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“There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
I live in the Twin Cities. My attention to the George Floyd trial might exceed that of the average BC visitor. My anger at what occurred has gone up with each new bit of prosecutorial evidence.
It seems George Floyd died because the police officer who killed him had marginalized him.
George Floyd was a drug user. George Floyd had passed a phony $20 bill. George Floyd was wary of police. George Floyd was black.
Have I ever passed a counterfeit bill? Probably. The estimate is the average person in the United States had a 1% chance last year of handling a counterfeit bill. Floyd’s demeanor in the convenience store after he passed the bill suggested innocence. We’ll probably never know if he knew the bill was phony.
Have I ever done recreational drugs? Nothing beyond alcohol or caffeine in the last fifty years. But during the 60s and 70s, I did enough to know they were powerful and not my cup of tea. One very unfortunate morning early in my career I had a meeting with an extremely important client. I’d been partying heavily the night before, so I decided to fix my hangover with a few uppers. I made a first-class ass out of myself. The defense attorneys are trying to use George Floyd’s drug use as a scapegoat.
One night in my college days we were on the outskirts of our college town looking for a house party. We were pulled over on a stretch of unoccupied street at least a half-mile from the nearest home. There were three of us in the car. All fraternity brothers. All average size males in our early twenties. The officer took the driver to his squad. After fifteen minutes, my other buddy (in pre-law – he eventually became a lawyer) decided to find out what was going on. He approached the driver's side of the car and asked what the charges were. The officer apparently had his door ajar because he slammed it open on my friend knocking him to the ground. My friend looked up and said, “That’s good, Fatnuts!” which was followed by the officer repeatedly punching and kicking my friend. I wanted to get out and give the officer his due. But like those who watched George Floyd die from a few feet away, I did nothing. I later called the mayor, who I had worked with on a civic project -- and he got all charges immediately dropped. My two friends spent less than two hours in jail.
We were told that the officer feared that we were going to attack him. (That appears to be a defense that George Floyd’s murderer will be asserting.) The officer who mauled my friend was armed. We were not. The odds that we were going to attack him were miniscule. Yet – I’ve often wondered how a jury would have seen it had things gone from bad to worse.
I’ve never fully trusted police after that. I’m fairly certain George Floyd had many, many reasons not to trust the officers arresting him.
How different would have it been had George been Georgette – in transition – instead of black -- and all other circumstances had remained the same? Half of transgender people report they are uncomfortable seeking police assistance. More than one-fifth (22%) of transgender people who had interacted with police reported police harassment, and 6% of transgender individuals reported that they experienced bias-motivated assault by officers.
When viewing the pictures of George Floyd being suffocated, I don’t see a black man. I see me.
I wonder how many others reading this identify with George Floyd?
Jill
Comments
It could be you
and that is what a lot of the reasoning behind the BLM protests were about.
The coverage of the George Floyd murder trial on the 'Justice Matter' YouTube channel has been very enlightening to me as a non-American.
Then there was the case only this week where 'arrest the black man and ask questions next year' in LA that involved a black record producer. The real suspect was white and escaped. Go figure.
Then there is Senator Tom Cotton saying that not enough people in the USA are in prison. WTF. The USA has more people in prison per 1000 head of population than anywhere else in the world.
Add in the outright hatred of LGBTQ people by many in politics and law enforcement and you have what could be building into the perfect storm.
Keep safe people.
Samantha
45 to Life
The Honorable Senator Cotton has it half right. Not enough politicians in the USA are in prison. They think dirty deals, sheer hubris, baldfaced lies and a cadre of morally bankrupt peers looking the other way can trump the law, but hopefully they won't gaetz away with it forever.
~hugs, Veronica
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
Police killings
George Floyd's death is tragic and it is far from unique.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s8O8-_AGKw
Your friend
Crash
How can I identify?
Watching the video of George Floyd's demise, I see many thing the officers failed to do that it would seem reasonable to do. First and foremost, having gotten him on the ground, they made no effort to handcuff him. That would have remove the need to continue to hold him down. With that need removed, he'd have lived to have his day in court. His death was, without a doubt, a wrongful death, regardless of whether the reasons the police were dealing with him were valid or not. Had he been a known murderer and child rapist, it still was wrong.
In my view the video is ample proof the officer holding him down is guilty and the other two are guilty of aiding and abetting. No other evidence is necessary, there are no mitigating circumstances that could come to light that excuses what went on.
