tried to make the case that Chauvin and the other officers were hindered in their duties by what they perceived as a growing, hostile crowd.
Chauvin did not testify, and all that the jury or the public ever heard by way of an explanation from him came from a police body-camera video after an ambulance had taken the 6-foot-4, 223-pound Floyd away. Chauvin told a bystander: “We gotta control this guy ’cause he’s a sizable guy … and it looks like he’s probably on something.”
The prosecution’s case also included tearful testimony from onlookers who said the police kept them back when they protested what was happening. Eighteen-year-old Darnella Frazier, who shot the crucial video, said Chauvin just gave the bystanders a “cold” and “heartless” stare.
She and others said they felt a sense of helplessness and lingering guilt from witnessing Floyd’s slow-motion death.
“It’s been nights I stayed up, apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more, and not physically interacting and not saving his life,” Frazier testified, while the 19-year-old cashier at the neighborhood market, Christopher Martin, lamented that “this could have been avoided” if only he had rejected the suspect $20 bill.
To make Floyd more than a crime statistic in the eyes of the jury, the prosecution called to the stand his girlfriend, who told the story of how they met and how they struggled with addiction to opioids, and his younger brother Philonise. He recalled how Floyd helped teach him to catch a football and made “the best banana mayonnaise sandwiches.”
Chicago’s most important news of the day, delivered every weekday afternoon. Plus, a bonus issue on Saturdays that dives into the city’s storied history.
This afternoon will be cloudy with scattered snow showers and a high near 39 degrees. A freeze watch is in effect for tonight, which will see a low around 33 degrees. Tomorrow, rain is in the forecast, along with a high near 43 degrees.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot had a warning today for anyone who dares to hijack peaceful protests tied to the Derek Chauvin verdict and use those demonstrations as an opportunity to launch a third round of looting in Chicago.
“Don’t test us. … Don’t test us. … Don’t test us, because we are ready,” Lightfoot told reporters.
“We are prepared and we are ready to arrest and bring to prosecution anyone who would dare to take the dreams of our small businesses by looting.”
Lightfoot said she asked Gov. J.B. Pritzker to activate the Illinois National Guard and send 125 uniformed guard members to Chicago to be on “standby,” keeping them close in the event they are needed to support Chicago police.
She called it one of the lessons learned from last year’s demonstrations, when the Chicago Police Department was “outflanked and underprepared” for riots and looting, according to Inspector General Joe Ferguson.
Ferguson’s scathing 124-page report described mistakes at the highest levels of CPD that “failed the public” as well as rank-and-file police officers who were “left to high-stakes improvisation without adequate supervision or guidance.”
“My responsibility is to learn from every experience that we have and make sure that we are better prepared because of that learning — and we are,” Lightfoot said.
The executive director of the state’s election authority will retire this summer, an abrupt announcement that comes a little over two weeks after board members placed him on administrative leave after he reported being the victim of an online extortion attempt. Steve Sandvoss sent a letter announcing he will retire effective June 30.
A tall-masted schooner, a paddle boat and other antique ships — all sail along a painted river in an 85-year-old mural that’s found new life at the Chicago Maritime Museum at 1200 W. 35th St. in Bridgeport.
The 20-foot-long “History of Ships” mural tells of shipbuilding from the early sailing days to steamships. The five ships it shows are painstakingly detailed and flanked on either side by figures in historic period clothing against a background of rolling hills in the distance.
Little is known about the mural’s history, according to Dylan Hoffmann, the Chicago Maritime Museum’s curator. Most of what’s known is from two pages in “A Guide to Chicago’s Murals,” a 2001 book about the city’s public art.
The 20-foot-long mural “History of Ships” being installed at the Chicago Maritime Museum, 1200 W. 35th St. Commissioned in 1936, the 85-year-old mural was donated to the museum last November.Provided
Commissioned in 1936 for Lawson Elementary School in North Lawndale, it was one of several murals done by artist Gustaf Dalstrom for the federal Works Progress Administration, the New Deal agency. Among other things, the WPA put artists to work producing a wide array of art.
