Tag Archives: George Floyd

The Legacy Of MLK — 55 Years Later

Posted on by under education, History, Law and justice, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, voting rights

Sunday would have marked the 94th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, had he not been gunned down at the age of 39.  He was alive fewer years than he’s been dead, but his name and his work have not been forgotten.  Even young people who were not born until long after his murder know the legacy of Dr. King.

Yes, his legacy lives on, and yet …

  • Duante Wright, age 20
  • George Floyd, age 46
  • Breonna Taylor, age 26
  • Atatiana Jefferson, age 28
  • Botham Jean, age 26
  • Philando Castile, age 32
  • Alton Sterling, age 37
  • Freddie Gray, age 25
  • Tamir Rice, age 12
  • Michael Brown, age 18

SAY THEIR NAMES!!!

These are but a few of the Black Americans who were killed by police, some while sleeping in their own beds, others playing in a park or stopped for a routine traffic violation.  Killed for the crime of being Black. All were unarmed.  Many of them I have written about previously.  Today … we are no better as a nation than we were on April 4th, 1968, the day that Dr. King was gunned down by a white ‘man’, James Earl Ray, at 6:01 p.m. on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee.

Even today, we have lawmakers doing everything in their power to disenfranchise Black people.  Even today, there are ever-growing groups in this nation who believe, or claim to believe, that the only “true Americans” are white Christians.  Even today, Black people are shunned by some, are considered to be of lesser intelligence.  Here’s a video clip from a 1964 CBS News program Face the Nation where Dan Rather asks Dr. King a question … and the answer is prophetic.

And as Mr. Rather says in a portion of his latest newsletter …

The record shows that in the decades that followed, the grim scenario Dr. King lamented in our exchange largely came to pass. In 1968, Richard Nixon used dog whistle appeals to racism in his euphemistic “Southern Strategy” to win the White House. In the ensuing years, what had been a “Solid South” for Democrats tracing back to the Civil War became a wall of red states that helped propel Republicans to power. From Ronald Reagan’s demonizing “welfare queens” to George H.W. Bush’s Willie Horton ad, Republicans had concocted a playbook of racist appeals in order to win the white vote. With Trump, dog whistles became bullhorns.

Make no mistake, if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, he would be stigmatized as ‘woke’ and attacked accordingly.

Everything Dr. King stood for is under attack in America today. You can see it in efforts to disenfranchise voters. You can find it in the whitewashing of history and the demonization of so-called “critical race theory.” Whether it’s the banning of books, attacks on labor rights, or the death knell of affirmative action, an America of ideas, engagement, and reckoning with our past is under siege. In the sneers at “wokeness,” one finds an effort by the privileged to hold onto the positions of power they feel they are owed. It is an insult to everything Dr. King hoped to achieve.

A significant proportion of today’s Republican Party has been taken over by performative hatred, lies, and reactionary attempts to undermine American democracy. This dynamic presents new and unique challenges to our journey toward justice. Dr. King would have been fearless in denouncing these forces of hatred and autocracy.

Yesterday I posted my annual tribute to Dr. King, including a portion of his “I Have a Dream” speech.  Given the lack of true progress in the 55 years since his assassination, I sadly predict that his dream will never be realized in this country.  You can legislate equality and justice for all, but you cannot control how people think, and laws are only as good as the ability and willingness to enforce them.

Today there is a growing movement to stop teaching about Dr. Martin Luther King in the schools, to stop teaching about the racism that led to his works, his activism.  Will people in 50 more years even know who he was, let alone what he stood for, what he did?  Not if some of the current politicians have their way — they would sooner erase his name from the history books.  Dr. King spent and ultimately gave his life trying to bring the people of this nation out of the darkness, but today there are those who prefer that darkness, who prefer to live in a privileged white world, who have no humanity.

♫ What’s Going On ♫ (Redux)

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, History, music, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Last time I posted this, in May 2020, I said it fit the times we were living in.  Since then, a lot has happened, and the song STILL fits the times perfectly.  The question then becomes … will there ever be a time when we will listen to this song and say, “Wow, I’m glad things have changed since then!”?  I have begun to doubt it.  Still, we can take some pleasure from Marvin Gaye for he knocks this one out of the park!

