There is one overwhelming constant I see whenever we get into another one of these Police shootings of someone who is Black... the one constant is the whole struggle. The fighting with a Police Officer. I guess I must have been absent on the day they taught that as were much of the people I know. These are people who manage to navigate through their daily lives with limited contact with the Police and when they do have contact with them it’s usually because they are a victim.
This is not something that is exclusive to WHITE people I know, it’s remarkable... many of the Black and Hispanic people I know don’t seem to have these kinds of problems.
Perhaps, one of the big reasons for that is that they don’t keep getting in trouble with the law and then go right back and live their lives exactly the same way.
WOW! THAT’S RACIST! RIGHT!
In the case of George Floyd you will see people trying to gloss over his past criminal history. In the case of Duante Wright it’s more of the same (Court records show Wright has a criminal record after failing to appear in court on charges that he fled from officers and possessed a gun without a permit during an encounter with Minneapolis police in June. In that case, a statement of probable cause said police got a call about a man waving a gun who was later identified as Wright).
Of course, once again in the aftermath we hear about the EVIL POLICE and the angel victim.
Look, if someone gets killed by a Police Officer it should be investigated but we are now at a point where we are at a starting point of Police being the bad guys who just have it out for all these ‘ANGELS!’
In the meantime what is the fallout from this? Well, crime in every major urban area continues to increase as Police are being pulled back so maybe one day you’ll have the chance to be a victim too of one of these ‘angels’ and of course don’t go looking for the Police.
Unless of course you’re one of the dopes in the Political class who want security around them all the time and don’t have to encounter the things your average citizen does on a daily basis.
Oddly enough, the whole idea that Police are on some kind of rampage against the Black populace doesn’t hold up when you look at the actual data:
Gosh, though! We don’t want REAL DATA to stand in the way!
Some people will tell you that at 13% of the population there is a higher percentage of Black Americans being killed by Police BUT what they also won’t touch on is the FBI crime data that shows...
This is a delicate topic to say the least.
The problem we have today is that there are people in some quarters who want to vilify the Police and that’s just a non-starter for me.
The bigger problem is that the people who have been paying the price for this wrong-headed thinking are all poor black and brown people who live in places where violence has dramatically increased.
Someone I worked with left the job to join the NYPD and I wrote him a letter after he announced he was leaving…
I’m just getting this out of the drafts queue finally.
The guy who left the job to be a cop, he didn’t last and he left and actually I’m glad he did because he’s a super nice guy and doesn’t deserve any of the grief police officers get these days.
I know it’s much easier in certain circles to paint a group with a broad brush. If I do it to Black people, I’m a racist. If I do it to the people wearing blue though that isn’t really a problem now is it? You see there, my bias is totally acceptable in some quarters even though it isn’t true at all.
Consider this, I’ve posted the entire George Floyd video here. It’s an hour long. People would like to have you think this all happened in a five minute period but it all happened over the course of an hour. Watch it… now watch the passenger and watch Floyd. Right off the bat while the passenger cooperates Floyd does not.
Let’s also put into context that Floyd was making a scene because he had a record and didn’t want to be arrested. He had been arrested before and spent his entire life breaking the law. It’s more likely than not if Floyd hadn’t gone out of his way to resist arrest he’s be alive today. He didn’t want to go to jail and at every juncture made it more and more difficult for police officers to control and restrain a 6' 4" suspect.
How many criminal offenses had Floyd been convicted of?
Floyd served eight jail terms on various charges, including drug possession, theft, and trespass. In 2007, Floyd faced charges for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon; according to investigators, he entered an apartment by impersonating a water department worker and barged in with five other men, held a pistol to a woman's stomach, and searched for items to steal. Floyd was arrested three months later during a traffic stop, and victims of the robbery identified him from a photo array. In 2009, Floyd was sentenced to five years in prison as part of a plea deal and was paroled in January 2013. He continued to battle drug addiction and went through periods of use and sobriety. In May 2019, Floyd was detained by Minneapolis police when an unlicensed car in which he was a passenger was pulled over in a traffic stop. Floyd was found with a bottle of pain pills. In 2020, Floyd was working part-time as a security guard at the Conga Latin Bistro Club and began another job as a delivery driver. He lost the delivery driver job in January after being cited for driving without a valid commercial license and for being involved in a minor crash.
Wow! He was SUCH AN ANGEL!!!!
As you watch the video… notice how Floyd keeps saying he can’t breathe all the while screaming and yelling and keeping the police from putting him in the back of the squad car. People are even telling him to get up and get in the back of the car. There isn’t a single moment throughout the whole period where he isn’t fighting with the Police.
Now, the other thing we need to remember here is that Floyd had the following in his system:
In addition to fentanyl and methamphetamine, the toxicology report from the autopsy showed that Floyd also had cannabinoids in his system when he died.
Chauvin was wrong certainly but if you want to make it out that Derek Chauvin set out at the start of his shift to kill someone that’s just a lie. What happened to Floyd was a tragedy but it was a tragedy for both Floyd and Chauvin and had Floyd at any point simply cooperated with Police it would not have even happened. (there are two things to listen for in the video… the woman in the back seat tells Floyd to stop resisting. 34:08 The officer after Floyd is taken to the hospital tells others that he was fighting them the whole time 29:55)
Now, that’s the first tragedy but what happened afterward across the nation? That was simply unacceptable. What’s amazing is that many of the crimes committed in the aftermath were never prosecuted. People certainly felt their ‘righteous rage’ but at the same time ultimately what did it get them?
You likely think I’m ready to say somehow that things are perfect in our country when for any sane person it’s not the case at all. There is bias to be sure. The question that always comes to mind though is how much people bring to the table themselves when interacting with the Police?
Our nation has a long ways to go still on race relations but to think it only gets better by one side doing the work is a non starter. We all have to work towards changing the world around us.
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