The jury in the Derek Chauvin trial came to a unanimous and unequivocal verdict Tuesday afternoon: "Please don’t hurt us." The jurors spoke for many in this country; everyone understood perfectly well the consequences of an acquittal in this case.

After nearly a year of burning, looting, and murder by BLM, that was never in doubt. Last night, 2,000 miles from Minneapolis, police in Los Angeles preemptively blocked roads. Why? They knew what would happen if Derek Chauvin got off.

In the end, he didn’t get off. If given the maximum sentence under the law, he will spend the rest of his life in prison. Is that a fair punishment? Is the officer guilty of the specific crimes for which he was just convicted?

We can debate all that, and we will. But here’s what we can’t debate: no mob has the right to destroy our cities. Not under any circumstances, not for any reason. No politician or media figure has the right to intimidate a jury, and no political party has the right to impose a different standard of justice on its own supporters.

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Those things are unacceptable in America, but all of them are happening now. If they continue to happen, decent, productive people will leave. The country as we knew it will be over. So we must stop this current insanity. It’s an attack on civilization.

That stake is far more than the future of Derek Chauvin or the memory of George Floyd. At stake is America. So before we consider the details of Tuesday’s verdict, a bigger question, one we should all think about: Can we trust the way this decision was made?

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That’s the promise of our justice system – that it’s impartial, that it’s as fair as human beings can make it. That the cop who killed Ashli Babbitt will be held to the very same scrutiny as the cop who was just convicted of killing George Floyd. That political or ethnic considerations will play absolutely no role in jury deliberations. That justice will be blind.

Can we say all of that in this case? And if we can’t, why can’t we?

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the April 20, 2021 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight"