The country is going through an ugly time right now courtesy of the very public murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman.
I call it a murder because the video of the incident has been seen by virtually every American (the demise of the African American man at the hands of policeman Derek Chauvin) and it is obvious that the death of the Black man was not an accident.
Mr. Floyd was handcuffed (with hands behind his back), lying prone and defenseless, while officer Chauvin kneeled on Floyd with his knee compressing the victim’s neck for a period of eight minutes while Floyd repeatedly insisted “I can’t breathe”. As this was occurring, a crowd had formed and pleaded with Chauvin to stop the brutality. Chauvin did not, and instead stared directly into the camera (of the onlookers who were recording the event with their cellphones) with a look of satisfaction and dismissiveness, as in “I’m in charge here and I can do anything I want”.
Sure, officer Chauvin is innocent until proven guilty, but good luck finding a jury who can view the video of what happened and conclude that it was an example of good police work.
The aftermath of George Floyd’s death has included outrage across the United States (and worldwide), mass protests, and violent anti-police demonstrations and property destruction in many cities throughout America. “Antifa” activists (i.e. anti-fascist demonstrators) are thought to have ignited the violence and rioting in some cases.
The philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
What we are experiencing now is reminiscent of the Watts riots in Los Angeles sparked by police brutality of Rodney King in 1991, where enraged citizen fury morphed into neighborhood destruction, looting, and worse. Many minority communities throughout the country have seen events like this over the past fifty years. And yet, police mistreatment and brutality with regard to people of color continues unabated.
Why?
Unfortunately, a culture exists in many police departments that permits, and even promotes, “hard ass” treatment of minority citizens, based on the excuse that this population is criminal at its core, doesn’t respect civil authority, and is, in essence, guilty until proven innocent. So, it’s OK to mistreat them.
Most police officers are not hot-headed “cowboys” who disregard training and proper police procedure. My son Ron is a by-the-book Lieutenant in the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, and the vast majority of men in blue are like him.
However, there exists a well-documented code of brotherhood in law enforcement ranks which protects officers who step over the line: “You have my back on this one and I’ll back you up when you need me.” It is an “us against them” mentality which views the non-police population as ignorant of the real world, while law enforcement must deal with the poor and homeless, mentally-retarded individuals, and criminal element every day on an up-close-and-personal basis. This reality promotes a hard edge among law enforcement officers who have a difficult job and don’t appreciate citizens who make it harder. Officers who brutalize minorities under cover of authority are rarely ratted on by their partner.
Sometimes, it’s a tag team exercise, which is what it appeared this week when Officer Chauvin asphyxiated George Floyd while three other police officers kept the crowd at bay and made no effort to stop Chauvin’s brutal assault.
Law enforcement has the task of dealing with the ugly underbelly of American society, a reality that White Americans, who proclaim that the United States is “the greatest Nation on earth”, don’t want to acknowledge. They’ve entrusted the job of managing the turmoil in the mean streets of town to the police and tend to give law enforcement a long leash in how they get the job done. Candidates who run for local elected offices vie for support from the local police chief, the Sheriff, the rank-and-file officers, and their unions.
Invariably, candidates who promise to “get tough on crime” get elected. This grants police officers a feeling of entitlement, that they can bend the rules, that they are, somehow, above the law that they enforce on others.
(The arrogance of law enforcement in local government is palpable. To some extent, they make their own rules. When I was working in County government, the Executive Officer put together the annual budget for the Board of Supervisors to consider. Each department head submitted a budget proposal, and the CEO staff (including myself) reviewed the individual proposal and the combined proposals and found a way to fund the necessary operations of County government within the financial means available. The Sheriff in our County, in 1978, refused to submit a budget proposal for CEO review. He instead arrived at the formal Board of Supervisors budget hearing in casual slacks and a Hawaiian shirt, orally demanded a huge slice of the County budget pie, turned, and exited the hearing. The five Board members acquiesced to his demands with little discussion, and the other County departments had to share less pie.)
