When a Minneapolis police officer wedged his knee with his full bodyweight into the neck of 46-year-old African American George Floyd Monday, May 25, the same eerie cries of “I can’t breathe” were heard on video, strangely reminiscent of 27-year-old Staten Island, N.Y., resident Eric Garner put into a deadly chokehold July 17, 2014 by NYPD police officer Daniel Pantaieo. While the New York coroner rule Garner’s death a homicide, the New York District Attorney never brought charges against Officer Pantaieo, prompting protests around the country. While no one knows the name of the Minneapolis police officer that killed Floyd Monday, all four officers at the scene, including Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng have been relieved of duty by the Minneapolis Police Chief. With protests and riots in the streets, the black community and others are outraged.
Hundreds of protesters took to Minneapolis streets tonight to demand justice, refusing to allow the same miscarriage of justice in Garner’s chokehold case, with another white police officer using lethal forces, claiming self-defense. In Floyd’s arrest Monday, Minneapolis police say they responded to the scene claiming a man meeting Floyd’s description tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill, something not proven by police. When police approached Floyd, they said he was intoxicated, resisted arrest, prompting the four officers to take him down with force, with officer Derek Chauvin suspected of using the an unorthodox deadly force maneuver on Floyd. “They treated him worse than they treat animals,” said Philonise Floyd, George’s brother. “They took a life—they deserve life, stressing that Minneapolis won’t rest until justice prevails, something that didn’t happen in Garner’s 2014 case.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey confirmed that the police tactic used, putting a knee on a suspect’s neck, was strictly prohibited by the Minneapolis Police Department. “Being black in America should not be a death sentence,” Frey told the Star Tribune, dumbfounded that the police had not charged the arresting officers. Black Lives Matter stemmed from the string of African American murders during the Obama administration, with the shooting deaths of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin Feb. 25, 2012 in Sanford, Fl., 18-year-old Michael Brown Aug. 9. 2014 in Ferguson, Mo. and 37-year-old Alton Sterling July 6, 2016 in Baton Rouge, La. All cases involved White police officers or neighborhood guards shooting unarmed black suspects. Black Lives Matters erupted into being with members of the National Basketball Assn. [NBA] donning “I can’t breathe” T-shirts to remember Eric Gardner.
Los Angeles Lakers star guard LeBron James tweeted his outrage over Floyd’s murder. “Do you understand NOW!!??!! Or is it still blurred to you?? #StayWoke,” shocked that five nearly six years after Eric Garner history repeats itself. When Black Lives Matter was formed July 13, 2012, it was in response to what some observed was open season by white police on the black community. Riots in Ferguson, Mo., burned for days after the killing of Michael Brown by 28-year-old white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Wilson left the Ferguson police force but was never charged with murder. Eyewitness reports indicated that Wilson discharge his weapon into Brown’s head when Brown’s hand were up. On July 7, 2016, African American Micah Xavier Johnson opened fire with an AK-47 on the Dallas police, killing five white officers to avenge the deaths of unarmed black men.
Monday’s egregious police abuse-murder against George Floyd sparked that same kind of outrage that spawned Black Lives Matters in 2013. “For five minutes we watched a white officer press his knee into a black man’s neck Five minutes. When you hear someone calling for help, you’re supposed to help. This officer failed in the most basic, human sense,” said Mayor Jacob Frey. On Feb. 23, 25-year-old Ahmaud Arberts was gunned down by two white vigilantes, father-and-son Travis McMichael and Gregory McMichael, in Satilla Shores, Ga, prompting the same kind of outrage as in the Travon Martin killing in 2012. What made Arbery’s death so egregious—and racial—is the fact the police charged no one until May 7, six weeks after the murder. Another suspect who videoed the incident, William “Roddy” Bryan, was also charged as an accessory to the Arbery’s murder.
More riots and looting in Minneapolis suggests that the black community still sees the racism involved in George Floyds’s murder. “At my request, the FBI and Department of Justice are already well into an investigation into very sad and tragic death in Minnesota of George Floyd,” President Donald Trump tweeted today, before heading to Cape Kennedy to witness the aborted SpaceX launch of two NASA astronauts. Unlike past unarmed black killings at the hands of white police officers, the shocking video evidence of lethal police force shows that police departments around the country still have a long way to go in screening police officers clearly unfit for duty. Police departments must continue in training academies around the country appropriate police tactics but, more importantly, once graduated, continuing racial sensitivity training and appropriate police methods to protect the public’s civil rights.
