On the evening of 25th May, George Floyd died after being arrested by police outside a shop in Minneapolis, Minnesota. George Floyd had unknowingly used a $20 counterfeit bill to buy cigarettes at a shop. He was known to be a regular at the shop but the cashier that day did not know him and called the police. Shortly after the call, 2 police officers arrived to the scene. At the time, Mr Floyd was with 2 of his friends in a car. One of the officers, Thomas Lane, pulled out his gun and ordered Mr Floyd to show his hands. The officer then pulled Mr Floyd out of the car. After being arrested, Mr Floyd became cooperative while the officer explained the reason for his arrest. However, when officers tried to put Mr Floyd in their squad car but he resisted and a struggle occured. Mr Floyd “stiffened up, fell to the ground, and told the officers he was claustrophobic”.
Mr Chauvin, the cop that caused Mr Floyd’s death, arrived at the scene and he as well as the other officers tried to get George in the car. During the attempt, Mr Chauvin pulled Mr Floyd out of the passenger side of the squad car, causing him to fall to the ground. He laid on the floor, face down and in handcuffs. Witnesses then saw the situation and started to record what was happening. Mr Floyd was mostly restrained by officers and Mr Chauvin placed his left knee on Mr Floyd’s neck. My Floyd repeatedly said ” I can’t breathe ” as he pleaded for his mother and begged the officer to stop. For 8 minutes and 46 seconds, Mr Chauvin kept his knee on Mr Floyd’s neck. After about 6 minutes in, Mr Floyd ebcame unresponsive and he fell silent, while witnesses pressured to officers to check his pulse. Kueng did just that, checking Mr Floyd’s right wrist, but “couldn’t find one”. Yet, the officers did not move until 2 minutes later. He was then pronounced dead around an hour after the incident.
This has sparked a major outcry among people from all over the world, with many post and stories with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. Moreover, many protests have occured in many cities in the United States.
Police cars were set aflame, freeways were blocked, windows were shattered and authorities deployed tear gas and even rubber bullets. Multiple governors activated the National Guard and curfews were enacted in several major cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Louisville, Denver, Miami-Dade and Milwaukee.
Here are some significant developments:
- Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said he was “fully” mobilizing the National Guard in the Twin Cities. The Guard has also been activated in Georgia, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Colorado, Ohio, Tennessee and Utah. Seattle called in 200 National Guard members, who were to be unarmed.
- Los Angeles established a curfew but resisted using the National Guard, with Mayor Eric Garcetti not wanting to evoke memories of the 1992 Rodney King riots. “If you love the city, go home,” he said.
- In Washington, D.C., protesters clashed with the Secret Service after tearing through a fence.
- In Chicago, demonstrators swarmed Trump Tower.
- In Philadelphia, demonstrators broke into a store near city hall and set a fire inside, attempted to tear down the statue of a former mayor and ignored an 8 p.m. curfew.
Many celebrities have spoken out about the situation and many people have started and advertised petitions. I am going to put a link for anyone who wants to help out by signing, donating and sharing this website full of petitions you can sign, this is not created by me but I am unable to find the person who created it. The website is https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ It would be greatly appreciated if you could sign or donate.
As of 3.51pm SGT on 5/31/2020, all 4 officers were fired and Mr Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Third degree murder is, according to state statuates, “by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind,” without regard for life and without intent to kill. Persons convicted of third-degree murder could be sentenced to up to 25 years in prison, a fine up to $40,000, or both, according to Minnesota statutes. However, the state’s sentencing guidelines normally recommend 12 1/2 years for a conviction on the murder charge and four years for manslaughter. Below is the charges and means for one to be charged with second degree manslaughter, https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.205 .
Bail for former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, who faces a murder charge in the death of George Floyd, has been set at $500,000, according to the criminal complaint filed in the 4th Judicial District Court of Minnesota. No conditions have been set for his release, according to the document, nor does it indicate if Chauvin is out on bail. But he could be released on bond if he comes up with $500,000 in collateral. I will continue to update on the charges of the other officers as they are expected to be charged soon.
WARNING : The paragraph below is my opinion, you are entitled to your own opinion. When you see the next bold text, that is when my opinion ends.
