hedge wrote: ↑Thu Jun 04, 2020 1:53 pm I agree that a rookie in that situation wouldn't push back after being told to basically STFU. But if everything you said is correct, he'll probably get off...
Just imagine what the story would be if all this hadn't been caught on camera? Being an actual death, it obviously would've been found out and reported, but I'm pretty sure the official story would've been much different than what the video showed. Truth be told, cops don't really kill that many people, certainly not many unarmed people (I know, I know, one is too many, blahblahblah), but I'm sure they are way overly aggressive in many cases that never get reported. Not sure what can be done about it. I also believe that for the most part, most cops do their jobs correctly and don't harass folks needlessly, but the ones that do make it bad for all of them. I'd say the same thing is probably true for the vast majority of these protesters, but you keep seeing the same clip over and over of somebody breaking windows or looting a store and so you think it's happening all over the place everywhere...
the heart of the issue is George Floyd resisting arrest. Why did he? probably because he knew that once he was in the back of that patrol car he was just another statistic in a system. As a black felon he wasn't going to get the benefit of the doubt in a downtown Minneapolis police precinct telling his story as to how he came into possession of a counterfeit $20 bill. At some level he believed he was not going to get the same chance someone like me would have received to walk out a free man at the end of the day.
What those cops did was bad, but as I said, they've probably done it 20-30 times before in some variation where the accused sat up, was loaded into the prisoner transport and they went on about their day. In this case, the accused died, partly because of his health, fentanyl in his system and in large part because unsympathetic officers ignored his pleas for help after resisting arrest.
I don't know if you can stop a George Floyd from resisting arrest, but I don't see systemic racism in him being held down. I see racism in his knowing that once he's arrested, the chances of him getting the same justice as me doesn't happen. At the same time, if I were to say, slit the throat of my ex wife and her lover, I would not be able to hire a dream team of lawyers to get away with it. Justice is relative for all of us as it relates to our lot in life, police procedures, I suspect are pretty constant. I mean, if anyone has watched COPS on tv for any length of time, you know that resisting arrest is going to result at some point with the knee in the back of the neck. I bet if you saved the history of posting on here, you would have seen us making jokes about it. Its why "seasoned" criminals know to take the prone position once they know arrest is inevitable because if a cop has to tell you to get down, put your hands behind your head, etc, then there is going to be a knee to the neck at some point.
IMO, justice isn't about whether George Floyd deserves getting a knee on his neck, justice should be about George Floyd knowing that him passing a counterfeit $20 results in the same prosecution as anyone else.
Now that said, the rookie cop was the one who initially put the cuffs on Floyd. Perhaps a veteran cop like Chauvin would have determined they have bigger issues than a guy trying to pass a $20 at the local quickie mart, but since the rookie didn't have the ability to make a judgement call like that he initiated a situation that Chauvin had to deal with.