Perhaps it's that I live in liberal Oregon, or perhaps it male white privilege, or perhaps it's me being naive, but while I'm incensed that George Floyd's death happen at the hands of a clearly guilty police officer, I have a hard time identifying with him.
In my dealing with the police, (twice arrested as a juvenile) I never felt afraid except for what my father would do when I finally got home. I've never used recreational drugs. My worst offense as an adult would have been driving under the influence of intoxicants (alcohol) had I been caught. Aside from that is a speeding ticket. I was once stopped and questioned by a police officer while out for a walk in drag. After checking my ID, which I had with me and it clearly showed I was male, he let me go on my way after cautioning me not to go into bars. (There were three in walking distance.)
Having been out and about as Patricia for many years now, I've never had anyone react in a negative way. Not in the grocery store, not in the mall, not in the fitting rooms or restrooms. I know that while I may have the demeanor and mannerisms down, I've been testosterone poisoned and my features are still masculine, unless I put on enough makeup to make it obvious I'm wearing too much makeup. So I go minimalist... less is more. In all of it, I seem to be accepted as I am. The perks of living in a "red" state, near one of "reddest" metropolitan cities.
Don't get my wrong, I see your point and agree, but I don't have any personal experience to put me in a position to identify with it. I guess I've been fortunate.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
I can Identify!
In fact I came very close to being beaten by police many years ago. I wasn't, due to the circumstances, the surrounding crowd was more then sympathetic a surged forward ready to engage the police.
A plain clothed officer lightly grabbed my left arm, while I was yelling at a fellow employee in front of the shop I worked at as manager. I pulled my arm loose & turned to face the unknown person, it seems that this is using force against a police officer and therefor assaulting said police officer. Note, I am legally blind in my left eye. This officer and his partner, in-spite of my apologizing and saying I was blind on that side, threw me to the ground, and the second officer came at me with a night stick.
I was at this point the surrounding circumstances intervened. There where quite a few customers around at my shop and the neighboring two shops, all who knew me well. The entire crowd including three or four adult men, half dozen plus teenagers, and one elderly woman who actually raised her cane, all surged forward to intervene. At which point the cops back down, and helped me back up, but still insisted on arresting me for assaulting two police officers, as if i had simply attacked them for no reason. The charges were eventually dropped.
I was lucky, and very gratified that the local citizens were ready to come to my aid. The two officers would never have been able to explain the likely resulting melee if they had not backed down. I found out later one of the officers put in claim for an injury, I guess he hurt himself throwing me to the ground.
Note: Not that its should matter, I am white, the crowd & neighborhood was/is ethnically mixed.
I have never felt comfortable around police since!
I however feel that de-funding the police is not the way to fix things.
We need a smarter solution.
~Hypatia >i< ..:::
Um, they handcuffed Floyd before they threw him on the ground.
Um, as I understand it, they handcuffed Floyd before they threw him on the ground.
That was one of the reasons why, the prosecutor said, the choke hold (knee-to-the-neck) was unnecessary and life-threateningly dangerous.
charlie.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/missing-without-a-trace-cha...
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/832524
Um, I did not actually say.
Beside this was not a direct comparison, as such, but just an illustration of ongoing, police behavior, that has been happening for quite some time, and that similar could happen to anyone. Floyd got the absolute worst of such a situation. While mine worked out the best possible, other then there not being any incident at all. Yes I was cuffed, And when the officer came at me with the nightstick, I was going to try to kick the officers from on the ground. Luckily the crowd intervened and it stopped there.
My point was that, yes I can identify and see it happening to anyone. I also know the chance of such happening to someone who is Black, or any other Minority is significantly greater. However any and all of us may be at risk if this trend continues, though some more then others. Which I think was the original point.
.
edit
PS. I would like to add that:
I do not think that this reflects the bulk of our police force, but there are enough that it does fit, to make it is a real problem that needs fixing, and to make me wary when dealing with the police.
This Exchange
Alice: "Defunding the Police isn't the Solution."
Bob: "I agree. Defunding them isn't. Firebombing them is."
I can imagine this kind of exchange occurring, in the face of what the police do all the time to blacks and Hispanics -- the culture in which a 12yo boy can be thrown onto a police car and "frisked" (such a mild-sounding term for the manhandling he undergoes) -- the culture in which a 9yo girl can be pepper-sprayed -- the culture in which Yet Another Black Person is killed by police -- the culture in which aggravated perjury is rampant and the entire department closes ranks behind its evildoers.