Personally, I think the degree should definitely be raised higher to at least a second degree murder. The officer knew exactly what he was doing when he put his knee on Mr Floyd’s neck and he knew that would’ve killed him. Even if the murder wasn’t premediated, it was still intentional and the officer should have been charged much more than what he is currently charged with. However, it is crazy that the Minneapolis allows neck restraints. It’s manual allows “compressing one or both sides of a person’s neck with an arm or leg without applying direct pressure to the trachea or airway.” That’s allowed in order to control someone with “light to moderate pressure” or “with the intention of rendering the person unconscious by applying adequate pressure.” The latter act is authorized only to protect officer lives with a suspect who is “actively aggressive” and cannot be controlled by lesser methods. However, Mr Chauvin didn’t even try lesser methods. The suspect was not actively aggressive. Mr Chauvin did not apply light to moderate pressure. Lastly, he should not be able to go out on bail. He murdered a man, he should not be let free.
I am sorry if I have offended anyone with any of my opinions. Please let me know if there is anything I have to change or educate myself about.
Now, let’s talk about why Mr Floyd and the other cops did not receive a higher punishment than they should’ve. This is not just about the individual bad cops that did these horrible deeds, it is the system that has allowed for this to happen. There is a seperate legal and political framework that protects cops from consequences, gives special rights when defending themselves and they are mostly trained to fear the communities they promised to protect and serve.
Black people are constantly viewed as “suspicious” and “dangerous” because of past myths and perjudices. Their presence causes women to hold their purses tighter, families to lock their car doors, store clerks to call about a “suspicious black man”. Yet, the only difference between them and any other person, is the colour of their skin. It is horrible to see that black children in America have to have their parents tell them that no matter how crazy the reason is to be stopped by the police, no matter what insults come their way, no matter what degradation they are subjected to, they have to submit to it.
There have been way too many black people in America who have died for no reason because of cops, and they sometimes don’t even go reported. There are many cases of police misconduct, inappropriate police shootings, racial profiling and police “mistakes” which point to bigger, systematic issues.
There are many unacceptable tactics and procedures that have been made legal in some states. For example, the Minneapolis police manual allowing cops to place their knee on someone’s neck. There are explicit approval of discriminatory, unconstitutional police conduct. These things that are allowed and that are ingrained in most police departments have placed the public as well as police officers at risk.
Firstly, let’s talk about how police officers are trained and why that leads to police misconduct. Police Officers are often not properly educated and trained in the actual day to day requirements of the job. Moreover, officers are sent into the nation’s cultural and racial divide without the needed tools. They constantly make errors without judgement, sometimes chasing a suspect down an alley and leads to someone getting shot. Officers often also use unnecessary force on suspects. Officers in America are allegedly one of the best trained in the world, but it is what they are taught to do that causes so many problems. Officers are taught to always be on guard because as soon as they are not, someone is going to take advantage of that and kill them. Officers are taught to not hesitate and to always be prepared to act instantly. They are taught not to “react” but “act”, sometimes even before a threat is serious. Officers are taught to always expect the worst and see everyone as “potential threats”. Basically, they live in a hostile world where every individual is a “potential threat” and cops often say “complacency kills”. They are not just taught this, they are also shown graphic, painfull dash-cam footage of other officers being beaten, disarmed or gunned down after just a little hesitation. They are told that it isn’t the criminal’s fault for doing such to the officer, it is the officer’s fault for hesitating. Officers become scared and shoot or attack without any serious threat.
According to the Police Executive Research Forum conducted in August 2015, police officers are trained 8 hours in conflict de-escalation and 129 hours in weapons and fighting. This means that they are trained to use their weapons about 16 times more than defusing a situation and prevent any incidents from happening. Officers need to be taught more on conflict de-escalation because without learning it, conflicts will develop and police officers will use unnecessary force on people. Officers do not need to be taught that many hours in weapons and fighting if they just learn how to defuse a situation. Here is an example of what police officers are taught at in the academy as well as practised at at agencies. One will be the officer and will make a finger gun while another will be suspect/civilian. The objective of this activity is to stop the civilian from shooting the officer by shooting the civilian. Even though a civilian may not necessarily be armed at all, this activity is how officers are taught to not hesitate. Thus, when these officers are taught to not hesitate and to act instead of react, officers often act impulsively and can lead to many undesirable situations or deaths.
