A reader writes:
I can’t imagine those cops intended to kill Floyd. I also don’t think it was demonstrably motivated by race: two of the cops were not “white”. Clearly they were worked up about a previous struggle, then they just let him slowly suffocate by crushing him while he was pleading for his life. At least that is what it looked like. Then again he was likely on drugs and might have been difficult for the cops to deal with. There is no chance the cops can get a fair trial. I feel bad for them too, at least the rookies. Would I behave any different in their situation?
It is really awful to watch, I don’t get it at all, but there are other problems than just police brutality, plaguing our nation. Like wealth disparity, lack of work, broken families, drug addiction and environmental destruction, not to mention being locked up and out of work because of a global pandemic.
Let’s see.
I’m a little disappointed we didn’t hear “The real violence is abortion!” or “But black on black violence!” or “What about whites killed by blacks!” or “This is all a stunt to make Trump look bad!” or “Not all cops!” or “If Floyd was really suffocated then how could he breathe enough to say he couldn’t breathe? The video is clearly a fake!” or “Antifa is the real threat!” or “Protesting or kneeling or speeches or, you know, doing anything is no way for black people to protest injustice” or “Sin will always be with us. So there’s no point in trying to change anything” or “Would Martin Luther King approve of Black Lives Matter? I think not!” or “Jesus never organized political protests so we shouldn’t either!”
But still, a very representative sample of classic white conservative rhetorical tropes for avoiding the bleeding obvious.
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48 Responses
I know you’re still getting the hang of your new blog site. Just throwing some ideas out there. If you still have access to your old blogspot site. I think url used to be markshea.blogspot.com log into that and redirect the url to the new wordpress url. Also. The main page on your current site does not have good delineation between posts. You might check on line to see some free wordpress templates that make it easier to read. Just some ideas, cheers
Many Americans live in an ahistorical vacuum.
Where to begin?
Ta-Nehisi Coates: ‘In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body’
Mark, I really think it’s time for you take a break from blogging and probably see a neurologist. No person in reasonably good mental health would read what the person wrote the way you do.
Thanks, Doctor Tone Police. Your medical expertise is so appreciated.
@ Brian Jones
I am in excellent mental And physical health, and I agree 100% With mark on this.
No person who has a shred of conscience in this country can remain in reasonably good mental health as things stand.
It is a sociopath’s paradise.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/opinion/ta-nehisi-coates-whiteness-power.html
Thomas Chatterton Williams: Tah-Nehisi Coates has millions of white admirers, but whatabout class?! And hey I moved into Fort Greene!
Williams joins both Marxists and conservatives in his anxiety to downplay race, even though Coates is right and racialism has been a decisive force in American life from the very founding of the republic. Does anyone wish to deny this legacy continues to profoundly affect the lives of black Americans? I can’t think of any public intellectual who’s described that history more lucidly than Coates. And you know what, power is a kind of alchemy. Look at how it transformed an entire political party into a bunch of bootlickers of a clownish wannabe dictator (and…a racist!).
*Ta-Nehisi
Please please add an editing function!
This place needs an editing function. I it also completely disrupts every possible conversation by not allowing to reply to a reply.
Awww, Mark, you’re slipping. You left out the best one of all!
What about all of those (Pull a number out of your backside) black babies murdered by all of those (White people, black people, atheists, liberals, Demon-rats, politicians, Hillary— choose as many as apply) Pro-abort people who want to destroy the black community (who are crime ridden, Passing counterfeit bills, breeding irresponsibly, parenting irresponsibly, killing each other, killing white people, in jail— choose as many as apply, but choose carefully where you say it aloud)?
What about them, huh?
Isn’t it just amazing how much concern they can show for all of those (illegitimate, uneducated, crime prone— choose as many as apply) At this juncture, but otherwise, don’t seem to care less than a rat sass otherwise, at any other time?
I’ve felt SO MUCH Christian love in the last 50 years! Love! Love! Love! I know it when I see it,
But seriously, what about the cops? What about their pain? This video gives us a rough idea of what they’re going through: Cop Explains How It Feels To Live Every Day In Fear Someone Might Record You Brutalizing A Civilian
Well THIS just was sent off to our relative on the LAPD. I’ll tell you what he says if he responds.
I wouldn’t call this a charitable reading of your reader’s email.
Would you call it an accurate reading? Itks what I got out of it.
jj
The above letter has to be somebody’s parody, surely? No-one could really write something that stupid for real, right?