Yet Another Black Person Killed by Police is followed up with (for example) rampaging and ransacking a CVS. That's outrageous! They should choose their targets appropriately!
If the police force exists as an occupying force to keep a hard hand on the natives, to keep them in firmly line, that's good reason to abolish the police force. The ostensible purpose of protecting our society is meaningless if they betray their purpose to the point we need protection from them.
Let's be clear: no police force will be abolished without first a judicial finding (under RICO, for example) that it's a criminal enterprise.
It seems to me that the prosecutor's case in chief against the cop in the Floyd case could be completed in, possibly, an hour. The rest would occur in rebuttal -- any defense other than possible fabrication of the video (or videos) would be portrayed as admission to criminal conspiracy or violation of Federal criminal civil-rights statues. (Immediate punishment of a crime, for example.)
I've seen a couple comments to the effect, with smartphones these days, reports of UFOs (Bigfoot, etc.) have dropped while police-brutality reports have risen.
I'm thinking of introducing sections of the Declaration of Independence.
I wonder if I'm going to be chopped off again, with this comment.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Let me make this clear
Speaking as a former member of law enforcement, 90+% of law enforcement are honorable, decent men and women. Our perceptions are skewed by incidents in the big cities. Honestly, I suspect the situations in the big cities suggest that many people in the big cities are bad, corrupt, bigoted or what have you. Population pressure, job pressure, standards of living pressure, gang violence, police violence, political corruption, what have you. Changing one thing, like "defunding the police", is not going to make a real difference.
There was a game I saw advertised years ago. It consisted of a disk balanced on a pin, with weights around the edges. Every time there was a change in the weights the disk would tip and rock back and forth. Tip too far, and it would set off an alarm and the person whose turn it was would lose everything.
So, take a disk, we'll call it Detroit, and balance it on the pin. Then place weights all around it. One is labeled political corruption, one is labeled failing infrastructure, another gang violence. Add police corruption, Add job losses and corrupt contractors, you get the idea. There's hundreds more.
Now, you defund the police. Take some weight away from the police block, now it's lighter and rises. Meanwhile, another area dips lower. Say it's in the gang violence/ corrupt contractors & corrupt politicians. But adding more weight to those blocks just makes things worse. So where can you add/remove weight to rebalance the disk? You have that weight (money) you took from the police block, you could just put it back. But when you do, the disk still doesn't balance, the situation has changed. So you have to add more weight (money). But you don't have any spare weight, so you have to take weight from somewhere else. That, however just changes the balance in a different direction. Hmm, your simple solution (defund the police) isn't working in the real world.
So, what's the answer? Come on, don't dawdle, we want it now, right now!! Meanwhile, you are furiously trying to juggle blocks while try not to destabilize the whole thing AND improve things.
What I'm trying to say is, most simple solutions simply don't work. Meanwhile, you have all those honest officers. They want to do their job the right way and receive a fair wage for a fair day's work. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Most Police Are Heroes
Don't get me wrong. I have great respect for most policemen. I'm still very careful how I act around them.
There is an axiom that says that 25% of all people are dishonest and another 25% will be dishonest if they think they can get away with it.
There will always be bad policemen just like there are bad bakers and bad Amazon delivery drivers. The real problem with the George Floyd murder was not Derek Chauvin as much as the three other officers who allowed him to kill a person right before their eyes. They not only failed to stop Chauvin. . .but when they noticed distress, they failed to immediately give first aid, which is their sworn duty.
The trial of the three other officers will expose the soft underbelly of a military police force.
A big contributing factor to George Floyd-type murders is that police know they can get away with it. What's strange about this case is the number of officers who have lined up to testify against Chauvin out of disgust. We have to wait for the defense to see how many policemen will go against that trend.
Defunding the police is not a "simple" fix. As I understand it the main impetus behind defunding is to take the power away from the police union. Originally the police union was 100% in Chauvin's corner. That is when the defunding chants were at their highest. But as the facts came out the union became anti-Chauvin. You don't hear much about defunding now. You hear a lot more about changing the mission so that heavily armed police are only used for violent crimes and not non-violent situations. My friends in the police tell me this is hard to do because domestic disputes are some of the most dangerous situations.