Also, former Westpoint professer Dave Grossman who is the Director of the Killology Research Group. He teaches “warrior policing” to police officers all over the country through his seminars. His main move is telling cops that they are natural born violence and to fight violence with superior violence. He tells officers that violence is their tool and that they are men and women of violence so killing is “not that big of a deal”. He stresses that cops should “shoot first and worry about questions later”. Because of his teaching, one of his students, Officer Jeronimo Yanez was a cop in Minneapolis who took Mr Grossman’s seminar. Two years after taking the seminar, an incident where he stopped a civilian and fired 7 shots in 90 seconds of making the stop. These seminars are slowly turning officers into “warriors” who view the public as enemies instead of “community guardians”.
These “trainings” that officers have and take are what’s creating an image or idea in officer’s minds that they have to shoot or attack before a threat fully manifests and to never hesitate or wait till the last moment, because the last moment might be too late.
WARNING : The paragraph below is my opinion, you are entitled to your own opinion. When you see the next bold text, that is when my opinion ends.
I personally think that the type of trainings police officers are given should change. They should not be taught to not hesitate or act before reacting. They should not be taught to fear the public at all times and that killing isn’t a big deal. Because these things that officers are taught have cost so many lives. So many deaths could have been prevented if they were taught differently.
I suggest for them to be taught more soft skills like community de-escalation and community policing, as well as to have a standrd syllabus. Training should also be standardised across the country in terms of the number of hours and what they learn. According to apmreports.org, as of May 2017, in 34 states, trainng decisions are left to each individual agency. If training was standardised across the country and sufficient time was given for conflict de-escalation, officers would learn to deescalate a situation instead of just reacting.
Police officers should also not have training that encourages them to be more afraid or less hesitant. They should remove the finger-gun based training that I mentioned earlier and it is completely unnecessary for officers to watch gruesome clips of other officers not hesitating and the consequences for it. Because not all cops who are less hesitant are taken advantage of. If officers have less of these types of training, they would not be so scared of the public and see them as monsters who will take advantage of them the moment they hesitate just a little.
Seminars similar to Mr Grossman’s should also be removed. Luckily, Mr Grossman was banned from teaching “warrior” behaviour because Minneapolis banned these types of seminars. However, other U.S. states still have this kind of training. All they do is teach officers that there is “nothing wrong” with killing and that they should not hesitate. If they were removed, officers would not learn these incorrect mindsets for their jobs.
Police officers should also have lesser items in their “gun belt”. These “gun belts” consist of many items that can easily harm or kill a person. When police officers have that many options, it is easy for them to not try to defuse the situation but instead use violence with the weapons they already have. If police officers had less weapons on them, it would encourage them to use more viable means to attempt to defuse a threat or situation.
Overall, if all these things were to happen (and more), to me, the America policing system will become just a little better.
I am sorry if I have offended anyone with any of my opinions. Please let me know if there is anything I have to change or educate myself about.
Secondly, let’s talk about the implicit bias that lives in police departments, as well as everyone’s daily lives.
What is implicit bias? Implicit bias is the unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group. It exists when we unconsciously hold attitudes towards others or associate stereotypes with them.
These implicit biases we have often come from repeated messages from family, friends, social media, stereotypes in television, movies, magazines and other medias.
Everyone has these implicit biases. These biases usually affect our actions and decisions as people. An example of this implicit bias is that black people are “dangerous”. Sometimes, police get calls about a “suspicious black man”. Often times, these black men didn’t even do anything.
However, police officers still have implicit bias and have a tendency to stop people of colour more than white people. Black Americans, in particular, are a third more likely than whites to be stopped by police, up to a third more likely to be ticketed during a stop, and three times more likely to be searched. They’re also as much as three times more likely to be subject to the use of force, with one study finding that unarmed black people are almost three-and-a-half times more likely to be shot by police than unarmed whites.