“I can’t imagine those cops intended to kill Floyd …. they just let him slowly suffocate by crushing him while he was pleading for his life.”
“He was likely on drugs…” presumably on the basis he was black, right? Because those people are always on drugs, aren’t they?
The most telling bit is “Would I behave any different in their situation?” Well no, no he wouldn’t, but I don’t think he realises that this is an admission about himself, rather than a defence of the cops.
> I can’t imagine those cops intended to kill Floyd.
No, he was just a convenient victim to come along.
> I also don’t think it was demonstrably motivated by race:
It’s not motivated by race, race is just incidental to the convenience. White man? Don’t risk it. Black man? Go all out, you’re not risking anything. It was just convenient to kill him, so they did.
> two of the cops were not “white”.
Doesn’t mean anything. Frank Hernandez, who beat up a black man in LA last week, was Hispanic. Doesn’t make it any more right.
> Clearly they were worked up about a previous struggle,
So if you get worked up about a previous struggle, but don’t get to kill the perp on the street, would you justify the policeman shooting a random guy in the street? Or coming back home and beating up his wife or kids?
> then they just let him slowly suffocate by crushing him while he was pleading for his life.
And this is a complete non-sequitur. I don’t get how that got in there. It’s like there was a glimpse of awareness that then got snuffed out.
> At least that is what it looked like. Then again he was likely on drugs and might have been difficult for the cops to deal with.
Sure, crushing a suspect with the knee is effective to prevent him from moving. But once he was cuffed and no longer a threat, there was no need to keep it up other than to derive some sadistic pleasure from doing so.
> There is no chance the cops can get a fair trial.
Yeah, right. I watched some comments about police brutality recently and found that out of all the convictions in the first instance, all of them were appealed (because police unions) and most appeals were upheld in the second instance.
And even if there was a conviction, the union will bail out the policeman.
> I feel bad for them too, at least the rookies.
Yeah, I feel bad for those who felt that work in the police would be fulfilling and who earnestly thought that they can be different. And then they meet reality.
> Would I behave any different in their situation?
I hope I would. But if you watch even a few minutes of Grossman doing his warrior cop seminar and you find out that police chiefs and police unions make policemen take his classes, you’ll realize that it’s not incidental, it’s institutional.
> It is really awful to watch, I don’t get it at all, but there are other problems than just police brutality, plaguing our nation. Like wealth disparity, lack of work, broken families, drug addiction and environmental destruction, not to mention being locked up and out of work because of a global pandemic.
Sure, there are huge problems. But funny how a lot of the criticism directed at these protests comes from those who denied there is a pandemic, those who object that environmental destruction is significant, those who think that drug addiction is self-inflicted by weak-willed criminals, how broken families, lack of work and wealth disparity is all caused and upheld by the same politicians who also turned the police force to an interior army.
I’ve been considering what your reader wrote. You are right to find a lot of fault with it, but I would wager to say that *many* of us used to be fooled by the false narratives of conservatives. He’s been lied to. Statistics, coupled with cultural ignorance, and ignorance of scientific studies on behavior can lead to a wall of fear, a stumbling block to understanding the plight of the other. We have *all* been conditioned to be afraid.
It seems that my oldest daughter who lives in NYC, is doing battle on facebook with her white cousin (in AZ, surprise!) about defunding police dept’s. (Did you know that NYC spends FIVE times as much on the police than on hospitals??). So my daughter lost her cool with her cousin the other day. Her cousin was only homeschooled and briefly attended a right wing unsanctioned catholic school, out in the boondocks. We both know that her cousin was raised with fear and racist ideas. I explained to my daughter that there was no way she would win the battle overnight, with anger, and especially not with all of the cousins watching. Patience, and education wins the day.
I am reflecting on my own children being forced from their conservative catholic bubble, (back when we could no longer afford tuition). Suddenly, my second oldest kid was going to school with kids from the projects and a couple of trans kids. It was quite the change. I was definitely fearful. I watched them like hawks and asked a lot of questions. They literally told me MORE than I wanted to hear, but not about the “gangsters” or the gay kids. Everything that shocked me had to do with rich white kids rebelling…sex, theft, assault, drugs and partying. The rich kids have better lawyers. Interestingly enough, it was at Marin Catholic, where expensive jackets and personal property was stolen with regularity. We didn’t have that problem at the public H.S. which included kids from the projects.
