Ron DeSantis Derides Chauvin Verdict As Result of ‘Scared’ Jury Despite Previously Calling George Floyd Death a Murder

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suggested that Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder because “the jury is scared of what a mob may do” if he wasn’t found guilty over the death of George Floyd.

DeSantis defended his recently-signed anti-riot bill in an interview with Laura Ingraham on Tuesday night. He also signed on with the Fox host’s complaints that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were pushing a “big lie” by acknowledging the existence of systemic racism in America after the Chauvin trial concluded.

At one point in the interview, Ingraham rolled footage of a protester in New York who said “If you continue to allow us to be murdered in the streets without justice, we will raise hell in America.” She boiled this down for DeSantis by arguing that the protester essentially said “violence, at least in part, worked” amid the civil unrest over Floyd’s death.

“That’s really, really troubling,” DeSantis responded. “If that’s what a lot of people think, and I don’t know what happened with this verdict, but if that’s something that can potentially happen, where you basically have justice made meted out because the jury is scared of what a mob may do?”

DeSantis hedged on what he was saying to a certain degree by adding “I’m not saying that’s what happened here, but that speaker seems to suggest that that had an impact. That’s completely antithetical to the rule of law.” This comes shortly after Fox’s Tucker Carlson also questioned Chauvin’s guilty verdict by pushing the notion that the jury was intimidated by what could’ve happened if he wasn’t convicted.

It’s interesting to see DeSantis float this kind of cynicism about the trial ruling when he was on record a year ago expressing shock and condemnation for Floyd’s death. He also said at the time that he was relieved Chauvin and his colleagues were being held accountable for their actions.

“When I saw the video of that cop murdering George Floyd, I was just absolutely appalled by what I saw,” DeSantis said. “But I immediately asked folks, both [the Florida Department of Law Enforcement] and others, how in the hell could you even get away with doing that tactic? And sure enough, state of Florida, you do not put knee on a neck like that. That is not good training.”

For DeSantis’ characterization of Floyd’s death as a murder, start at the 31:30 mark.

Watch above, via Fox News and ABC 3.