So, first off, you are probably not going to like this piece I'm writing. That's okay.
I am going to point some things out, some facts, that you probably don't know. You will probably dismiss these facts, because they get in the way of how you feel about certain important things. I am also going to ask some very uncomfortable questions.
Most of the people I am writing this for are really nice, mostly white, mostly liberal people. The one thing I know about you, because I used to be one of you, is the way you feel about something is the most important thing about that topic.
Facts, stats, laws, and real logic don't stand a chance against how you feel about something.
At this point, I'm going to layout what I am seeing. What happened, what is happening, and what will happen in the future.
These are my views, as honestly as I know how to explain them. Please let me know where I have missed the facts I am stating.
If you disagree with my opinion part of this, let me know yours. I am often wrong, and if you can honestly point out where I'm wrong, I can, and do, change my mind.
We are a week plus from white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin killing an unarmed and handcuffed black suspect, George Floyd. Mr. Floyd was killed by Chauvin kneeling on his neck for about 8 minutes after his arrest.
Officer Derek Chauvin was arrested and originally charged with Third Degree murder and manslaughter last Thursday. This has now been upgraded to Second Degree murder by former Democratic Congressman, now Minnesota Attorney General, Keith Ellison.
So, if you have seen the video of George Floyd pleading with Chauvin that he can't breathe, while having his neck pinned down by Chauvin's knee, it is very upsetting. Really upsetting.
Bystanders asking him to get off Mr. Floyd's neck as they feared he was dying.....
My first impression when I saw it was damn, that is cold blooded murder.
Of the three other officers who were at the scene and involved in the arrest, two were rookie police officers. Thomas k. Lang, and J Alexander Kueng, along with veteran officer Tou Thao. They have all been fired, and have now been criminally charged with aiding and abetting murder.
Before they were charged, trying to look up these other officers was quite difficult, and I'm not sure why. Not sure why those three other faces have been kept so low in the coverage of this case.
It looks as though Chauvin was the senior officer on the scene and would have probably been in charge. So who were these officers? Do they have a history of abuse?
The two rookie cops have had no disciplinary charges filed against them in their careers, which sounds about right for rookie officers. Thao has had six complaints filed against him for his conduct, five being dismissed, and one where he was disciplined. Chauvin has has 18 complaints filed against him, all but two were dismissed.
So, as damning as that video is, I want to ask a difficult question;
Was Derek Chauvin using a City of Minneapolis Police Department approved neck restraint?
If so, it doesn't seem to be making the news very much.
Please hear me, I'm not saying Chauvin didn't perform the neck restraint too long, or incorrectly, or with too much force, I'm asking was he following his department's restraint procedure?
If he was, even if he did it 100% wrong, or with criminal intent, is this a common restraint technique in the city of Minneapolis? It appears so. This restraint has been used hundreds of times, many of those to the point of unconsciousness, and mostly on black suspects. (updated today, the City of Minneapolis just banned it)
This is going to be the only question that really matters when the criminal trial comes. Chauvin is going to say he was following department procedure. His attorney will say he thought George Floyd was just unconscious, not dying.
Murder means you must 'intend' for the victim to die. Second degree murder in Minnesota means “causes the death of a human being with intent to effect the death of that person or another, but without premeditation." If Chauvin had used this restraint procedure before, or had seen it done before, and the suspects survived, then it would be up to the District Attorney to prove Chauvin purposely intended for Floyd to die. That's going to be a hard sell for any jury.
Unless the trial takes place in a part of the city where the jury wants him found guilty no matter what the law says, I think Chauvin will not be found guilty on the Second Degree Murder charge. That's just my opinion, and I'm
afraid the nation is going to go into a full tilt riot when this happens. It will be a
tragedy.
One of the reasons this will probably happen is something civil rights activists seem to hate; prosecutorial overcharging.
As much as you want to see Chauvin convicted, as much as you want to see justice done for George Floyd, you prosecute people with the charge you can convict them with.
Manslaughter, or maybe even the third degree murder charge is going to be much more viable charge from what I have seen. If proven guilty of manslaughter, Chauvin will go to jail for years, and more than likely be killed while in jail. Yet, that will not be enough for some folks.
We will see how this plays out, but I don't like what I'm seeing with the prosecution from Attorney General Ellison.