Anyway, as I’ve mentioned here before, I immediately noticed that the public schools were doing the best job in producing kids that were generally more open to others, and against bullying. Bullying is considered to be very *uncool*. (The catholic kids haven’t caught up as well…) But the issue of racism, “Black Awareness Month” and a day off in honor of MLK day is not even close to being enough. There needs to be a curriculum *yesterday* that spells out the WHOLE truth –from the beginning –a nation *built* upon the slavery of human beings, the whole nine yards, up to continued apartheid in our cities/workplaces and deliberate government intervention to manipulate Black families. Our kids need to read hard science on what it does to the brain and *genes* to be systematically excluded, underpaid, undervalued, and poor, –in neighborhoods where crime is often the only way to get your nose above the poverty line. They need to see the scientific evidence of how a human brain functions when violence is present in schools and neighborhoods, when parents aren’t home because they both work multiple jobs to survive, and parenthood in general is undervalued, marriage is penalized,–how poverty ravages relationships. Our kids need to read declassified documents about the part that the U.S. government’s played in introducing crack to already compromised Black neighborhoods. They need to read about “the war on drugs”, and black men incarcerated for life over a drug deal, and see how not a *single* white guy went to jail for banking fraud on Wall Street..etc. etc. etc.–The whole ugly progression.
And one last thing. ALL of the people that I know whom are racist and believe in the conservative “STATS” narrative, don’t actually have integrated neighborhoods, cities, schools, OR actual Black friends.
Even in my liberal county –we talk the talk –march and chant, but fiercely guard our white school districts, which keep our property values high. We have brown schools, black schools and white schools. Everybody knows it. My husband and I call the place where the Hispanics live “The Walled City”(Try to guess which neighborhoods have the COVID-19 cases…)
“They literally told me MORE than I wanted to hear, but not about the “gangsters” or the gay kids. Everything that shocked me had to do with rich white kids rebelling…sex, theft, assault, drugs and partying. The rich kids have better lawyers.”
Well, yah. Didn’t Jesus warn us about this? Wealth is toxic to character. The only people Jesus ever yelled at or assaulted were the rich.
Hi Mark, thanks for posting my comments… I guess. I feel somewhat infamous now! I just wanted to say I appreciate your candor and comments and I love reading your blog. We met a couple times actually, once in Norman, OK and another time in Anchorage, AK, many years ago. I hope we can cross paths again. I think God has given you a wonderful intellect for evangelization and writing–I still think you need to write a book against the new atheists.
I just see things differently, yes there is a disregard for Floyd’s dignity as a human and it’s really awful and tragic. But Floyd *shouldn’t* have resisted arrest and he *shouldn’t* have stolen the cigarettes and he *shouldn’t* be abusing narcotics. Obviously, the reaction of the cops was excessive and ended up leading to his death. But he could have died from the combined effects of the drugs, his poor health, and the cops excessive use of force. And I do feel bad for the rookie cop, I’m not sure I would have the courage to push off a senior officer in that situation (I hope I would). I find it extremely difficult to believe they intended to kill him because he was a black man. Skinny arms would appear to be a class A D-bag, but at least withhold final judgement until after the trial, when all the facts are laid bare. At this point they are guilty until proven innocent, which isn’t fair either.
And speaking of white people, they irritate me, both extremes: those in the Trump-cult, and those hipsters with the terrible tattoos who throw Molotov cocktails at police cars because they have white people problems and hate cops. I hope we can agree that white people can be awful on both sides of the spectrum, not just the christian conservative types.
I come from a multigenerational law enforcement family. What these officers did was not law enforcement. It was murder. Police are trained in active and passive restraint. The rookie, in particular, should have spoken up, as he was closer to his initial training on appropriate restraint, less jaded. At a point early on in the confrontation, it is clear that Mr. Floyd was not resisting arrest, but struggling for his life.
I grew up around men like Chauvin. I watched his face during the 8 minutes. Not an ounce of humanity. He knew exactly what he was doing. He face alone will convict him.
“But Floyd *shouldn’t* have resisted arrest and he *shouldn’t* have stolen the cigarettes and he *shouldn’t* be abusing narcotics.”
He didn’t do any of those things. Those are simply lies.
He wasn’t “abusing narcotics”. That is made up.
