News George Floyd

[VisionofMilotic]

By now most of us in the United States have have heard about the chilling death of George Floyd, an African-American security gaurd and father of two who had moved from Houston, Texas to Minneapolis to find work, where he was killed under brutal circumstances by four police officers.

I had planned to wait until there were fewer AMAs so this serious discussion would be less likely to get buried, but since there is an interesting debate thread about riots taking place in the United States, I decided to start a second conversation about the killing that became a catalyst for national outrage. This topic is intended to be a separate discussion from the thread about what types of political protest are acceptable against the government. I am on the side of peaceful protest, but that's a different conversation. This is not a discussion about rioting. Instead this thread is intended to focus on the propriety of conduct of the police force or lack thereof, and what consequences they should/will face, if any.

On May 25th 2020 George Floyd was accused of attempting to pay an employee at the local grocery store Cup Foods with a bad bill, and was arrested outside at his car. A graphic video filmed by a bystander caught national attention, showing police officer Derek Chauvin torturing a prostrate, handcuffed George Floyd with a knee-to-the-neck for 9 minutes straight as Floyd plead for his life, telling officers that he could not breathe over and over again. George Floyd described hurting all over his body, and asked for water, saying that he would get in the car with the officers and do whatever they wanted, but he was taunted and force was continuously applied as he gasped his last breaths, and spoke his mother's name. The voices of multiple bystanders can also be heard imploring Chauvin to stop, and arguing with police, stating that Floyd was already down and couldn't breathe, that his nose was bleeding, that he wasn't resisting arrest, asking the authorities to check his pulse, and pointing out that Floyd was unresponsive, but all to no avail. His fellow officers looked on, made sarcastic comments, and new video has emerged showing multiple officers participating in the abuse of Floyd, forcing him to kneel for a knee to the neck.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/george-floyd-new-video-officers-kneel-trnd/index.html

The Police Department issued a statement that Floyd was ordered out of his car by officers but resisted arrest. Video camera footage from the nearby Dragon Wok restaurant capturing several minutes before the arrest does not show any resistance by George Floyd.
https://localnews8.com/news/2020/05...ice-claims-that-george-floyd-resisted-arrest/

It is important to note that even if resistance did occur at some point off-camera, which I doubt, it clearly was not happening during the long period of time Floyd suffered the knee-to-the-neck and eventually lost consciousness. He was unarmed and immobilzed, but the police continued to assault him.

I am sickened by what took place and outraged. What is on camera is essentially the lynching of a black man in 2020. Though Chauvin has been fired, and faces criminal charges of manslaughter, this is too little, too late in my opinion. None of the other complicit officers have been charged with anything thus far, and the charges against Chauvin were not severe enough in my opinion. I think there is a case to be made for first or second degree murder, and not just manslaughter. Given that Chauvin choked Floyd for several minutes I believed he was knowingly killing Floyd for the thrill as bystanders at the scene accused him of, and that there is a legal case to be made that this is malice aforethought. I don't believe Chauvin was emotionally impaired in any way. The definition of second degree murder is the intent to cause bodily harm with indifference to human life. I don't see how anyone can objectively view the video and believe that the police were anything other than indifferent to the extreme pain they causing. They seemed to think it was funny.

I chose not to post the video of Floyd's neck being slowly crushed because of how disturbing and violent the content is, but it can be searched for online if you feel the need to watch it for research purposes to formulate your own opinion.

In addition to receiving minor charges it has also come to my attention that Chauvin had 18 previous complaints against him over several years. Had he been taken off of the streets before now Floyd would probably be still alive today.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-05-29/chauvin-shootings-complaints-minneapolis-floyd

Justice for George Floyd!

 

[Ninetales]

The United States has two pandemics:

COVID-19
Police murder

I can only pray that justice is served and that these horrific and unjustifiable instances of racially fuelled MURDER cease. It just absolutely breaks my heart. Chauvin needs to face the consequences for his horrid actions, alongside all other police officers who have abused their positions of power and have senselessly murdered innocent people. It is despicable. Enough is enough.

 

[Kanzler]

The US in some ways has policing that is more akin to that of a third world country. Based on my understanding, they're not taking the best. The qualifications for a lot of these police positions are lower than they would be in a first world country, so you end up with poor quality people who don't have the aptitude or temperament to police properly. What you find in these third world countries is police forces being staffed by people who aren't well educated and can't get a better job elsewhere who are just there for the authority and the paycheque.

 

[colours]

reminder that police brutality against people of colour is not a US-exclusive issue

 

[Kanzler]

reminder that police brutality against people of colour is not a US-exclusive issue

All the while, I think it's important to recognize the situation in the US and give it the respect it deserves.