Another suggested change is more money for gang intervention and youth outreach. A huge problem in the Twin Cities is armed carjacking. These crimes usually involve a thirteen to fifteen-year-old perp with a gun bigger than him. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see where this can't end well, for anyone.
I agree with you that paying good police more money is necessary . . . as is paying good teachers more money . . . and good firemen . . . and good waitresses . . . and good construction workers.
I know quite a few 1%ers. Many of them are greedy, disgusting pigs. Compensation inequity is at the bottom of most of our societal ills.
I love capitalism. I believe in immediate positive reinforcement for positive social behavior. But our system has run amok over the last forty years. We need to revive upward mobility by doing everything possible to nurture a stronger middle class. Reparations for institutionalized racism would be a strong positive step. Student loan forgiveness would be a strong positive step. Breaking up monopolies like Walmart, Amazon, Google, etc. would be a strong positive step.
Term limits would be a strong positive steps -- for all elected officials and all judges.
George Floyd wasn't just killed by Derek Chauvin. . .or the "police." He was killed by the system.
JIll
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Honorable?
Unfortunately, 10% of the police can't be responsible for the culture described above. One can't have a Mafia-style code of silence with only 10%. When the police and prosecutor system close ranks behind their bad apples, the system is rotten to the core. A few small items, part of the minimal requirements for an honorable police officer:
The balancing disc is a poor model for analyzing the police. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol... -- The author proposes abolishing the police. Naive? Perhaps. But remember, she is more familiar than you about what poor minorities face. And it's true: reform has never stuck.
Consider this: suppose NYPD is abolished after a judicial finding that it's a RICO criminal enterprise. This just might induce the other police departments to reform. Abolition isn't sufficient. Serious prison time is needed. It's probably better if (say) 5% are imprisoned -- poetic justice if along with their former convicts. The remaining 95% get to feel the relief that it wasn't them. The nationwide educational effect might induce serious reform, taken seriously.
The Intercept on the Strategic Response Group: https://theintercept.com/2021/04/07/nypd-strategic-response-... and the three documents: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20584527-strategic_r... https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20584526-srg_field_f... https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20584525-srg_bike_sq...
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Police Budgets
One of the horrible things that has happened here in the US is that we have decide that we will cut any service just so that we can cut taxes. The result is that most municipal budgets are wafer thin. Services get gutted. Issues go from small, and manageable to catastrophic to tragic. The limited available resources end up being used for crisis management. Out of desperation these smaller and smaller budgets get allocated more and more over to emergency services. Mostly police.
Your friend
Crash
Defunding The Police
Is definitely not the answer. They've probably been severely defunded already, which means the quality of the personnel and their equipment is already at a low ebb. If municipal services are treated as being dispensible then they become so. Who needs decent teachers, decent firemen, decent hospital employees? Contract out maintenance of roads and removal of rubbish to the cheapest service suppliers and pretty soon everybody will be complaining about the quality of the service they receive.
Cut down on the number of building inspectors and freeze their salaries and I guarantee that shonky builders will be having a high old time and getting away with murder in the standards of new developments, much easier to pay a bribe than ensure that the quality of concrete meets the specification.
If you want a decent service you have to pay for it. I know the problem goes deeper than this but George Floyd is a symptom of this cost-cutting mentality.
I'm with Joanne
This is exactly what we see., Rather than de-funding the police let's re-fund government. Municipalities have such trouble meeting their obligations because we have cut their revenues under the multiply disproved theory that "government can't solve the problem, government is the problem." We need to raise taxes. provide quality services equitably. This will attract business to our areas because people want to live there.
Your friend
Crash
I also live in the Twin Cities.
I actually grew up about 4 blocks from the precinct station that was burned down. I know and recognized many of the businesses that were destroyed in the riots. Yet I hold no bitterness towards the police. Yes there were bad officers. But like any organization, there are bad, and there are good. I've had interactions with police that have been positive. I have relatives that have retired from police duty after long careers, and have saved and protected many people. the old saying is that one bad apple spoils the bunch. We need to get rid of the bad apples, and make sure the ones that are good are retained.
Accurate description?
Is this account accurate? https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/06/30/what-happened-at...
Not one but three murderer-officers? Four if the fourth had a duty to act and didn't, knowing with high probability that Floyd would die? Simultaneously dispatched to the situation?