The medical examination and toxicology report, along with what looks like Floyd's heart condition, seems to have been a factor. Again people, not excusing the cop here, just putting out the facts the defense will use. His attorney will say that Floyd had a medical condition, and Chauvin did not expect Floyd to die when he was being restrained. Like I said, we will see.
There's another really uncomfortable question I would like to ask;
What do you want me to do about George Floyd's death?
Protest? Make my Instagram profile a black square? Wear a Black Lives Matter t-shirt? Make sure my friends who don't do these things feel like absolute racists for not doing that?
Even if you don't want anything from me, what do you want other people to do? What do you want the nation to do?
I'm serious, because I hear people in the protests, and all over social media saying that we have to "do something" to stop this. We must reach out, we must make sure this never happens again. I hear, we need to rally and understand what is happening, to support our black citizens, to help stamp out racism, to make justice work for all people.
Okay, but how? Specifically, what do you want to have happen?
I get it, I feel your emotion on this, and I feel the same emotion too, but what exactly is that something?
I've looked all over the Black Lives Matter websites, and all their affiliated groups, and I don't see a lot of legislation, or striking down the police union's power. It's seems to be full of slogans and hashtags like defunding the police, close down the prisons, and open the borders. They certainly do want your email, your money, and to sell you some 'dope official gear'.
Let's get back to how change happens. If we are anything, we are a nation of laws, and some of them in our past have been racist as hell.
Our laws were written an a way to ensure blacks were enslaved in large portions of our nation at our founding. An absolute atrocity in our history. A Civil War and 600,000 Americans dead was the price our nation paid to free African Americans from that chattel slavery. We also passed new laws and new Constitutional Amendments during and after the Civil War to make sure slavery stopped.
New laws were how African Americans were granted the same rights as every other citizen through the Civil Rights laws in the 1960s. It took another three decades to make sure these laws were being followed by states, cities, counties, and businesses, through criminal and civil cases. The rule of law is who we are as a nation.
So, if we are a nation of laws, who writes these laws? Maybe more importantly, who enforces these laws?
Most people want to look to Washington DC and the feds, but what happens in your city or town comes from your local government. The people you elect to represent the place where you live, and those they hire to manage the law's enforcement.
Almost every case that has been thrust upon the scene by our news media in the past decade has dealt with city police officers, or county sheriff's deputies. So let's look at Mr. Floyd's city, since it's in the news right now: Minneapolis Minnesota.
So, who runs this Minneapolis? Is it the Klan, or a bunch of crazy Neo Nazis? Some of Donald Trump's family members? It doesn't appear to be the case. The City of Minneapolis is run entirely by Democrats.
Their two US Senators for Minnesota are Democrats, the city is represented in the US House by Ilhan Omar, one of the most leftist members of Congress.
That is not a big surprise. Most big cities, and every huge metropolis, is run by Democrats, and have been for decades.
So a valid question might be, if racism is the problem, why do these large democrat strongholds have such a problem with it?
Maybe it's not the politicians you say, maybe its the head of the police? So, who is in charge of this racist Minneapolis Police Department?
The Police Chief, Medaria Arradondo. Now, Arradondo seems like a nice guy, and he was appointed by the previous Democrat Mayor, Betsy Hodges.
Hodges has a master's degree in sociology, and says all the right things when it comes to race, climate change, affordable housing, immigration, the Me Too movement. She's a solid Democrat.
So how did the four city police officers, who showed up to arrest George Floyd in Minneapolis, all happen to be vile racists?
Why would a solidly Democratic Mayor, and an all-democrat City Council be cool with hiring four racist cops? Another questions is why would all these democrats allow a neck restraint of this type be used on an overwhelming majority of black citizens for decades? Why wouldn't they fight the police unions to change the way their city, and its black citizens, are being treated?
Yeah, I know. Structural racism....... in the Democratic Party right? I guess progressive democrats are just filled to the top with racists or something, right?
That may seem a bit harsh, but if I went down to the protests in my area, and asked the protesters what kind of people they want leading our cities towards real, meaningful change, the people in charge of Minneapolis are exactly the kind of people most of them would vote for.
Think about it, you are actually demanding change from the people you put in charge.....
Look, if you haven't figured out this truth yet, let me give you a key thought to always have running in the back of your mind: When Democrats use terms like 'structural racism', 'gun violence' and 'racial inequality' it's because they need to have something to blame for their own failures.