He didn’t steal any cigarettes, you have pulled that out of your bottom. The cops were called because a $20 bill he paid for his goods with looked counterfeit. No-one even knows if Mr Floyd had any idea it might have been a counterfeit bill, and now he’s been murdered, no-one will ever know.
His “resisting arrest” consisted of trying (and failing) not to die.
You are defending the right of a murderer to murder someone by slandering his dead victim. Please take a good long look at yourself and what you have become.
I know, right? Where does this guy get his news? (Hey Elmwood, don’t think I don’t remember you from the Reporter in 2016 because I DO.) Let’s review!
Floyd was accused of using an alleged counterfeit $20 to PAY for a pack of cigarettes. Whether he knew it was counterfeit (if it was) we’ll never know.
Initially the police lied about what transpired. Video evidence from several sources confirm that Floyd was not resisting arrest when he was killed.
A full autopsy report on Floyd reveals that he was positive for the novel coronavirus and that he had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death. Two autopsy reports variously conclude that Floyd died from “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression,” or “asphyxiation from sustained pressure.”
What’s the suggestion here, Elmwood? That a person who may have passed a fake bill, had drugs in his system or may be intoxicated, had it coming? If so, you don’t know the first thing about being a free man under the rule of law. But further, you totally don’t get it about the historical, cultural, and social context that made Floyd’s position so perilous. What makes a white cop think he can choke a black guy for almost nine minutes ON CAMERA with impunity? Chauvin is a thug, but if Floyd had been a white man, would he be dead now?
Please spare me the both-sides-ism. This is not about Trump cultists or anarchists. It’s about a country where an entire demographic is, as Ta-Nehisi Coates describes it, the “below.” Next time you rationalize murder by the state you might remember your god Jesus was from the “below,” and your sympathies as a Christian are supposed to be with him and not with Pilate.
At least if you are going to accuse someone else of making up facts..be sure you have yours right. He had fentanyl and meth in his system. That being said….he did nothing that should have led to his being killed by a thug in a police uniform
“ But he could have died from the combined effects of the drugs, his poor health, and the cops excessive use of force.”
Still making excuses for the complete failure of morality, I see. He was doing fine with the drugs and the poor health until he met the excessive— my dictionary defines that word as MURDEROUS— force of the cop.
I was in law-enforcement for nearly 5 years, a long time ago. One thing I learned was that most cops are pretty decent people. A significant number of them are not decent. The decent ones are unfortunately not overseeing the actions of the bad ones as much as would be desirable. And some of them look deliberately in the other direction. It’s very much the same situation in the Roman Catholic Church. I think a lot of priests are decent people. But there is the culture of clericalism, which demands fealty to the bureaucracy that runs the church before it demands fealty to anything else. Untold hundreds or thousands of people must have known about father Ted McCarrick and his desire to pork anything that moves, just as I’m told hundreds or thousands of people must’ve known about the former archbishop of West Virginia. But they all looked the other way.
As I have said elsewhere, if you have 10 bad cops and 200 more cops who know about the bad cops but do nothing, you don’t have 10 bad cops, you have 210 bad cops.
You don’t get how any of his works at all. You’re conflating racism with “animosity” or “hatred”, and while they may share a casual relationship, they are not the same thing at all.
I could think that black people are intellectually inferior to white people; that doesn’t mean I hate black people. But it might lead me to think that having racially integrated and diverse schools is a mismanagement of resources that only serves to hold white people back. It might also make me consider hiring or promoting a black person to an upper management position to be a risky proposition.
Its not that I hate black people, but I’m just being practical, you know?
So I don’t think that the police officers deliberately set out to kill Floyd specifically because he was black. But they did perceive him as someone who had no power, no resources and no influence. They deemed him an acceptable target:someone who was both morally deserving and physically capable of having such abuse being inflicted upon. They clearly thought there would be no repercussions for their actions, and they were right; for a long time there were none and there might’ve been none, were it not for the public outcry.
The point is not about the thoughts or actions of individual actors, its that we live in a society that creates, validates and perpetuates the dynamics that make these occurrences both common and predictable. And some people are perfectly fine with that, while others are sick and tired of it all.
Then there’s people like yourself who prefer to stick their head in the sand when confronted with reality.