In a 2007 study that received wide notice, a team of researchers led by University of Colorado neuroscience and psychology professor Josh Correll ran officers through a simulator that repeatedly challenged them to identify what objects black and white subjects were holding in their hands, and then decide whether to shoot. In repeated trials, officers were quicker to decide to shoot armed black subjects than armed whites, and took longer deciding to spare unarmed blacks. There were virtually no racial discrepancies in the officers’ mistaken shots—but later studies found bias crept in when officers were subjected to mental stress.
Studies dating back to at least 2001 have found police officers and civilians are consistently more likely to associate black faces with criminality, to misidentify common objects as weapons after being shown photos of black faces, and to label photos of black people as threathening.
These biases appear in everyone, but police officers shouldn’t turn these biases into actions or decisions that lead to actions. Police academies should teach their police officers how to make sure their biases do not affect their decisions.
Thirdly, let’s mention why officers in America are able to get away with these horrible crimes and have a lack of consequences.
There have been misconduct by officers at every level of the police hierarchy which is tolerated or condoned by this cop culture that places loyalty between cops over their sworn oath to protect and serve the public. Officers are always too scared to speak out because they fear the consequences of being ostracized by other officers in their department for being a “snitch” and breaking the loyalty that cops have for each other. However, even when a story of police misconduct is revealed to the public, which most of them are not, officers rarely get charged with anything at all and it is crazy that somehow officers and citizens are different in terms of how they are criminally charged. Cops have the ability to get away or have minimal charges for actions that sometimes likely would leave a normal citizen a much higher charge. They basically are able to play by a completely different set of rules than everyone else.
It’s almost impossible to sue a cop because of these rules. One can’t exactly win a lawsuit against law enforcement because all officers are protected by a legal concept called “qualified immunity”. Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine in United States federal law that shields government officials from being sued for discretionary actions performed within their official capacity, unless their actions violated “clearly established” federal law or constitutional rights It shields cops from a deluge of lawsuits for just doing their jobs.
“Qualified immunity is one of the almost secret drivers of police violence, particularly among black and brown communities,” said Somil Trivedi, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project.
Normally, if one were to sue a civilian, they would have to prove that the civilian violated their rights. However, if one were to sue a police officer, they would have to prove that the officer violated a right that was already and very clearly established. But a right isn’t considered clearly established until another successfully sues a cop for violating it. The right has to be already outlined in a previous court case using the same context and same conduct.
Ok, I know it sounds confusing. Let me try to make it simpler. For example, the George Floyd situation. In order to sue the police, there would have to have been an exact similar case from the past that had a punishment. However, luckily Mr Chauvin was still charged even though there hadn’t been a similar case from before. But a lot of cases of sueing the police fail because it’s just an endless cycle. One case fails at first because there was no similar case from before where the officer was charged, then the next similar case comes along, but that fails too because the officer was not charged in the previous case, and it just goes on and on.
So, this means that any cop can get away with anything so long as what they did, did not have another officer do almost the exact same thing and get charged.
Moreover, almost all lawyers will know of qualified immunity, so they most often won’t even want to take your case at all. Even if you can find a lawyer who is willing to help you, you still have to convince the judge that there was a previous case that had the officer charged in order for you to actually win the lawsuit.
This makes so many cases go untold because the family can’t sue the officer without a lawyer, or they lose their lawsuit.
After officers either get or don’t get their qualified immunity, police department are able to hide their records so no one finds out about what they have done and they are able to continue to be cops.
In about half of states in the U.S, police get to keep their record confidential so no one can look up if an officer has commited misconduct. There was no official public database of disciplined police officers. However, USA Today has created a database that has gathered information from many agencies, prosecuters, police departments and sheriffs. This is the link, https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/04/24/biggest-collection-police-accountability-records-ever-assembled/2299127002/ , it is in the article.
Now, even when states try to upload police records and make them accessible, cops eventually find ways to ensure that their records never make it online. In California, the state legislature passed a law in 2019 that would reveal police records. However, police agencies or departments threw out their old records. They say it had “nothing to do with hiding misconduct”, but it’s up to you whether that’s suspicious.