There’s a lot of history to this song … more than I can cover in a brief blurb here.  The inspiration for the song came from Renaldo “Obie” Benson, a member of the Four Tops, after he and the group’s tour bus arrived at Berkeley on May 15, 1969. While there, Benson witnessed police brutality and violence in the city’s People’s Park during a protest held by anti-war activists in what was hailed later as “Bloody Thursday”.

Upset by what he had seen, he discussed what he witnessed to friend and songwriter Al Cleveland, who in turn wrote and composed a song to reflect Benson’s concerns. Benson wanted to give the song to his group but the other Four Tops turned down the request, saying it was a protest song.

“I said ‘no man, it’s a love song, about love and understanding. I’m not protesting, I want to know what’s going on.'”

In 1970, Benson presented the untitled song to Marvin Gaye, who added a new melody and revised the song to his liking, adding in his own lyrics. Benson later said Gaye tweaked and enriched the song, “added some things that were more ghetto, more natural, which made it seem like a story than a song… we measured him for the suit and he tailored the hell out of it.”

Motown founder Berry Gordy was against Gaye doing the song, saying …

“Motown was about music for all people—white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone. This was a big risk for his image.”

By some accounts there was a bitter quarrel between Gaye and Gordy over the song, but Gordy denies it.

Two bits of trivia about Marvin Gaye that I did not know until tonight:

  • He was married to Berry Gordy’s sister, Anna, from 1963 until their divorce in 1977
  • Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his own father on 01 April 1984, after breaking up a fight between his parents.  Gaye was one day shy of his 45th birthday.  His father was given a suspended sentence and probation.

And now … What’s Going On …

What’s Going On
Marvin Gaye

Mother, mother
There’s too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There’s far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today, eheh

Father, father
We don’t need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today, oh oh oh

Picket lines and picket signs
Don’t punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see
Oh, what’s going on
What’s going on
Yeah, what’s going on
Ah, what’s going on

In the mean time
Right on, baby
Right on brother
Right on babe

Mother, mother, everybody thinks we’re wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
Simply ’cause our hair is long
Oh, you know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some understanding here today
Oh oh oh

Picket lines and picket signs
Don’t punish me with brutality
C’mon talk to me
So you can see
What’s going on
Yeah, what’s going on
Tell me what’s going on
I’ll tell you what’s going on, ooh ooo ooo ooo
Right on baby
Right on baby

Songwriters: Alfred W Cleveland / Marvin P Gaye / Renaldo Benson
What’s Going On lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Just A Few Things Bouncing In My Mind

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Global Issues, guns, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Like most of you, the news on Wednesday night that Russia had invaded Ukraine, even though expected, was somewhat of a gut punch and kept me awake most of the night.  So, it’s no surprise that my mind is bouncing today and many things crossed my radar that made it bounce even more, so what better way to get them out of my head than to share them with my friends?

More gun insanity!!!

This from my local news station …

“Under Ohio law, people who wish to carry a concealed weapon must pass a background check, show proof of eight hours of training and ‘promptly’ inform officers they are carrying a concealed weapon during a stop. Senate Bill 215 would get rid of all of those requirements.

‘What this House bill represents in my mind, honestly, is lawlessness…it represents the wild, wild west,’ said Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey. ‘It puts our officer at risk. It puts one more layer onto what could be a very stressful situation for the officer.’

While McGuffey has been vocal in opposition, Republican representatives — backed by gun-rights advocates — argue the bill is a constitutional issue.

‘This legislation works,’ said Rob Sexton with the Buckeye Firearms Association. ‘It gives people their God-given right to defend themselves and their loved ones.’”