Closing ranks behind the bad apple:
Your own experience sounds rather different. Are you in a position to know? If so, is this true or false, about minorities where you lived?
Were the initial protests mostly peaceful, yet facing violent police response?
Usually, when I think of urban gangster police departments, I think of NYC, LA, Chicago, and Boston. Unsure about Houston and Dallas these days. I didn't think of the Twin Cities. That time in Wisconsin when the cop returned a fleeing boy to the cannibal, in the face of local residents' objections -- it came out that the police had persistently denied police protection to that minority area.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Accurate But Not Complete
In the 30 to 40 hours leading up to the precinct being abandoned, the city and state officials were given numerous FBI reports of white supremacists and other devils coming to the Twin Cities -- as well as organized crime looking for opportunities to loot drugs and other easily sold items. Businesses miles away from the areas that were ultimately hit by rioters were boarded up due to these reports. Even pharmacies in the outer suburbs were told to protect themselves.
Supposedly many of the creeps were vowing online to come to Minneapolis to "kill pigs and start a race war." The same organizations that were tied to this were represented in Washington, during the insurrection.
The governor spoke publicly of these reports and the mayor made his decisions based on how easily the whole situation could have gotten much worse. Imagine if rioters had killed a police officer. Imagine if police had killed a rioter. My son lives just off Lake in Uptown and he had many friends who were in their stores with rifles -- ready to defend them from rioters. It could have been a massacre.
I have many, many friends who think the mayor and governor were idiots and just as many friends who think our governor is a saint and the mayor was asked to make decisions way above his pay grade.
You may recall that Trump threw a can of gasoline on the fire with his Twitter remarks about "looting and shooting." You might also recall how Trump threatened to "send in the National Gaurd if the local officials don't get their act together" . . . long after the governor had already sent in the National Guard.
I won't argue that you have some valid points. We saw some of the shenanigans you described during the last two trials involving a person killed by Twin Cities police (Castile/Damond). But from the cheap seats here -- it appears every effort is being made to clean up the police force and serve the community properly.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Thanks
I hope that they do clean things up. I have hopes there, as I have long sensed that Minnesota is a rather sane state.
I do recall a little about gangs looking for opportunities around that area.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Outsider Looking in
I am just an observer concerned at the state of the USA having visited it many times and seen it change. I still love it despite the problems but it is not as safe as places like China, Japan or Korea based on my experience working there as well.
I can only speak based on my observations and what I've seen on various news outlets in the USA and UK and what coverage of the trial was on various outlets on YouTube. I don't have much confidence in British News Outlets these days that rank alongside CNN.
I worked for two American companies in my career and visited many parts of the States and some places were scary to say the least. I visited Minneapolis 3 times where we set up an office. It didn't seem dangerous but I had to be escorted if we went downtown in any of the USA cities. I definitely would not want to be a police officer in the USA and it's bad enough these days in big cities in the UK.
The downtown areas of cities like St Louis, Chicago, New Orleans and Louisville were scary for a Brit. Probably Newark was top of the list for danger. I likened it to travelling through downtown Johannesburg in South Africa.
You have a massive problem in the USA that seems to be out of control. The courtroom proceedings put me in mind of the trial of Al Capone in the Untouchables film where the judge had to switch the jury because they'd been influenced. There was no chance of finding a jury who had not seen the video in advance unless they lived in an igloo at the North Pole. I feared for every member of the jury if they wavered.
In my job I generally dealt with nice and law abiding people who followed the rules and respected law and order. I don't think Police officers have that luxury so the job must have an effect on lots of them. They have to be as hard as the people they have to deal with.
Isn't this the first case ever where video evidence was circulated around the World in advance of the trial? So in effect Chauvin was guilty unless proved innocent that was impossible.
I don't know why Chauvin needed to get involved with the arrest and why the first response officers couldn't deal with it. They seemed inexperienced and incapable of communicating with Floyd for whatever reason. They were culpable so they are now also guilty unless proved innocent. What of the people who trained them and put them out on the streets? And the ones who hired them. All guilty to different degrees I suppose.
Who has the solution?
Perhaps this might occur to
Perhaps this might occur to you: the video of the police killing wouldn't have gone viral so much to prejudice the jury if they had been dealing with rogue police properly throughout the generations -- if the police weren't so systematically the enemy with poor minorities -- if the police and the prosecutors didn't routinely close ranks behind police lawlessness -- if the police actually provided police protection to those communities.