Police unions are also another major part in defending police officers. Unions help workers demand for more favourable conditions. This means that not only do they try to increase officer’s pay, but also police union contracts protect officers from legal consequences. Right now, there are many who are demanding the reform in the police department. However, police unions are trying to block reform. They engage in collective bargaining agreements with individual police agencies. Collective bargaining is the process by which police management and union representation meet and
negotiate on topics that will affect officers. These agreements often have provisions involving police discipline which may limit how officers are investigated or disciplined. Lastly, it may also require that a police officer’s disciplinary records be cleared every 60 days. This means that there is absolutely no history on an officer’s misconducts, no matter how many times that officer has done it.
Police union contracts also benefit officers much more than what I just mentioned. In Chicago, after a police officer had shot someone, the union agreement gave the officer 24 hours before needing to answer to anyone and to put a story together. Even if such terms may not be placed in some other police union contracts, it could be made into a LAW with something called a Law Enforcement Officer Bill of Right. This basically protects the union contracts in the form of a state law. On Wikipedia, The Law Enforcement Bill of Rights is intended to protect American law enforcement personnel from investigation and prosecution arising from conduct during official performance of their duties, and provides them with privileges based on due process additional to those normally provided to other citizens. Police unions have worked with about 16 states to pass Officer Bill of Rights laws, which has many bad provisions.
One example of these provisions would be that officers are allowed to see potential evidence and statements from eyewitnesses or video recordings that could get them jail time. However, no civilian or citizen can review it. This means that after commiting a crime, a police officer can look at all the evidence against him and then make a statement. Thus, they know what the other side knows or doesn’t know. This means they could fabricate lies because they know that the other side does not necessarily have a certain piece of information that is crucial to the investigation. Officers can make up lies that could potentially eliminate their jail time. Police unions do not think that they need to necessarily create positive policing but they think that their job is to protect their members. It is a union’s job to protect it’s members and they have to and they standby even the bad cops in America. Police unions have done many horrible things to help the bad cops who are members, such as paid leave for cops who kill, making it impossible to investigate anonymous claims and protecting the identities of violent officers.
Moreover, prosecutors are also helping police officers. Prosecutors have to decide whether or not to prosecute an officer but they also need officers to prosecute other people. Thus, prosecutors often do not hold officer accountable because they need officers to build cases, conduct investigations, produce witnesses and they also need officers to testify themselves. So police officers often get away with no criminal charges.
If you thought that part about prosecutors was bad, just wait till you hear this. Police unions are able to donate money and create bonds between them and the prosecutors. Police unions are able to donate money for campaigns and endorsements to prosecutors. It is essentially bribing because this money given to prosecutors could cloud their judgement and decision and could ultimately lead to officers getting away with no criminal charges. For example, in 2018, in Sacremento, there was a case where police unions donated $13,000 to the district attorney in charge of a case where police officers shot a 22 year old unarmed black men called Stephon Clark within a week or so when the incident occured.
Between all these things like, qualified immunity, police unions and bill of rights laws, cops, as mentioned earlier, live by a completely different set of rules. Even though I am not American, there should be no such thing as this broken policing system that incentivizes bad behavior and teaches cops the wrong things. Moreover, cops should not play by a different set of rules just because they are cops. So many officers have had misconduct but were not charged for it, so many officers had their old records cleared, so many officers were able to go out on bail, so many officers are able to find new jobs because their records were cleared. Why do police officers have this sort of authority and why is there a system that encourages cops to do horrible things because they know there wouldn’t be consequences at all. This Policing System in America is broken, and it needs to be fixed NOW more than ever. Thank You so much if you read this all the way to the end.
Sources :
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52861726
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/30/george-floyd-protests-live-updates/
The Black and the Blue book by Matthew Horace and Ron Harris
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/police-gun-shooting-training-ferguson/383681/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/police-training/490556/
The Broken Policing System – Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/29/12989428/police-shooting-race-crime
Reflection and Comments
Hello! Thank you so much for reading this post. I just wanted to talk about how much I have learned from this. I have learned a lot researching about this and I learned how unfair life can be for some people and we have to change that. Hopefully you signed the petitions on the website I gave above. Please do because this is important for our society and what comes out of this incident is going to change the world, so let’s turn this change into a good thing. Sign the petitions, donate, speak out against other people whether it be your family or friends who make racially bias comments. If you have a platform, please spread this because even if everyone knows, not everyone might be taking action. If there is anything else that one could do or anything that needs to be told, type it in the comments below.
Government Chatter 