The mural hung in the halls at Lawson until the school was shut down along with 31 other schools in 1981. It was demolished the next year.
When asked about Zach LaVine last night, Bulls coach Billy Donovan couldn’t provide a timetable for his return, but said the star guard is “extremely bored” right now as he goes through health protocol after testing positive for COVID-19.
It’s 4/20! What’s your favorite way to consume cannabis? Tell us why.
Email us (please include your first name and where you live) and we might include your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.
Yesterday, we asked you:What’s the best way to tell that winter in Chicago is finally over? Here’s what some of you said…
“After Mother’s Day. I don’t plant anything or unplug the snowblower until then.” — Tonia Lorenz
“After the annual April snowstorm!” — Kevin Watson
“Walking down residential streets, you can smell charcoal burning, carne asada cooking, and music is blaring from cars and backyards.” — Victor M. Montanez
“My wife yelling my ear off to cut the grass.” — Ryan Flynn
“When I stop wearing my long johns.” — Cynthia Woodard
“We celebrate the 4th of July!” — Randy Goranson
Thanks for reading the Chicago Afternoon Edition. Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.
Pete Rose turned 80 last week, still the Hit King — no one’s ever touching 4,256 — and still banished from baseball as he has been since 1989.
Lift the damn ban already, MLB.
Why? I’ll tell you why.
Because the Cubs are going to have a DraftKings sportsbook and betting windows at Wrigley Field, that’s why.
Because every White Sox telecast is brought to you by PointsBet, with former Bear Devin Hester smiling at you like you’re in on a big secret together and 28-year-old retired golfer and current social-media influencer Paige Spiranac all but ordering you to “make it rain.”
Because every other time I check my tweet machine, someone in the media is openly sharing updates on the sports-betting action he or she has going. Yes, I mean local media betting on local games — and then writing or talking on-air about the players and teams that just won or lost them money.
Conflict of interest? Who knows what that even is anymore?
And because Major League Baseball itself has practically a whole lineup card full of betting partners, including DraftKings, FanDuel and MGM Resorts.
What does any of that have to do with the banishment of an all-time-great player — and shameless liar — who bet illegally, and in violation of a sacred league rule, on games involving his own team? Technically, nothing. But baseball is completely full of it now on this one. Phony up to its ear holes. Zero credibility. So, yeah, something.
Baseball loves gambling, that’s clear. It shouldn’t merely welcome Rose back, come to think of it. It should immediately install him as its Chief Parlay Officer.
By the way, I’m not some prude who hates gambling. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I’ve played in a weekly poker game — in a poker app, while on Zoom with old friends — every Saturday for over a year now. Somehow, my family hasn’t banned me yet.
Anyway, I’m just completely tired of judging Rose. Sure, he’s phony up to his ear holes, too. Rose is the brand-new “spokesman and consultant” for whatever the hell UpickTrade.com is. For $89 a month, you can get up to six betting picks a day from Rose on NBA, NFL, golf, tennis, horse racing and, of course, big-league baseball. He’ll even rank his picks from one star to five stars. What a service!
Tennis? Perfect. This has to be Rose’s biggest racket yet.
Ten years ago, in a different job, I spent a day with Rose in Las Vegas. We started with breakfast in a private section of a Mirage Resort and Casino Restaurant. A stranger wandered in, found the Hit King and told him he should be in the Hall of Fame. This sort of thing — one gambler relating to another — happened to Rose over and over every day.
“I’m not the only guy in baseball that’s ever made a bet,” he said then. “I promise you that.”
I sat with Rose as he sold and signed memorabilia for five hours. Two hours in, he told me he was already up $2,000 for the day. “Up,” is how he put it, using a gambler’s term to describe what he’d just earned doing his 20-plus-days-a-month job of sitting, signing, shaking hands and smiling for suckers’ cameras. In his best year, 2007, Rose banked about $1.2 million doing this, according to his business director at the time.