Do Japanese, Korean, and Chinese big cities have anything like the inner city? Poverty is concentrated in certain parts of the city? The middle class routinely lives in suburbs and commutes to work in the city? Law enforcement views its mission as keeping the natives in line?
You saw the USA change? Crime definitely changed for the better in the past generation. I hope that that's what you're talking about.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Police Are Human
I've suggested many times that all human endeavors can be plotted on a bell curve. About twenty percent well be below a satisfactory performance line. Some can be rehabbed through training, others must be fired. That's where the Police union steps in. Chuavin was known as a problem child with 22 complaints against him in 19 years. The union protected him. In the beginning of this fiasco, the union was four-square behind Chauvin. In the end, even the union distanced themselves from him.
When "defunding" is discussed it is often a code for creating a situation where the union is disbanded and forced to start over like in Camden NJ -- funding isn't cut but the force is disbanded and rebuilt. Only the very foolish want to eliminate police. only the very foolish want to continue Police as they are.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Minority even here
Sure, I do, I am Asian who got her share of racism growing up.
It is all too human to 'tribe up' unfortunately.
After being born and raised in a country who has a horrible racist past and after nearly 60 years in the same said country I can honestly say racism is always under the hood somewhere and I still don't feel wanted or welcome here no matter how much hard work I have put into being far better than the average joe in this country.
Am I being arrogant about being better than average? No. There I've said it in a public forum but what is the big deal, somebody will always be the better than the average. Problem is it speaks so poorly of the average right now that even a very imperfect me is better.
And that the potential for 1 out of 10 police officers being a bad cop is appalling.
It should be at worst no more than one out of 1000 who are bad if one were vetting them right.
At that level of responsibility the standards need to be similarly high.
And this whole blue wall of silence thing that still exists in law enforcement culture is never going to stop as police have to deal with the worst of humanity too and too easily get a jaundiced view of their charges.
They really should retire when they can not longer be objective and deal with each incident as individual instead of piling on to the bad experience pile that slowly eats at their soul.
Code of Silence
"And that the potential for 1 out of 10 police officers being a bad cop is appalling." -- even that is way too low. One can't have a Mafia-style code of silence if only one in ten have it.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
The Plot Thickens
Floyd and Chauvin may have worked security together at a dance club in Minneapolis, a dance club possibly with questionable involvements. While nothing changes what happened, I hope this is investigated further.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Floyd+Chauvin+%22dance+club%22
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Trial by Media
This case has identified a major problem going forward. Video footage was sent around the world so the trial was compromised from the outset. The media coverage was intense and the trial was like an episode in a TV series.
The prosecution just used the video film and rolled out experts and even the Chief Officer of Police and colleagues who distanced themselves from the event. None seemed to accept any responsibility and the Chief seemed like an administration man rather than an officer with front line policing experience. Then Waters waded in and finally the President and Vice President all looking for political advantage. They made it clear that if the verdict was 'wrong' there would be trouble.
How on earth this judge kept some sort of respectability for the trial I don't know.
Then there was the matter of a settlement of $27m with the family of Floyd before the trial.
Floyd was a known criminal who had served time for armed robbery threatening a pregnant woman by putting a gun to her stomach based on some information not broadcast through the UK media. He had moved from Houston Texas away from police scrutiny. He was a big man who was strong enough to resist the officers who responded to the call. He used drugs and was involved in crime but he didn't seem to be on the poverty line.Was he a victim of his upbringing more than his skin colour? Parents have responsibility and all the family stepped up after the event and were vocal.
Who would join the police force as a career when they are expected to uphold the law under a microscope.
So many people standing and watching events unfold including police officers. Isn't there a story in the bible of people standing by? A man who apparently would not accept being arrested and restrained that got out of hand. Nine minutes and 29 secs for someone to step forward and putting themselves at risk. Who would take that step forward in this day and age? Especially in the USA. I can't see it getting better any time soon. It's not just a matter of colour of the skin in my opinion it's more about human behaviour nowadays in an ever changing world.
Pity the jury and no wonder they were never on camera. Had there been any other verdict they were vulnerable and they would be relying on the police force to protect them. The same police force who protect Waters, Harris and Biden.
What a mess.
