By: McKenzie Kemper, Freelance Community Columnist

Today a Judge ruled that Derek Chauvin can have the third- degree murder charge added to his list of charges in the murder of George Floyd, and for a brief moment I felt a twinge of hope. Maybe this time justice will be served, maybe this time we will see a police officer convicted for his crimes. 

It was strange to feel a sense of hope around the trial that has all eyes on Minneapolis, and the City looking like it is preparing for battle. I know people who have been fitted for bullet proof vests so that they can safely cover the trial, and the amount of barbed wire and fencing around buildings suggests that officials are not hopeful; That they know the system is rigged and the people are going to show their fury. 

I recognize that a lot of the damage that occurred nearly ten months ago was at the hands of pot- stirrers, violence seekers, and not the work of persons actually seeking justice for Mr. Floyd but I also know that if this trial goes the way so many others have those same persons will be coming back to anonymously burn our already destruction wrought City even further into the ground. 

It is a tenuous position to be in- to witness such atrocities and feel so powerless to create change when all anyone says you can do is vote and then you watch your voting rights get manipulated and perpetually more difficult to use. 

To watch someone be murdered at the hands of anyone is horrific, to watch a person of color be murdered at the hands of a police officer is sadly commonplace. To be blamed for buildings burning, and stores ransacked when you were protesting the very public murder of another human being. It is all so wrong, and frustrating, and something that I have spent a very long time trying to understand. 

The City is calm for the moment, and we are preparing for a storm but we must continue to fight these injustices at every level. I am learning, and working, and open to all ideas because the system as it is, is simply not good.