Rose was absolutely tireless. He played this game as hard as he ever played baseball. He played it harder than anybody.
“My whole philosophy is winning,” he explained. “Winning is everything.”
Winning at baseball. Winning at selling himself. Winning at selling his soul. Back then, Rose would go out to dinner with a party of up to four for $5,000. Meanwhile, he claimed to be betting only on the horses and only “now and then.” The business director shared privately that Rose was in fact betting nightly on college and pro football and basketball, among other things.
Hey, so maybe Charlie Hustle kind of knows his stuff after all.
“There’s nobody alive on earth that knows more about baseball than I do,” Rose told reporters after aligning with UpickTrade.com, which, upon further review, bills itself as a “winning sports-recommendation service” based in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Great. Do the Upick folks take debit cards?
Rose’s autograph business was alive and well until it got absolutely hammered — and eventually shuttered — by COVID-19. But Charlie always has a hustle.
“You’ve got to remember I got suspended in 1989,” he said. “That’s 32 years ago. I’m not going to live the rest of my life worried about going to baseball’s Hall of Fame.”
This shouldn’t further the argument against him one bit.
Rose is a 17-time All-Star with three batting titles, three World Series titles, an unbreakable hits record and a banishment from the game that has run its course and then some.
Whom is baseball kidding? Whom are any of us in this booming casino of a sports world kidding? Might as well give the old man his due.
The Rev. Helen Ward Carry will always be remembered for how much she loved — her God, her church and her family.
As her health started to decline, Rev. Carry told goddaughter Paulette Barrett: “When I make my transition and people ask you how I died, I want you to say to them the more important question is, how did I live?”
Rev. Carry, 96, former executive minister of Christ Universal Temple, died April 8, according to Leak & Sons Funeral Home, which is handling arrangements.
The former Chicago Public Schools administrator was first drawn in 1970 to the teachings of the late Rev. Johnnie Colemon, founder of Christ Universal Temple, a New Thought Christian megachurch.
After becoming Rev. Colemon’s assistant in 1976, Rev. Carry served as the church’s administrator and director of the Johnnie Colemon Institute, the church’s teaching arm. She was ordained in 1980 by the Universal Foundation for Better Living, an international association of Bible-based New Thought Christian churches that focus on healing, meditation and a positive mental attitude.
During her time as assistant minister, she helped design and create the Johnnie Colemon Elementary Academy and became its principal in 1999. She also served as executive minister of the church from 1980 to 2010.
Rev. Henrietta Byrd (from left), Rev. Marjorie Cook, and Rev. Gaylon McDowell join Rev. Helen Ward Carry, Rev. Evelyn Boyd and Rev. Jeanette Childress at a banquet. Rev. Derrick B. Wells is standing at the podium.Provided
Rev. Carry would always say, “I can never out-give God, whatever I give comes back to me a hundredfold,” explained Barrett.
“She was very particular … all about order. She wanted things to be just right, and we worked until it was the way it was supposed to be,” said Rev. Alberta Ware, a longtime friend who was Rev. Carry’s assistant when she directed the Johnnie Colemon Institute.
Affectionally known by many as “the teacher of teachers,” every student of the church and its institute interacted with her at some point in their lives.
The church inspired many followers, including some celebrities who attended lessons. Rev. Carry had close relationships with inspirational speaker Iyanla Vanzant and entertainer Ben Vereen.
Rev. Johnnie Colemon (left) and Rev. Helen Ward Carry.Provided
Rev. Derrick B. Wells said he considers himself her “surrogate son,” as she inspired him to complete his doctorate degree and played an instrumental role in him becoming senior minister of Christ Universal Temple.
“She was meticulous, orderly [and] a perfectionist. But perhaps most importantly, she made you want to be better. She didn’t leave it there; she taught you how to be better,” he said.
“She had this uncanny ability to take life-altering concepts and break them down into easily digestible chunks that made the information consumable.”
