I do not know very much about the recent and tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of four police officers in Minneapolis. I haven’t read any detailed accounts of the incident and I know next to nothing about it. Nevertheless, I do have a few comments which I hope might be helpful.
First, it may be too late to say this but everyone should really calm down until all the facts are known. Unless you were at the scene of the incident, you do not know what really occurred. Video clips can be misleading. Witnesses can be mistaken. Reporters are often lazy, incompetent, and biased. The first impressions of any occurrence are often erroneous. Jumping to conclusions is almost always a mistake. Everyone should wait and see what new facts are uncovered before expressing an opinion or taking any action.
Second, if you are one of the people who are rioting, you are a worse person than those four policemen. You read that correctly. I doubt very much that the officers intended to kill George Floyd. They certainly didn’t plan on killing anyone when they started their shifts. It is more likely that the situation escalated and the officers reacted badly. However, if you are planning to leave your house and steal or destroy someone’s property you are a criminal. It doesn’t matter how angry you are or what injustices you think you have experienced, you do not have the right to riot. You are being an asshole.
Third, this is not necessarily a Black and White issue. People of all races are victims of police misconduct and abuse of power and the problem is not necessarily racist police. Black victims of police misconduct tend to get more media attention because reporters are, as I’ve said, lazy, incompetent, and biased. They are unwilling to challenge the prevailing left-wing narrative of America being a land of pervasive racism. It is a lot easier for anyone to affirm their own existing biases than to work at discovering what is really going on. If you want to learn more about what is wrong with policing today. I highly recommend you read Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop. He includes some truly hair-raising accounts of people of all races being victimized by increasingly militarized law enforcement agencies at every level of government.
Fourth and related to the last, instead of being divided by race, can we not all come together to determine how we can improve police training and procedures so that incidents like this do not occur. We are all Americans, regardless of the color of our skin. We must work together rather than let our enemies divide us.
Fifth and last, if the officers in question are tried, let us accept the verdict of the jury no matter what it may be. The jurors in a trial are privy to information that observers on the outside are not aware of. Unless you are willing to obtain a transcript of the trial and go over the testimony and evidence you shouldn’t second guess a jury’s verdict.
The criminals who are destroying lives and property are not helping matters. They are certainly not fighting for justice. We all need to reject violence as a solution and come together as Americans and human beings and try to make this country a better place, not give in to hatred and violence. That won’t help anyone.
Tags: George Floyd, Minneapolis, police, rioting
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