Missing The Point
Yes, one of the problems many of us have with "justice" in the US is the hoop-la that inevitably comes with it, but let's face it, could there possibly have been any other verdict when there was nearly nine minutes of video showing a police officer kneeling on a man's neck while he complained that he couldn't breathe? Are you seriously suggesting that the police officer was innocent?
Yes, I would think...
Yes, I would think I would go by the evidence. Not the emotion.
charlie.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/missing-without-a-trace-cha...
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/832524
Trial by Media
The incident was badly handled from start to finish based on what I saw. Police made a mess and people stood by. Was making a video more important that stepping forward to try to intervene? What about the others witnessing what was going on including police officers. It seems people standby too often now and daren't get involved.
Chauvin wasn't trying to kill him or he'd be stupid. He could even have been just showing off to the officers who had failed to deal properly with the arrest. Floyd died and his family got $27m. Chauvin is alive but may feel he is better off dead and his family will suffer ever after and they won't be compensated $1 for his long service because he is a murderer.
The trial was on tv in full view of the world and it was like watching a guilty gladiator in a Roman Colosseum facing a baying crowd. The President stood up and gave the thumbs down. The jury daren't give any other verdict that guilty of all charges. Now the judge has to give a sentence that reduces the chances of riots all across the USA. The defence daren't call for a mistrial because of Waters inciting violence and Biden, Pelosi and Harris endorsing it.
The family have been 'bought off' to try to stop them inciting more violence in Minneapolis. It seems like crime and riots pay dividend.
I wonder how the families of police officers feel as they leave for work each day. It seems as if we are encouraging criminals to resist arrest and this makes a police officers job even harder and increases their vulnerability.
There will be plenty of people standing by making videos rather than accepting the police force are hired to protect them. What if a police officer had been killed in the line of duty? I fear that the attitude in the USA is that they are all bad people as this case shows and anyway they are paid to take the risk. I wonder how much the person who took the video was paid to hand it over.
As I said it's a mess.
Julie D Cole You Are Simply Wrong -- Repeatedly.
In my opinion, you couldn't be more wrong.
The amount of resistance George Floyd put up was minuscule and long past when he was murdered. To blame this on resisting arrest is myopic and extremely selective.
The BEST thing that young person could have done was take the video,
Had she interfered with the arrest she would have been charged with a felony and possibly thrown on the ground right next to Floyd and also killed.
You're buying into right-wing foolishness when you believe the verdict was due to fear of more riots.
There have been hundreds of adverse verdicts handed down during the last few years in the face of potential riots across the U.S. The streets of Minneapolis were filled with police and the National Gaurd. I live here. It was like a war zone. The chances of an actual riot breaking out were infinitely small.
I'm in the insurance business and was appalled by the loss of property last summer. Yet, I was pleased beyond belief that no one was killed. There were many activist -- boogaloo boyz -- in town -- with the stated goal of killing cops and setting off a race war. The mayor and governor acted in the interest of saving lives.
The verdict was due to overwhelming evidence. The crux of that evidence was the video taken by a very brave young girl.
Had that girl been reimbursed for her tape -- it would have come out in trial when she was on the stand. The defense would not have missed that one.
George Floyd was murdered. His murderer enjoyed doing it. Watch the tape. Watch his face at trial when his mask was down. He felt he had the right to decide who lives and who dies. I don't believe in capital punishment. But there will be people where he's going who will no doubt feel differently. I'll set the over/under on his survival at three years. Care to place a bet?
I once was the CEO of an insurance company and the ultimate decision-maker on settlements. I can't fathom a $27M settlement. But I can tell you what the logic is behind them. You look to similar cases and what was paid out. That is what's going to be presented by expert witnesses in trial. The Chauvin case is especially egregious in that Chauvin could have made a decision almost at any time during seven minutes that would have prevented the death. It was not an honest mistake made in a split second. It was a deliberate killing. You never want a case to go to trial because juries do crazy things and precedents are set.
$27m seems insane. But there is no "seem" about Chauvin. I grew up on farm. When a dog killed a chicken or a pig, we shot the dog. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Chauvin deserves to be incarcerated for a very long time.
The Daunte Wright case is totally different. I immediately said that I would have a very hard time voting to hold her accountable for manslaughter. She made a very regrettable error in a highly stressful situation. Obviously, she lacked training. Obviously, her approach that night was entirely wrong. Just as obviously society is as guilty as she is. When society points officers at people and the gun goes off we can't blame the officer.