 

[Ninetales]

reminder that police brutality against people of colour is not a US-exclusive issue

There have been accusations against the Toronto police force, as they allegedly pushed a black woman off of a balcony when responding to a domestic violence call. I'm not sure on specific details but you're absolutely right, this is a global issue.

 

[Caite-chan]

I mean all over a fake $20 bill that he may not even have known it was a fake. I mean we get them once and awhile at work and people don't even know. We just tell them we can't take it and give it back and they pay with something else. There was no need for the police to even be called much less for him to die.

 

[VisionofMilotic]

I am still overwhelmed emotionally by the shot gun killing of Ahmaud Aubrey as I struggle to cope now with the loss of George Floyd. The case of Aubrey is somewhat different to George Floyd because Aubrey was shot down while he was out jogging by civilians playing vigilante, and not the police. However, Ahmaud Aubrey's case still reveals larger systemic problems that we have to work through together. That it took more than 70 days to bring charges against the McMichaels for killing Aubrey shows an indifference by the judicial system to what happened to Ahmaud Aubrey. I hope there's justice for him, but before that happens I expect to see a smear campaign launched from the courtroom, the strategy when George Zimmerman the neighborhood watchman was on trial for killing Trayvon Martin. Martin was a high student with no criminal record walking home in his own neighborhood,unarmed on the phone to his girlfriend, carrying a bag of candy, shot to death by a grown man who confronted him because he didn't think he belonged there. Though Zimmerman was charged, what was really on trial was the kid. Any mistake Martin ever made in his short 17 years on earth from trying marijuana, posting a picture online in his boxers or getting into a fight and suspended from school was paraded about in a media circus, playing to the stereotype that he was a scary thug, and ultimately the jury bought it as did a large cross section of the country unfortunately, and I still hear voices defending Zimmerman as the wronged party, even after multiple accusations of domestic violence against women have surfaced about him.

I think with Ahmaud Aubrey and George Floyd they'll look for anything in their background, any incident no matter how minor like writing a bad check, and put them on trial, instead of Chauvin or Michaels, they will blame the victim, something that might otherwise infuriate jurors if race were not a factor, just as sexism is still alive and women can have their characters dragged through the mud when they are the victims in rape cases.

A time I remember the attempts to deface the victim not working was with Botham Jean, the young African-American businessman who was shot by off-duty Officer Amber Guyger when she broke into his home and said she thought it was her home and that he was the burglar. Fortunately, she went to jail. So I hope we have made some progress, and that folks have wised up, but you never know in this country.

 

[Kanzler]

https://www.courthousenews.com/minnesota-officials-link-arrested-looters-to-white-supremacist-groups/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=minnesota-officials-link-arrested-looters-to-white-supremacist-groups

It's good to see that this is being called out by government officials. Some people often use the presence of violence in/among/alongside the protests to discredit the protests altogether, and this is one less reason for them to ignore things.

 

[VisionofMilotic]

I didn't have to dig very deep to uncover that Tou Thao, the officer who stood beside Chauvin coldly watching George Floyd die and bullied the outraged bystanders with mace, also has a history of allegations of abuse and misconduct. 6 years ago another unarmed, handcuffed man was brutally beaten by Thao during the arrest, and then humiliated by being dragged to jail wearing nothing but his underwear.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/tou-t...-beat-up-unarmed-handcuffed-black-man-in-2014

There was also a lawsuit that was settled out of court alleging that Thao stopped a man walking with his pregnant girlfriend, and beat him up so badly that the man's teeth were kicked out.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...-officers-derek-chauvin-tou-thao-investigated

It's ridiculous that this monster was not taken off the streets. He never received disciplinary action of any kind by the police, and is sitting there right now on paid leave, waiting to hurt someone else. Take away his badge and gun for good, and put him behind bars.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...-officers-derek-chauvin-tou-thao-investigated

 

[Nah]

I'm not really optimistic that the guy is going to get successfully convicted of murder. It should be an open-and-shut case from the video evidence alone, but we're talking about the country where for a long time, 9 times out of 10 the cop gets away with, where practically nothing changed about its gun violence situation after a bunch of little kids were murdered in broad daylight.

 

[gimmepie]

I wish I could be more optimistic than Nah, but I don't have high hopes. While racism is still a global problem, it's a special kind of prevalent in the US and the US has historically done very little to curb racial violence, especially when it comes to bigoted and overly violent police. A lot of things need to change if things over there are going to improve. You need to improve training and make recruitment processes more stringent, you need to demilitarise the police force and you need to target larger problems systemic to American society in general.