The “thin blue line” mentality runs right up the ladder in the criminal justice system: police, district attorney, courts. Law enforcement officers are given the benefit of the doubt when testifying about who did what and why. Prosecutors rely on the police for convictions, and conviction rates earn promotion within the District Attorney’s office. Successful prosecutors often become judges. In some cases, those judges become candidates for State or Federal offices.
The fact that local elected officials are beholden to law enforcement is a big component of the police brutality problem. Individual officers, or entire police departments, which have “gone off the reservation” are typically not severely reprimanded, fired or prosecuted. White society (reflected by the local elected officials) simply looks the other way while the latest incident fades into memory and “normal” life resumes. “Out of sight, out of mind” describes this reality; if we don’t acknowledge that there is a problem, then there isn’t one.
Prosecutors and judges, who rely on policemen for their success, introduce bias into the law enforcement equation by prosecuting and convicting more minorities for the same crimes as White Americans. Black Americans are three times as likely to be shot and killed by police as White people. Sentencing recommendations by local prosecutors are harsher for minorities. Prisons and jails are disproportionately occupied by minorities.
Normal, day-to-day life for people of color is markedly different from that of White Anglo Saxon Protestant Americans. Not only are minorities disadvantaged economically and health-wise, but they often find themselves living in crime-infested neighborhoods and ghettoes. This is the target area for law enforcement in most urban areas and the locale where overzealous policing is common.
It is not uncommon for an African American male to be accosted by aggressive police officers for little or no probable cause. “Driving While Black” is urban slang which references African American male drivers being pulled over to the curb while the cop and/or his partner look for some excuse to cite or arrest the innocent driver and occupants of the car. “Stop and Frisk” is another aggressive tactic which targets minority men who are simply walking down a sidewalk or talking with friends.
In both instances, which are illegal, aggressive police officers are instigating situations which sometimes result in angry reactions from those targeted, which then proceeds to hostility, then to physical contact, charges of “resisting arrest”, and, all too often, someone gets hurt, usually the unarmed minority civilian.
Many police officers believe that “resisting” their authority is a serious crime that must be dealt with immediately with overwhelming force, sometimes lethal. And so, society is left to deal with the aftermath of incidents like the death of George Floyd who, being suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 at a liquor store, was detained and cuffed behind the back…rendering him defenseless…went to the ground, possibly making his arrest more difficult (resisting?). The four officers who were on the scene evidently decided that the statutory punishment for resisting arrest (as much as 12 months in county jail) was not sufficient in this case and opted to execute the Black man in full public view.
This kind of provocation/overreaction by police officers doesn’t typically happen to White Americans but it is all too common in minority neighborhoods. Civil rights proponents have complained about this issue for decades. Community protest and riots, ignited by incidents like those involving George Floyd and Rodney King, have come and gone. Still, systematic racial injustice via local policing continues.
The larger problem is that White Americans don’t acknowledge the problem because they don’t see it.Their husbands or male children aren’t being treated in this manner by the police, and so they view incidents like Mr. Floyd’s demise as a freak occurrence or an unfortunate misunderstanding.
Black Americans know there is a problem because they live it; their families experience aggressive police intrusion into their lives on a regular basis. Most of them have either suffered from police brutality or have relatives or neighbors who have been on the receiving end of this sick version of “justice”.
Because White Americans can’t identify with the problem, and may not want to deal with it, they tend to vote for candidates who promote “law and order”, leaving the solution in the very hands of those individuals who are part of a broken system. The cycle simply continues, ad infinitum, as people of color become more and more angry at being preyed upon and, then, ignored . Eventually, they erupt in fury.
President Trump’s reaction to the recent events has been thus: (1) Initially ignoring the outrage concerning the Floyd killing; (2) lambasting local government leaders when peaceful protests turned violent; (3) threatening to use violence to thwart protests, rioting and looting; (4) mobilizing National Guard and federal military units; (5) orchestrating a photo-op with a Bible at a small church across the street from the White House; and (6) making a call to the family of Mr. Floyd, in which he spoke to the family, and entertained no questions.