It’s what I have said many times on these very pages. Not all bigotry is hate. So much of it is the always present, always assumed, completely unwarranted believe in a completely imaginary superiority as a human being. Hate is it necessary. Despite is usually there, but as you point out, it can be complete indifference as well.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office official autopsy report shows 11 ng/mL of Fentanyl in his system. And also THC and methamphetamine (19 ng/mL). Fentanyl is an extremely potent drug –“The most dangerous adverse effect of fentanyl is respiratory depression, or the decreased ability to breathe.”–killing 30,000 people a year.
The cops should have recognized the fact he was at a high risk for death because of his intoxication. They did the absolutely wrong thing by forcing him down in a prone position and effectively choking him with their body weight. Still, untreated, Floyd might have died either way–11 ng/mL is potentially deadly.
There are bigger problems in our nation than police brutality and racism IMO. Wall Street made billions during the pandemic, drug abuse is rampant, the environment is in serious trouble–major extinction event, and 70% of blacks are born to unwed mothers (40% nationally). Maybe the much bigger issue is about the break down of the family and not having living wage jobs.
The excessively wealthy and the elite want us poor and middle class to fight among ourselves while they walk away with billions by atomizing society and breaking down family and community structures.
Elmwood wrote:
I could’ve sworn that back in 2016 you claimed to be an attorney.
well, i just watched an interview with an african american activist from Minneapolis saying some very similar things – the issues with police officers are a symptom of broader issues in our society. When you have vast areas of our cities with poor jobs, not much for grocery stores, families broken apart – you have problems. You reduce those issues, and you reduce crime. That our economic system depends on the rape of our environment, the exploitation of the poor, etc.
To me, in a broader picture, this makes sense. Spend money on community revitalization instead of militarizing the police. Implement community policing. forming alliances within the community. create jobs, get rid of “food deserts” in our inner cities. Empower those communities to help themselves.
this is not an either/or issue. It isn’t a “police bad/people of color good” picture.
The truth is, I saw a peaceful protest was hijacked by a couple dozen thugs who decided that throwing bottles and rocks through windows, at police, and destroying a couple of businesses. I saw as the police tried to defuse the situation. How they stood as the thugs threw things at them, and when they couldn’t get a response from the officers stood in front of them screaming all sorts of vile verbal abuse at them, including threats on their lives. This in Fargo North Dakota. I am all for peaceful protest. That was not peaceful.
It isn’t an either/or situation unless we no longer believe in personal responsibility. I, as a Catholic, am responsible for my actions. As an American, I am responsible for my actions. Each person on the police force should be responsible for their actions, as should each citizen.
The system is broken, I get it that sentencing is disproportionate. I get that police presence is heavier in particular areas. I also get that police presence should be more in high crime areas. I also get that being poor is no excuse for breaking the law. It is no excuse for stealing, for selling drugs, etc. Being harmed by someone else does not give one permission to harm someone as a response. Is there a difference between killing someone and destroying their place of business? of course. Is there a difference between a suspect being killed by a cop and a cop being murdered by a suspect? Does the fact that we ask cops to walk into situations on a daily basis where their lives are on the line and we ask them to make split second decisions, knowing that we will then second guess those decisions?
I agree that the warrior culture within law enforcement is bad. That does not equate to cops are bad. any more than we should assume al protesters are good.
@brian martin you missed the point of my post entirely, but that’s OK. There’s background here you’re unaware of.
Not sure where I ever suggested an “either/or” perspective on race relations, but neither do I have any patience with the kind of bs being dished out here to minimize the effects of racism. And, thank you, I’ve had fairly long exposure to poor communities so am not oblivious.
White Man: “There are bigger problems in our nation than police brutality and racism IMO.”
Black Man: “I can’t breathe.”
“All lives matter” is a polite way NOT to say “black lives matter, too.”
Depression and anxiety spiked among black Americans after George Floyd’s death:
Asians and African Americans show sharp increases in mental health problems amid protests, while white Americans were relatively untouched
White Man: But whatabout the break down [sic] of the family!
The autopsy report from Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office concludes the cause of death was “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.” That conclusion, death due to heart failure, differs from the one reached by an independent examiner hired by the Floyd family; that report listed the cause of death as “asphyxiation from sustained pressure.”
Cardiopulmonary arrest is when your heart stops beating. I don’t think the cops directly killed him, I think the drugs and his poor health did. We’ll find out when there is a trial when all facts are hopefully provided and there is a rigorous debate.
Right to life, right?
After all, it isn’t the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop.
Heart can and will stop beating if you are being asphyxiated. This is an good example of a technicality.