Did he say, “God-given right”???  Seriously???  Talk about people having sold their brains to the lowest bidder!!!  And defend themselves against what or who?  The innocent school child who happens to be Black and walking home from school through a white, racist neighborhood?  Or perhaps the woman in the grocery store who doesn’t move fast enough to suit the man with the gun?  No, Mr. Sexton, this legislation most definitely does NOT work!!!  I’d much prefer banning guns altogether!

YES!!!  They’re going to prison!

I’ve been holding my breath, wondering if the three officers who stood by and watched as Derek Chauvin literally choked the life out of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020, would actually be convicted for the crime of inaction.  And yesterday, they were!

J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao were found guilty of federal crimes for failing to intervene when it was obvious that Mr. Floyd was being murdered by their fellow officer.  The jury found that the three had willfully violated Mr. Floyd’s constitutional rights by not providing medical care when he lost a pulse and that two of them were also guilty of not intervening to stop a fellow officer.

I had concerns from the beginning of this trial, in part because it is rare that officers are charged in such instances, and second because one defense lawyer had earlier claimed that while Floyd’s death was a tragedy, it was not a crime!  But, justice prevailed, hopefully a sign that juries may become more willing to convict not just officers who kill people on the job, but also those who watch them do it.  Mr. Kueng and Mr. Lane both helped Mr. Chauvin restrain Mr. Floyd while he was handcuffed facedown on the pavement. Mr. Thao stood nearby, keeping bystanders away. Mr. Chauvin was convicted of murder last year and sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison.

The judge in the case, Judge Magnuson, has wide latitude to impose a penalty and could sentence the officers to any amount of prison time, including life. They still face state charges of aiding and abetting murder, with a trial scheduled for this year.

The jurors’ decision, which came after about 13 hours of deliberations following a month-long trial, suggested that they agreed with the prosecution’s arguments that the officers knew in the moment that Mr. Floyd was in severe medical distress and that Mr. Chauvin was breaking the law. The verdict was also a rejection of the argument cited in each of the three defense cases: that the officers trusted Mr. Chauvin, the senior officer on the scene, and therefore were not aware that what he was doing was illegal.

Score one for justice against racism in policing, against unwarranted police brutality.  Now we await the sentencing which I hope will be harsh.

The day in pictures

Last, but not least, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Lest you think that the Russian people are supportive of Putin and his deadly invasion, they are not.  Most have family and close friends living in Ukraine and they are so against Putin’s aggression that there have been massive protests in cities across the country, even though the protestors knew they could be arrested for speaking against Putin.  In fact, at least 705 have been arrested as of this writing, probably more.

A person is detained by police during an anti-war protest, after Russia launched a massive military operation against Ukraine, in Moscow, Russia February 24, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina

Tell me again how Putin is such a ‘great guy’ and not at all an autocrat???  The best way to describe what is happening in Ukraine is with pictures …

A Couple Of Thoughts …

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Free Press Issues, Law and justice, Racism & Bigotry

You may remember the killing of a Black man, Botham Jean on September 6th, 2018, but in case you’ve forgotten, allow me to refresh your memory.

Mr. Jean, a college graduate and an accountant, was sitting in his living room on the 4th floor of his apartment building watching television and eating ice cream on that fateful evening.  Dallas police officer Amber Guyger was off duty and returning home from her shift.  Her apartment was one floor below Mr. Jean’s, on the third floor, but she somehow mistakenly went to the 4th floor and allegedly believed Mr. Jean’s apartment was her own.  She claims that his door was ajar, she assumed there was a burglar inside, and when she entered and saw him sitting there, she shot him dead.  When she called police, the dispatcher asked for her location, and she had to go look at the number on the door to see where she even was.  I don’t know about you folks, but if I walked into an apartment that wasn’t mine, I would immediately know I was in the wrong apartment!  And how many burglars are going to sit around in their shorts, watching television and eating ice cream???

When I first wrote about this murder shortly after it happened, I sensed that if Mr. Jean had been a white man, he would still be alive today.  Nothing I have read has changed my mind. A number of my readers also commented that there seemed to be some missing pieces, that there was likely more to the story than met the eye.