Hey, Republicans, don't get too smug over there, you should read some of my posts talking about how the GOP establishment blames illegal immigration, and societal failures to hide the fact that they want cheap, illegal labor, and cheap free-trade items from China that have killed so many US manufacturing jobs over the years. They do that so they can make more money for themselves and their shareholders. Okay, back to the problems at hand.
If you want to try to find out how big a problem black people dying at the hands of police officers is, you need the data.
I'm going to show you some facts, but you are probably not going to like it. Like most everything I've laid out here, it's complicated.
First, let's look at the numbers.
How many black people were killed in America in by the police in 2019?
According to the Washington Post Fatal Force data, that number was 235. That sounds like a lot, but many of those may have been criminals in shootouts with police, or people with guns and knives charging at a police officer.
So, how many unarmed black people were killed by police in 2019?
Nine.
Now, we don't know the stories behind these nine deaths, and I'm sure there are some tragedies in there. Then again, there are about 330,000,000 people in the US, and about 43,000,000 black people. There were also about 7,000 black homicide victims last year, and again, 90% of them are killed by blacks. When you look inside the 7,000 black homicides, nine is a very small number.
Unless one of those nine happens to be someone you know and love. Like I said, I'm sure there are some absolute tragedies in that number.
But if you remember the Michael Brown shooting a few years back, the 'Hands up, don't shoot' person, he was also considered 'unarmed'.
He was also attacking a police officer inside the officer's car, and struggling to get the officer's pistol.
Many of today's protesters still think Brown was killed by a white cop, while he had his hands up, and was begging not be shot.
President Obama's FBI report concluded that was not how it happened, and in fact, the officer was justified in the shooting of Brown. I would guess most people still believe the 'Hands up, don't shoot' story. Remember, we had riots for a week all across America following that shooting.
Well, 'Hands up, don't shoot' makes a better headline than 'Man assaults police and is killed'. It gets people more stirred up and clicking on your story. Understand, that is what what the media sells. Riots be damned, we have advertisements for coffee and shoes to sell, and money to be made......
Here is maybe the most important question; What are we, as a nation, going to do when this happens again? Because it is going to happen again.....
You might say, hey now, we are protesting to stop this from ever happening again! Okay,,,,,
You are out in the streets, demanding change from the people you put in charge! All the while criminals, and 20 year old Antifa members who live at home with their parents, are smashing windows, setting fires to building, and violently beating members of your community who are trying to protect their life's investment in a small business.
You peaceful protesters are marching and chanting, 'this is what democracy looks like' and then 'no justice, no peace'. Look, you may not have realized this, but you can't be peacefully protesting for 'no peace'.....
You have convinced yourself, that you and your friends, are 'not going to let this happen again'. Well, it's going to happen again, as sure as the earth turns. Then you can sit back and watch an even more violent mob of people burn your city, and murder more innocent people for your cause.
If you are concerned with black people being murdered, a logical question to ask might be, just who is murdering them, and how can we stop it?
Well, like all races, you are most likely to be killed by someone of your same race. The numbers from an FBI study in the mid 2000s hovers between 89% to 91% of blacks are killed by other blacks. Not by cops, or the Klan, or rednecks, it's probably some guy who lives a few blocks over.
This last weekend, like many others in Chicago, 85 people were shot, 24 of them killed. 17 people killed on Sunday alone. Most of them were black, and if their murders are solved, the people who killed them will be black if the statistics hold true.
It's a damn tragedy, and it happens with repetitive certainty, month after month in America's inner cities. No one knows their names, no one, or at least no one outside their neighborhoods marches for them. Chicago did have a march to end the violence in their inner city awhile back, but that doesn't make the news, and certainly not your Facebook or Instagram feed.
Do their lives matter to anyone besides their friends and families?
So, where am I going with this?
I want people to know what is actually going on. I want you to know that 'doing something' has consequences, and some of those 'somethings' do exactly the opposite of what you intend.
Voting for people who say the things you want to hear doesn't usually work, it just makes you feel better. You feel better because you are voting for the 'right side' in this struggle. If things don't get better, you can vote for someone even more outrageous who wants to 'tear it all down' or 'eat the rich' or some other feel good socialist slogan that won't work either.
As far as you mostly young, very compassionate, progressive people, let me just say this again; I get it. I was once like you.