Elmwood, let it rest, seriously. At this point, it sounds like looking for excuses. And if you need excuses to quiet your conscience, then it’s a pretty sure sign something is wrong.
@ tough luck.
Something is wrong, like not having a conscience. Or a conscious.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/6/8/21281998/chicago-deadliest-day-violence-murder-history-police-crime
While Chicago was roiled by another day of protests and looting in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, 18 people were killed Sunday, May 31, making it the single most violent day in Chicago in six decades, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab. The lab’s data doesn’t go back further than 1961.
https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/04/869278494/medical-examiners-autopsy-reveals-george-floyd-had-positive-test-for-coronavirus
This medical examiner’s report does not mention asphyxiation. However, according to prosecutors, in charging documents filed last week, early results “revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.”
My point in all of these posts is that the media can take things out of context and manipulate perception. There was more to Floyd’s death than “white man cop murders innocent black man”. There’s a whole lot wrong with our nation, racism is just one of them and given the context of all this violence, not the major cause of so many tragic deaths–it’s complicated.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/6/8/21281998/chicago-deadliest-day-violence-murder-history-police-crime
While Chicago was roiled by another day of protests and looting in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, 18 people were killed Sunday, May 31, making it the single most violent day in Chicago in six decades, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab. The lab’s data doesn’t go back further than 1961.
https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/04/869278494/medical-examiners-autopsy-reveals-george-floyd-had-positive-test-for-coronavirus
This medical examiner’s report does not mention asphyxiation. However, according to prosecutors, in charging documents filed last week, early results “revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.”
My point in all of these posts is that the media can take things out of context and manipulate perception. There was more to Floyd’s death than “white man cop murders innocent black man”. There’s a whole lot wrong with our nation, racism is just one of them and given the context of all this violence, not the major cause of so many tragic deaths–it’s complicated.
Yes, but there’s no reason for it to be complicated.
There were witnesses. If Chauvin simply did the right thing, he would have had all the evidence he needed to show that Floyd was indeed resisting arrest. If he needed backup, he should have requested it.
It could have been uncomplicated.
It appears Elmwood’s standard for police conduct are gangland murderers.
There you have it.
@neko
One could argue that someone’s morality and empathy could be argued if their response to a murder is to do a minute inspection of the victim to decide whether he deserved it or not.
This reminds me of a story from my law-enforcement days, 35 years ago. (Lord, am I old!) I had a guy on my caseload who, while out on parole for armed robbery, murdered another man, known ironically as the reverend, because the reverend was messing with my guy’s wife. My guy had a violent rap sheet a block long. The case went through the court and the plea bargain process, and the decision was to give him a year sentence for manslaughter and to send him back to prison for the rest of his term, the terms to be served concurrently. Why? Because the reverend Was even a worse human being then my guy. Though nobody said it out loud, nor would they have, it was clear to me that the reasoning was that my guy had inadvertently committed a public service.
I objected to this strongly. In my best Hercule Poirot fashion, I said, “I don’t approve of murder”. Both the DA and the judge contacted my supervisor, and suggested that I rewrite my report to reflect their agreement. I told my boss that I could not re-write it in good conscience, but if he wanted to give the report to someone else who would sign their name to it, that was OK with me. To his credit, he backed me up. The deal went through, but at least I was not a party to it.
This case was one of two that was the final straw for me continuing my career as a probation officer. I decided that the criminal justice system was at least as criminal as it was just. I left a few months later to begin my career as a photographer.
Um, one of the autopsy reports indicated “asphyxiation from sustained pressure.” The media reported, not inflected, this announcement.
Anybody who has a shred of confidence in medical examiners should drop everything and read Radley Balko’s The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South.
Or, a a short op-ed by the same author in the Washington Post.
Just to further expand on my point:
> There was more to Floyd’s death than “white man cop murders innocent black man”.
If you accidentally discharge a firearm so that it hits a man attempting suicide, you’re going to be charged at least with manslaughter. Even if the man was falling to his death at terminal velocity into a pool of lava and his fate was otherwise already sealed.
My point is, even if George Floyd was already on his way to meet his maker, the only right thing to do was to perform CPR, not to make sure he dies.
If he died, Chauvin wouldn’t have been complicit in it. There. As uncomplicated as it gets.
@ tough luck
But if you can’t factor in right wing but hurt, the very fine people, the Christian Persecution narrative, and Perhaps Benghazi, Can you really be said to be engagIng both sides?