Thursday, April 8, 2021

George Floyd


The trial of Derek Chauvin unfolds before our very eyes. It needs to. We all need to see. George Floyd lay on the ground in handcuffs pleading to breathe in front of witnesses.  He had been subdued, and posed no threat. There was no point to escalate the restraint beyond the handcuffs. A nine year old girl witnessed Derek Chauvin put more weight on George Floyd's neck. The question was asked, 'How do you know that he was putting more weight on his neck?' The child's answer came. She had watched him lift up his other knee from the ground and put his full weight on that one knee resting on George Floyd's neck. Those simple words spoken in a childish voice told me everything that I needed to know about the situation. 

In my neck of the woods (see what I did there...it was not for comedic effect), people are screaming about 'blue lives matter' and 'we support the police'. Even some police cars have flags on featuring the thin blue line. They need to take a deep breath. 


I don't believe that it is 'either/or', as in you're either 'for 'em' or 'agin 'em', .How about 'and/also', as in "I support the police, and I believe that there are also police officers out there who dishonor the badge that they wear. "

I don't understand the whole 'brother' thing. To justify bad behavior makes you party to the behavior. It pleased me to hear the top homicide detective  say that Chauvin's behavior was ' totally unnecessary' and that it violated departmental policy. The Chief of Police testified that it was 'absolutely in violation of the department's use of force policy'. A training officer testified that the maneuver did not comply with police training. 

One bad officer makes the job more dangerous for everyone else. 

Derek Chauvin had 18 official complaints of excessive force in a 19 year career. 

He is the epitome of a 'bad cop'. 

16 comments:

  1. Well written.
    Well said that child..who will live with what she saw...

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  2. Nicely written. Floyd may have been a bit of a bad boy but he had no time to reflect in between panicked non breathing and unconsciousness. I've tried to get my head around the thoughts of Floyd's alleged killer, but I really struggle to understand and I can only see the obvious, a possible killer cop.

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  3. Lovely.
    I, too, support the police, but I am not naive enough to think all police are good.
    I am alsp not naive enough to see that most of these killings of Americans by police are of People of Color.

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  4. The point that needs to be made in regards to whether or not George Floyd was a drug user is that it doesn't matter. His history had nothing at all to do with what we watched happen in front of us. The man was on the ground in handcuffs. They had him under control.

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  5. I agree that this was an awful thing. The bad cops need to be rooted out.

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  6. I have been lambasted more than once for refusing to say Chauvin is guilty of murder. I sincerely believe everyone should be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. I have seen many new pieces of evidence brought to light during the trial that weren't publicly available back when everyone was wanting to lynch Chauvin. I still won't say he is guilty of anything because the trial is still going on and despite how much one watches the news, we don't see every aspect of the trial as a juror does. But if I were a betting man and basing from what I have seen, I'm guessing some degree of manslaughter is probably going to be levied upon him. Whatever the verdict, he will have had his day in court as guaranteed under out laws.

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  7. Absolutely. I agree on all counts, especially with the observation that this is not an "either/or" situation. There's a certain brand of conservative thinking that is very binary, but the truth is, we can support cops generally and still think Chauvin is a bad apple and, yes, a murderer.

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  8. 'To justify bad behaviour makes you party to the behaviour.' That's sounds right and well said.
    It strikes me, that we have to allow some tolerance for the difficulties in making on the spot decisions and taking swift actions in jobs such as policing and the military. But there are clear lines that should not be crossed... and I sense the justice system will agree that this was one of them.

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  9. Amen to all that you said! I completely agree.

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  10. And at the end, Chauvin lifted his toes from the ground to exercise more weight on Floyd's chest. He is one bad cop. The end for Floyd; he died. Chauvin didn't get up for another three or four minutes.

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  11. Dr. Tobin's testimony was very compelling.

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  12. The video was taken by a 17 year old who still feels guilty that she couldn't have done more.... without that video there would be no trial.

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  13. That court has a duty to lock Chauvin up. If it doesn't, more fuel will be added to the fire. We all saw what happened and whatever George Floyd was, he did not deserve to be murdered like that - callously and with an evil sense that he was just a big black man so he didn't really matter.

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  14. Thank you, Debby. You and I don't always agree, but we do on this.

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  15. I think that we'd find more points of agreement than not, Bob. You are a listener, and I am a listener. That's the beginning.

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