Walter Robinson (left), onetime comptroller of Christ Universal Temple, with Rev. Johnnie Colemon (center) and Rev. Helen Ward Carry check on the construction of Christ Universal Temple’s current building, which opened in August 1985.Provided
Rev. Carry was raised in Bronzeville. She had a long-lasting love of flowers that grew from helping out around her parents’ flower shop. Her father, Anderson Ward, was a florist who catered to Chicago’s Black community.
An exceptional soprano voice landed her a four-year music scholarship from Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans.
Though she later became a New Thought teacher, Rev. Carry’s commitment and dedication to inspire people to reach their full potential first took root during her 25 years at CPS.
After earning a master’s degree from Loyola University, she went on to serve as an assistant director of the CPS Head Start Program for elementary education, an assistant principal, and principal of Webster grade school. She also earned a Ph.D. in education from California Coast University.
Speaking at a Sunday service at the church in 2012, she said: “I don’t care how many letters I may have behind my name. That doesn’t make me any greater than the one who didn’t finish second grade. That person may be expressing more love than I am, so the letters that they put behind my name would be F-O-O-L.”
Rev. Helen Ward Carry (left) and Rev. Johnnie Colemon at a graduation for the Johnnie Colemon Institute.Provided
Even after retiring, she continued teaching classes at the institute and fulfilling her ministerial duties, which included marrying loved ones, preforming services and funerals, and helping other churches get started.
“That’s her. She was always working. … She would always say, ‘The reward for good work is more work,” Barrett said.
“She was a remarkable human being,” she added. “My life is better because she was in it and a part of it. And anyone that knew her, I think that they would say the same thing.”
Both sons, Ronald Carry and Julius Carry, preceded her in death.
A private memorial service is planned.
Rev. Carry and her eldest son, Ronald Carry.Provided
Rev. Helen Ward Carry and her youngest son, Julius Carry III.Provided
MINNEAPOLIS — The jury reached a verdict Tuesday at the murder trial of former Officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, the Black man who was pinned to the pavement with a knee on his neck in a case that set off a furious reexamination of racism and policing in the U.S.
The courthouse was ringed with concrete barriers and razor wire, and thousands of National Guard troops and law enforcement officers were brought in ahead of the verdict. Some businesses boarded up with plywood.
Floyd died last May after Chauvin, a 45-year-old now-fired white officer, pinned his knee on or close to the 46-year-old Black man’s neck for about 9 1/2 minutes as Floyd gasped that he couldn’t breathe and onlookers yelled at Chauvin to get off.
The jury, made up of six white people and six Black or multiracial people, weighed charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, with convictions on some, none or all of the charges possible. The most serious charge carries up to 40 years in prison.
The city has been on edge in recent days — not just over the Chauvin case but over the deadly police shooting of a 20-year-old Black man, Daunte Wright, in the nearby Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center on April 11.
He said that he had spoken to Floyd’s family on Monday and “can only imagine the pressure and anxiety they’re feeling.”
“They’re a good family and they’re calling for peace and tranquility no matter what that verdict is,” Biden said. “I’m praying the verdict is the right verdict. I think it’s overwhelming, in my view. I wouldn’t say that unless the jury was sequestered now.”
The president has repeatedly denounced Floyd’s death but previously stopped short of commenting on the trial itself.
Other politicians and ordinary citizens also offered their opinion as the jury was deliberating.
“It shouldn’t be really even questioned whether there will be an acquittal or a verdict that doesn’t meet the scale of the crime that was committed,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, said in Brooklyn Center. The congresswoman said the Chauvin case looks open-and-shut.
Guilty verdicts could mark a turning point in the fight for racial equality, she said.
“We are holding on to one another for support. Hopefully this verdict will come soon and the community will start the process of healing,” Omar said.
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Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan. Associated Press video journalist Angie Wang in Atlanta and Associated Press writers Doug Glass, in Minneapolis, Mohamed Ibrahim in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed.
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