Supposedly, there will be a Federal investigation into the Floyd death at the hands of the Minneapolis police department. It will be headed up by Attorney General William Barr, who has proved to be adept in whitewashing scandals involving the Trump Administration.
Interestingly (but not surprisingly) the Hennepin County coroner came out with a report alleging that Mr. Floyd’s death was caused by (a) possible intoxicants, (b) a heart attack, and (c) possible pre-existing health conditions. This is what one would expect where one arm of law enforcement (the Sheriff/Coroner) provides cover for the Minneapolis Police Department by pretending that the death of Mr. Floyd was not due to the aggressive action of the four policemen.
A private autopsy conducted on behalf of Floyd’s family subsequently found that (surprise!) the cause of death was asphyxiation, which is consistent with the video of the man being suffocated by the policemen with his knee to Floyd’s throat for five minutes, Mr. Floyd’s repeated cries that “I can’t breathe!”, and the additional three minutes of Chauvin continuing to press Floyd’s neck after the victim lost consciousness.
It was only after that second autopsy that the Hennepin County District Attorney felt obligated to charge officer Chauvin with 3rd degree murder and manslaughter. Had there been no second autopsy, and no protests and riots in Minneapolis, it is likely that no charges would have been filed against the four police officers, who were summarily fired the day after the incident.
The shenanigans of the County Coroner and the District Attorney weren’t lost on Black Americans and the outraged protesters, including many White Americans, who are trying to shine a light on systematic racial injustice by law enforcement throughout the Nation. Protests and riots have sprung up in cities all over the United States and in some foreign capitals, calling for an end to police brutality…again.
The “Black Lives Matter” movement has attempted to focus public attention on this problem for the past eight years. Quarterback Colin Kaepernick, in the 2016 NFL season, began a practice of kneeling with head bowed during the playing of the National Anthem, to protest police brutality and racial injustice in America. Many other NFL players followed suit. Donald Trump made political hay off of these demonstrations, calling the players “bums” and demanding that the team owners fire the “sonsofbitches”. The purpose of the public demonstrations by concerned players was eventually lost in the furor over their perceived traitorous acts and “Black Lives Matter” receded in the Nation’s focus.
The George Floyd murder has brought the BLM movement back into focus…big time.
Donald Trump has not shown any type of Presidential leadership in this latest crisis, except to pander to his political base (i.e. the very folks who support aggressive “law and order” against minorities). His attitude appears to be that those protesting and raising Hell in the streets are simply troublemakers intent on embarrassing him. There appears to be no empathy in the man toward the victims of police brutality or any desire to identify and resolve systemic problems in the law enforcement and criminal justice systems.
As usual, the President seems to forget that he was elected to represent all of the citizens of the Nation, even minorities. He is supposed to give a shit, or at least pretend that he does.
Instead, his “solution” is to make the problem go away by acting tough, inciting violence upon protesters by police and National Guard troops and blaming the whole mess on “left-wing radicals”. This is comparable to the genesis of the crisis at hand, where the police act tough, escalate to violence, and then blame the other guy (Floyd) for causing it.
As the saying goes, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.”
Interestingly, a few weeks ago President Trump actively encouraged “right-wing radicals”, some armed with long guns, to storm State capitols and demand the that pandemic-collapsed economy be re-opened. Angry protesting, chest-thumping, and threatened violence by his supporters were perfectly acceptable to our President who wanted to make a political point. The protesters were demanding “Freedom…to work”, they were real patriots as far as Mr. Trump was concerned, and they were heard.
Demonstrators of a very different political persuasion are now using Trump’s techniques to encourage core societal change, to demand “Freedom…to not be mistreated by law enforcement”.
These activists aren’t patriots, according to the President, but rather traitors, thugs and troublemakers to be dealt with at the end of a National Guard bayonet, if necessary.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Do the words Kent State ring a bell, Mr. President?
The November election can’t come soon enough.