At any rate, it was several days before Guyger was arrested, and then she was only charged with manslaughter.  The charges were later upgraded to murder, and on November 30, 2018, Guyger was indicted on murder charges by a Dallas County grand jury.  The following year, on October 1st, 2019, Guyger was convicted on the charges of murder and sentenced to ten years in prison.   On August 7th, 2020, Guyger’s attorneys filed an appeal, alleging that insufficient evidence existed to convict her of murder. The appeal sought either an acquittal, or a reduction in charge to criminally negligent homicide with a new hearing for sentencing on the reduced charge.

This week on Thursday, August 5th, a panel of three state judges on the Texas appeals court upheld the murder conviction, denying her appeal.  She remains in prison and will become eligible for parole in 2024.  Sadly, Mr. Jean will not be eligible to have his life restored.  This is one of only two cases I am aware of in the past decade where a white police officer has been held fully accountable for the murder of an unarmed Black person, the other of course being the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.  It is good to see justice work, but there are so many more who need the long arm of the law to encircle them and carry them off to prison, such as officers Myles Cosgrove and Joshua Jaynes in Louisville, Kentucky, who shot and killed a Black woman, Breonna Taylor, while she slept in her own bed!

And since I’ve mentioned George Floyd and the conviction of Derek Chauvin, let me just touch on another topic that is disturbing me.  A coalition of news media outlets has asked the judge who oversaw the trial of Derek Chauvin to release the identities of jurors who convicted him in the death of George Floyd.  Attorneys for the coalition, which includes Fox ‘News’, the Associated Press, and even The Washington Post, is asking not only for the names of the jurors, which would be bad enough, but also for the juror profiles that would include such things as age, address, place of employment, etc.

Judge Peter Cahill had previously ordered the information sealed for the safety of the jurors.  Think about it … how many white supremacists were incensed by Chauvin’s conviction and sentencing to 22.5 years in prison?  How safe would you feel if you had been on that jury and one of these media outlets released your name to the public?

Attorney Leita Walker said the media and public have a right to information about a jury and said that that Chauvin’s trial is over “and there is no way that jurors’ fears of intimidation, harassment, or violence can unfairly impact their deliberations.” She also wrote that the coalition knows of no threat to any juror or prospective juror.  Well duh … did you think they would contact you and say “We plan to kill harass, intimidate, and kill the jurors, so give us their names”? She said the court’s desire to protect jurors from unwanted publicity or harassment are not grounds to keep their identities sealed under law, and that “much has changed” in the months since the jury rendered its verdict “and at this juncture, resistance to releasing their names appears based on little more than a desire to have them left alone.”

Make no mistake … I am all for freedom of the press, and transparency to the extent that it makes sense and is not endangering people.  However … jury duty is an important responsibility that ALL of us should take seriously, and most of us do.  We do not, however, undertake this responsibility in order to be harassed and intimidated, to feel that our lives are in danger.  Sorry, media, but this time you’re just plain wrong.

Post-Weekend Snarky Snippets

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Global Issues, Law and justice, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Jill is the name, snark is the game!

Shoot the monkeys into space!

Hey folks … do you happen to have an extra $28 million lying around somewhere?  If so, guess what … you could be shot into space with none other than the world’s wealthiest man, Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos!  Oops … never mind … scratch that, for someone has already paid da price for this … er … opportunity of a lifetime.

That’s right … apparently there was an auction on Saturday hosted by Bezos’ Blue Origin company, and an anonymous bidder topped the bidding at $28 million for the “opportunity” to join Bezos in space.  The fool’s bidder’s name is to be announced soon, according to Blue Origin.  I will only say that … I see this entire thing as a huge waste of time and money.  Mr. Bezos and this ‘anonymous bidder’ could give every dime spent on this useless venture to starving children around the globe and I would have far more respect for them than I have under present circumstances.  Happy space travels and I don’t really care if you return or not.

C’mon man … ride da bike

Now, I’ll grant you that UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson looks as if he could really use two things:  a haircut and some exercise.  But I had to laugh when I read that President Biden gifted Boris with a bicycle during the G7 summit this past weekend.