It would be a long road regardless, but the change is made all the more difficult by people in power consistently stopping the journey before it can even get started. Seeing that a lot of people are being vocal about this atrocity from high places is a good sign, but I have my doubts that it will be enough.

 

[Taemin]

This whole thing is absolutely disgusting. I hate that race is so important to some people that they'd kill an innocent person over it.

I'm glad that some of the officials and police are siding with the protesters over this.

My favorite thing I've heard was the police who stepped aside and let the protesters set a man's car on fire, after he started shooting the crowd with arrows.

My country (the world, but especially America right now) really needs a wake up call to racism. I don't think it will ever go away, because as long as there are differences, people will always fight and disagree. Though, I think, or I hope, that it can reach a point where society no longer kills people for no reason. That sort of thing needs to happen FAR LESS before we can say we've made hardly any progress at all as a country. I have absolutely no respect for people who would harm a person based on skin tone. Losing a lot of respect for a lot of police since I was a kid who used to think they were cool. I should also add that in my line of work, I deal a lot with fake money and fake checks, etc, and never is that ever a reason to kill someone. Not even to bring attention to them, it should be done privately, or not at all.

 

[moon]

The US in some ways has policing that is more akin to that of a third world country. Based on my understanding, they're not taking the best. The qualifications for a lot of these police positions are lower than they would be in a first world country, so you end up with poor quality people who don't have the aptitude or temperament to police properly. What you find in these third world countries is police forces being staffed by people who aren't well educated and can't get a better job elsewhere who are just there for the authority and the paycheque.

I feel like this is a big problem tbh. We're short on police here in Sweden, as the requirements for getting in (physical, mental and skill/intelligence) are very high. Source: a friend who is quite clever and ripped took years to pass the tests to get in.

It is a demanding job, especially in terms of mentality, and I can't help but thinking that it's actually better to have slightly fewer thoroughly controlled and decent policepeople than hordes of "policepeople" who would do what the OP describes. How did it come to this?

 

[Commander Saturn]

I don't support the BLM group and I bleed blue, however what these officers did was revolting and they are a disgrace to the badge. My focus is on my prayers for George Floyd's family and his friends, not the radically racial inclined actions of these protestors and people ascending the bandwagon. I dearly hope that justice will be served in full and with haste, to allow this family's peace of mind.

 

[Wavee]

being a cop is supporting the systems that marginalize black people and normalize violence against them. theres no such thing as a "good cop" just bad cops and those who sit by and allow them to live out their power fantasies. Whats disgraceful is that chauvin has been getting away with multiple similar crimes since 2006. why wasnt anything done before?

not wanting to get killed isn't "radical". human rights are not a "bandwagon". i cant even imagine the lack of empathy involved with designating peoples anger as just some sort of trend, as if anyone finds this enjoyable

 

[Commander Saturn]

Maybe ignorance is blocking your imagination.

 

[Wavee]

you couldve at least answered my question. youre a police officer right? I'm just curious as to what you have personally done to combat racial profiling & violence among your peers? No judgment here.

 

[Commander Saturn]

How am I suppose to answer that question exactly? Do I work there? No, I do not. From what I have read, it appears that the entire department needs a flushing and overhaul, not just that specific officer, and it looks like it has needed such for an extensive amount of time. But, as I mentioned, I do not work there so there is no way possible for me to accurately tell you why he wasn't fired beforehand and anything I might say would only be guesses. I do try to refrain from speaking on that which I do not know personally; it is surely a bad habit to get into opposite of.

I have the fortunance of working alongside an excellent team of officers, and the only minor situation that has occured whilst I have been with this department was between an officer and a white male. That officer was dismissed within the week as far as I am aware, he has not been hired to another department. I've been working overtime and assisting with overseeing several of these protests around my area. I don't support the group, as I mentioned, but I can respect their passion and I overall want things to run smoothy for all involved. A lot of my team have been sharing our Gatorade and interacting with the public instead of just making rounds as an overbearing presence; I've met a lot of interesting people and I personally believe this has been a positive experience between my department and the public.

 

[Ys]

I think racism may be part of the problem but it's not all of it.

I have absolutely no respect for people who would harm a person based on skin tone.

While I understand the sentiment, I would extend this to I would despise anyone who killed without a good reason (as in self-defence) or who was purposefully cruel to another human being, regardless of race. So I don't agree that the protests are a good way to do things, especially if the affected are innocents, but yeah, what the officers did is obviously horrible and should not go unpunished.

Also, I'm in agreement with praying for George's family and friends. And I agree that police officers should have better preparation and control, specifically what Lynx said about the high standards for job application for police in Sweden. Not just in the US but in every country.