I have friends in law enforcement. One of my friends paid the ultimate price when his sons used his service revolver to kill himself. Police have a hard job to do. We need to change that job.
The Derek Chauvins of the world need to be punished. We no longer can have a system where police lie for each other as they have in the past. We no longer can afford to have a system -- where evidence is suppressed by friendly prosecutors -- as it has in the past.
People who make remarks -- as you have -- make it harder for things to change for the better.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Too Much
I love you Jules and I am sympathetic to your argument. I just think it's too small.
We have come to expect too much from our police. As we cut funding for public health we expect police to deal with health emergencies.
As we cut funding for family and social services we expect police to deal with families in crisis. As we cut funding for safety net services we expect police to deal with the resultant homelessness, hunger and crimes of desperation.
The reasons we find ourselves here are long and varied but they stem for our unwillingness to see all people as worthy of our care and assistance. We fall into ancient patterns of tribalism and othering. Patterns of victim blaming and cutting resources to failing institutions rather than repairing them. We fall into patterns about private property rather than public charity. We say "Why give money to poor and starving people? They'll just create more poor and starving people who need more money."
Of course media is not blameless. The end of the fairness doctrine and the profit above all motive means that "news" is now even more about selling advertisement and shaping consensus than Noam Chomsky told us a couple generations back. Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner saw an opportunity to create a market by feeding a base and re-enforcing that. The rest of cable news took a little longer but they soon fell in line. The end result is that we no longer have "news". Instead we have self serving propaganda mills telling us what we want for forty minutes and selling us what we want for the other twenty.
It's going to get worse. The number of people living in climate stress is going to rise. That will lead to more crimes of desperation and more political, economic and climate refugees. We will see those with power and influence manipulate the wedge issue game. Using their power and influence to pit one group of powerless people against another. All with the explicit and obvious goal of preserving their power.
Police kill three people per day in the US. In the time between Floyd's death and Chauvin's conviction that's something like four hundred people were killed by police in the US. More than in any other country in the world.
I'm no fan of the US justice system. Expensive pageants deciding how to punish guilt do little to curb crimes of greed, passion or desperation. Better to address the causes of those crimes. I assert that Floyd and Chauvin, their families and to a lesser extent, all the rest of us, are victims here. Many of us get to say "justice has been done." others get to say, "This has been a travesty! How can you possibly blame the messenger?" No one is better off than they were before. Except for the one sending the message. Our plutocrats.
The winners here are our plutocrats and their pet media. everything else is incidental.
Peace
Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTlrSYbCbHE
Your friend
Crash
I Am Glad
That Angela Rasch replied to many of the accusations made before I could do so. I probably would have got myself into trouble.
However, a couple of observations. On 6 January 2021 police at the Capitol in Washington faced a "baying crowd" (Julie Cole's words) and an officer was killed. The crowd had been incited by the then president and his family and cronies. That officer died protecting congress persons, senators and the Vice-President and his family. Is Julie suggesting that this crowd be treated differently to Officer Chauvin?
She seems to be placing the blame for the verdict in George Floyd's death on the heads of the current administration rather than on the evidence. Is attempted insurrection to be treated as legitimate if it is carried out by white Right-Wingers?
Is a nine minute video of a murder being committed to be ignored?
I am Spartacus?
First - wading through testimony throughout the trial, it hit me hard that the woman EMT who happened on the scene attempted to intervene on Mr. Floyd's behalf, only to be threatened to be pepper sprayed and arrested by Chauvin. Several of my family members served on ambulance squads, and I cannot but think of how they would have argued on that man's behalf as well.
Second - A parallel between trans and BLM, so to speak? Both the young lady who BRAVELY recorded the arrest AND the little girl who spoke to the Texas State legislature about the EVIL bill restricting minors from receiving trans-related medical care? Both have been vilified and even physically threatened. Imagine that? A girl with a cell phone and a seven year old with a calm presence having their lives threatened.
The little girl's mom is exploring options regarding relocation so that in advocating for Kai, she does not risk losing custody of all her children. Even as some states are reconsidering the ill-advised and unjustified anti-trans bills, other states have redoubled their efforts to hinder or outright destroy the rights of transgender citizens.
As a CLOSETED trans citizen, I am risking nothing by speaking out. These two stories leave me with the task of how to finally come out to my son and daughter-in-law. And a little girl shall lead them?
Love, Andrea Lena