And he even threw in a helmet …

And in return, Boris gave President Biden a framed picture of a mural showing the US anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass.

And here we were afraid the two wouldn’t get along!

Bye-Bye Bibi!

Israel’s Prime Minister for the past 12 years, Benjamin Netanyahu, is officially out of power.  In his place is Naftali Bennett who was sworn in as Israel’s new prime minister on Sunday, after winning a confidence vote with the narrowest of margins, just 60 votes to 59.

What this will mean remains to be seen.  Over the past 12 years, Netanyahu has dominated Israeli politics. He’s not only successfully implemented a series of right-wing policies, such as entrenching Israel’s presence in the West Bank, but also consolidated a dangerous amount of power in his own hands. He is currently on trial for corruption charges stemming from, among other things, his attempt to buy off media outlets.

The new government is a coalition of eight parties coming from right, left and center, with the only thing bringing them together being to oust Netanyahu.  I see bumpy roads ahead!

Bennett, of the far-right Yamina Party, will serve as prime minister — a job he’ll keep for two years while Yair Lapid, of the centrist Yesh Atid Party, serves as foreign minister. After two years, they will rotate, with Lapid taking the top position and Bennett in the cabinet. During the whole period, both of them will have veto power over policy — so even while Bennett is nominally Lapid’s boss, the latter will be able to block the former’s moves at will.  If you think the U.S. Senate is a stalemate, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!

Perhaps the single most important … nay, crucial issue at the moment is the conflict with the Palestinians.  On this issue, Bennett supports annexing much of the West Bank and opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, while Lapid supports a two-state solution negotiated with the Palestinian leadership.  All of which leads me to believe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will continue for at least the next two years, likely much longer.  More lives, mostly Palestinian, will be lost, more tension will rise in the Middle East, and very little will have changed.  I could be wrong.  I hope I am.

Gonna be a long, hot summer

The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, has been on edge since the brutal murder of George Floyd by a police officer, Derek Chauvin.  Chauvin was tried and convicted on numerous charges and now awaits sentencing. Then on June 3rd, Minneapolis police shot and killed yet another Black man, Winston Smith.  Last night just after 11:30 p.m., a group of peaceful protestors were holding a vigil against police brutality in Minneapolis when suddenly a man drove a car into the group, killing one woman and injuring three other people.

Recently, the state of Oklahoma passed a bill into law that effectively allows drivers to hit people with a car under certain very vague circumstances.  Florida recently passed a similar bill.  Fortunately, at this time Minnesota does not have one … the driver of the car has been arrested and will likely be charged with, at the very least, vehicular manslaughter.

It’s going to be a long, hot summer, folks, not only in Minneapolis, but across the nation.  The very last thing we need in this country are states telling people that it’s okay to run over people with a car, that there won’t be any repercussions, no price to pay.  Welcome to the new United States, a country where right is wrong, up is down, and the law is only on your side if you’re white, Christian, straight, and a male.

Sweet Caroline For Cops

Posted on by under cartoons, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Clay Jones is spot on, as always!

claytoonz

Cjones05222021

The nation was shocked with the conviction of police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. Shocked because normally, cops get away with killing unarmed black men. Prosecutors will often say, “Nothing to see here,” and work diligently to protect police, which is what happened in Ferguson over the cop killing of Michael Brown and Cleveland over the cop killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. In both of those cases, prosecutors put together grand juries that refused to indict the cops. Grand juries typically do what a prosecutor wants. If there’s no indictment, it’s because the prosecutor didn’t want one. Too often when it comes to cops killing an unarmed black man, district attorneys act more like defense lawyers than prosecutors. It’s what they often refer to in the south as the good-ole-boy network. Good-ole boys take care of good-ole boys.