I once thought, if I could just change the minds of those damn dinosaur old people, we would have peace, prosperity, and justice for all. Then I grew a bit older, experienced some things, and began to understand that what I thought was happening, really wasn't happening for the reasons I thought. I started to get passed the emotion, and look at the reality. That is where real change come from.
When I hear from progressives that we need to work together to defeat racism, and to allow for civil discourse, and to start admitting your white privilege, to begin to heal our nation, and other such bumper sticker type of sloganeering, I actually get a little angry.
Why? Because of who this is actually helping.
You.
You may not understand this unless you step back a bit and take a hard look, but what you are really trying to do is make yourself feel better about being you.
You want to post things on social media, maybe you want to go to a peaceful protest with all of your friends, then meet up to talk about how bad things are in the black community, and how righteous you feel because you are 'doing something'. When the riots and looting start, you will feel you understand why this is happening, but you will be wrong.
You will look at the violence and rioting and think, this is all the police's fault, America's fault, and maybe even my fault. Well, not my fault, but other white people's fault. Probably republicans.
Back to the cops and the killing of George Floyd.
I do not know, or have even heard of a single person who thinks the Minneapolis cop was justified in his actions. Not one. No one is on his side! Maybe the Police Union he belongs to, but no one is marching to defend Chauvin.
So, like I said before, this is going to happen again. There are 680,000 full time police officers in America. If just 1% are closet racists, just waiting to harm minorities while hiding behind a badge, that's about 6,800 bad cops. They should be kicked off the police force, or not hired in the first place, but how can you tell?
I want to go back to the 9 unarmed black men who were killed by police last year, I want to honestly ask you, how do we get that number to zero?
I don't think it's possible, no matter how many protests you hold, how many new laws are passed, how many millions are raised, and how many t-shirts are sold.
We can can try to make it better by focusing on police training, tactics, methods and hiring practices, and I'm all for that. Police training is woefully inadequate in most cities. Mainly because so much of the police budget goes towards police pensions. Most city managers will tell you they are paying for two police forces, the one on duty, and the one who is retired. Again, that's a whole other story.
Maybe this is all new to you. You, who doesn't live a black community, or a high crime community, and has no idea what it's like to be pulled over because you 'match the description of a subject'. Maybe you haven't been pulled over for some other made up reason, just to check to see if you have anything suspicious going on.
These kinds of police overreach are real. They happen all the time. Mainly in high-crime inner city areas, but also in nice neighborhoods. Ask black Republican US Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina. He was pulled over by the police 7 times in one year. Twice for speeding, the rest probably because he was black man driving a really nice car.
I would also say that these kind of random, no-reason stops happen all the time in high-crime white areas too. If you haven't lived in one of those areas, like I have, just watch Live PD some times.
I understand that I am not black, and could not possibly know how it feels to be black. I get it. I'm also not Hispanic, well unless you count half Portuguese, not a woman, not Asian, not a member of the LGBT community, or about thousand other identity groups that people tend identify with these days. But I want the laws to be for everyone; no matter the identity, creed, color, or wealth group you belong to.
I have all kinds of friends, and know all kinds of people. From a few pastors of churches, former felons, farmers, teachers, loggers, construction workers, more than a few cops, some actual biker gang members, and some of the sweetest community volunteer members. Some are very wealthy, some just scraping by. Some Republicans, some Democrats, some have never been pulled over in their lives, some have had some pretty intense interactions with police.
I have a friend who is covered in tattoos, and looks like the kind of guy who is up to no good. Seriously, I would give him a wide berth if I passed him on a dimly lit street. He was felony stopped by our local Sheriff's Deputies for rolling through a stop sign. At gunpoint, in the middle of the day, with three other car racing in for backup, all with guns aimed at him, with his wife in the passenger seat.
Scary as hell for both of them. Thankfully, they remained calm, and followed the deputy's instructions. Even when they thought they might get shot. This could have gone horribly wrong in an instant. That one deputy completely overreacted. Why? I'm not certain, but I would bet my house it was because of how my friend looked. He's Italian.
What I'm saying is there are good cops, bad cops, good reactions, bad reactions and everything in between. There are also good people, bad people, good reactions, bad reactions and everything in between. When all these things come together, millions of times a year, there will be mistakes made.
There will be police shot and killed, there will be citizens shot and killed.
So what can you do? What could actually stop this kind of thing from happening more frequently?
I will answer that question in my next piece.
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