After Chauvin was convicted as a murderer, a…

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The Week’s Best Cartoons: Chauvin Found Guilty

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, cartoons, Environmental Issues, Global Issues, guns, Humour, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

I just realized that I hadn’t yet shared TokyoSand’s cartoon post from Saturday!  Well, better late than never, yes?  Last week’s political cartoons were, understandably, largely focused on the guilty x3 verdict in the Derek Chauvin case, but there was more, too, like Earth Day …

See All The ‘Toons!

A Good Cop’s Perspective

Posted on by under Law and justice, Racism & Bigotry

Last night, I came across an Opinion piece in The Washington Post, written by a police officer that really impressed me.  Halfway through reading the article, I was saying, “Oh yeah … this guy really gets it!”  The officer is Patrick Skinner, working on the police force in his hometown of Savannah, Georgia.  Officer Skinner is a former CIA operations officer and served in the United States Coast Guard as well as the U.S. Capitol Police, so he has a broad base of experience in law enforcement.  The man knows of what he speaks …

I’m a cop. The Chauvin verdict is a message for me, and for my colleagues.

Police officers can’t be defensive. We owe it to those we serve to change policing — and slow down.

by Patrick Skinner

I was at work as a police officer when the judge announced the jurors’ verdict Tuesday in a Minneapolis courtroom. I am a violent-crimes detective in my hometown of Savannah, Ga., but like the rest of America, I was worried about the verdict. I was worried that once again, a jury would, despite clear video evidence of guilt, find that it was somehow reasonable for a minor criminal matter to end in the death of an unarmed suspect at the hands of a police officer.

But I was also worried that we would view the outcome as the conclusion of a trial and not the beginning of change. Because as powerful as the murder conviction of former police officer Derek Chauvin is, what we do next — as a country in general and as police in particular — will go a long way in determining whether systemic positive police reform is possible. It is in this time immediately after the verdict that several things, which are entirely within my control as a police officer, have to happen.

The first thing is actually something that needs to not happen: Police must not be defensive. We must not circle the wagons. “Not all cops” is exactly the wrong reaction. Even though that is true — of course not all cops are bad — it is irrelevant. Systemic reform is inseparable from individual change. We need both, and they have to feed off each other. There will be a natural desire by police, myself included, to say that the system worked, that Chauvin was found guilty by a jury of his peers and that a bad apple was sent to jail, no longer around to rot the bunch. Again, this is true, but it is also irrelevant. A nation so tense about a single trial, so uncertain about what was going to happen, is a nation in desperate need of much more. And we all have to take a first step. For me, the first step is that I need to take this verdict personally if I am to change professionally: That means I need to empathize more with my neighbors, and if they’re outraged or sad or just weary from police interactions — theirs and others’ — I need to work from that space. It means these outrages aren’t just outrageous to my profession, they’re outrageous to me personally. It means to step out of comfortable anonymity and demand that we change it all.

Here’s the second thing that needs to happen: We police need to fight the destructive reaction we have resorted to before in places like New York, where members of the police union had an unofficial but announced slowdown in 2019 after the dismissal of an officer implicated in the killing of Eric Garner by police in 2014. We have to stop saying, in effect, that if we can’t do our job the way we have always done it, well then, we won’t do our job at all. We might still collect a paycheck, but we will stop a lot of work because of an exaggerated fear of running afoul of the “new rules.” Rules such as “Don’t treat your neighbors like robots of compliance,” “Don’t escalate trivial matters into life-or-death confrontations” and “Treat your neighbors as if they were your neighbors.” That anyone would consider these rules “new” is a problem in itself. Few police officers reading them aloud would take issue with such anodyne statements, but put accountability behind the statements and now they’re an attack, not just on all police but the very foundation of American policing. The truth is that we do not get to tell our neighbors — those whose communities we police — how we will do our job. They tell us.

Faced with criticism that perhaps police should not be turning a traffic stop over an unarmed person’s vehicle registration sticker into something to be resolved at gunpoint, some will say, “What are the police supposed to do, let all criminals just run away?” There is a lot wrong with that reaction. To begin with, let’s slow down on calling someone with registration issues a criminal. And then let’s slow down everything, because we police are rushing to make bad decisions when time is almost always our friend. Tamir Rice most likely would not have been killed for having a toy gun if the Cleveland police officers had not rushed right up to him and shot him. There was no violence going on; the 12-year-old was alone in the middle of a park. Slow down, I tell myself in almost every police encounter. The risk to my neighbors in my rushing to a final judgment in very uncertain and fluid situations far outweighs the risk to myself. I’m often wrong in the initial assessment of chaotic scenes, and so I try to be wrong silently, allowing my judgment to catch up to my reactions, to allow my perception to catch up with my vision. Slow down.

I don’t know the third thing that needs to happen to lay the foundation for sweeping positive change in American policing because I’m so focused on the first two. I’m worried. I’m even scared. Not of big changes but that they might not happen. There is nothing easy or comfortable about any of this. To change policing in America requires confronting issues of race, poverty, inequality, injustice — the very issues too many in America say aren’t even issues anymore, as if history and its terrible weight started today.

I believe I was wrong for some time about not taking this personally. I’ve often told myself to not take well-deserved criticism of police misconduct and crime personally, because while as a police officer I am responsible, I was not personally responsible. I even wrote about this very thing here last year after the murder of George Floyd. I meant that I must not get defensive and to accept responsibility even if I wasn’t to blame. But now I don’t think that’s enough, at least for me. I think I have to take it personally: I have to be offended, I have to be outraged, and I have to act. That means I need to understand the goal of every 911 call, and that the compliance of those I encounter is not a goal; it might be a path to a goal but it’s not the goal. It means putting my neighbors first at every instance. It means often to act slower, to give my neighbors the benefit of the doubt because they are the point of my job.

None of this is abstract, none of this is a metaphor. All of this is senseless death in needlessly life-or-death situations. And all of this is personal.

I was at work when the verdict came in; I’ll be at work tomorrow, taking this verdict personally because my neighbors demand it. And they have always deserved it.

As I said, Officer Skinner is one cop who truly gets it, who understands what his job is, understands who he really works for … We the People, and sincerely wants police officers across the nation to learn from the tragedy of the George Floyd murder.  I give two thumbs up 👍 👍 to Officer Skinner!  The rest of the police need to take their cues from him.

Accountability vs justice

Posted on by under History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

I think most of us breathed a big sigh of relief yesterday afternoon when the verdict in the Derek Chauvin case was announced and Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts. Some said the verdict was ‘justice for George Floyd’. But, as our friend Brosephus reminds us, there is a difference between accountability and justice. Yesterday’s verdict was accountability, holding a former police officer accountable for his actions. We’re still a long way from justice for all in this country.

The Mind of Brosephus

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

“Establish justice”

That was the first order of business for we the people of the United States when the country was founded. In the almost 245 years since the United States was founded, justice has more often been an illusion than reality for the Black community. The illusion is rooted in the constant fight between the Black community and America itself over the most basic sense of equal justice under the law. While we’ve grown from being valued worth three-fifths a single person only for the purpose of appropriating seats for Congress, we still have to fight for…

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Regarding the Derek Chauvin Murder Trial

Posted on by under Law and justice, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

This afternoon, former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts of murdering George Floyd. I planned to write a post later about it, but meanwhile I read Brendan’s piece, and … well, I couldn’t have said it any better, so I am re-blogging his. Thank you, Brendan.

Blind Injustice

The George Floyd Mural in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Like with many people in the United States, and across the world, my heart was beating at a mile a minute as the judge in the Derek Chauvin Murder Trial read the verdict on all three counts:

Guilty.

Guilty.

Guilty.

After I heard the verdict, I was personally relieved. I know many others who feel relieved with the verdict as well, for it meant that George Floyd’s life mattered enough that the police officer who killed him went to prison.

However, in my own humble opinion (humble because I do not have to worry about police on a daily basis like my friends of color do), what we saw today was not justice for George Floyd. Justice would’ve been if George Floyd didn’t get killed at the hands of Derek Chauvin.

Instead, what we got was accountability. Namely, accountability for a chokehold that…

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