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African-American George Floyd's death has led to marches, demonstrations, acts of violence, and looting across the USA and in other parts of the world. Emotions are running high. We will not attempt to accuse or defend anyone here. Just attempt to lay out the information we have and offer it up for the community to discuss. Many comments about this incident have been posted to unrelated stories on this site. This is, therefore, an attempt to provide one place on SoylentNews where people are encouraged to discuss it. So as to not derail other stories on the site, I kindly ask you focus those comments here.
Wikipedia has a page about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd (permanent link to the page as it appeared at the time of writing):
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an African-American man, was killed in the Powderhorn community of Minneapolis, Minnesota. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Derek Chauvin, a white American Minneapolis police officer, kept his knee on the right side of Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds; according to the criminal complaint against Chauvin, 2 minutes and 53 seconds of that time occurred after Floyd became unresponsive.[3][4][5][6][7] Officers Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas K. Lane participated in Floyd's arrest, with Kueng holding Floyd's back, Lane holding his legs, and Thao looking on and preventing intervention by an onlooker as he stood nearby.[8]:6:24[9][10]
The arrest was made after Floyd was accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill at a market.[11] Police said Floyd physically resisted arrest.[12][13] Some media organizations commented that a security camera from a nearby business did not show Floyd resisting.[14][15] The criminal complaint filed later said that based on body camera footage, Floyd repeatedly said he couldn't breathe while standing outside the police car, resisted getting in the car and intentionally fell down.[16][17][18][19] Several bystanders recorded the event on their smartphones, with one video showing Floyd repeating "Please", "I can't breathe", "Mama", and "Don't kill me" being widely circulated on social media platforms and broadcast by the media.[20] While knee-to-neck restraints are allowed in Minnesota under certain circumstances, Chauvin's usage of the technique has been widely criticized by law enforcement experts as excessive.[21][22][23] All four officers were fired the day after the incident.[24]
[...] Charges: Third-degree murder (Chauvin) Second-degree manslaughter (Chauvin)
This has been extensively covered by the media. Some outlets attempt to put their own interpretations on their coverage with their selection of video footage and with their commentary. It is difficult to find a simple video of the incident. Here is one that has coverage from the time of initial encounter of the police the officers with George Floyd up through his being taken away by ambulance. The video is a composite of shots from a restaurant's surveillance camera (Dragon Wok), Officer body cam, and bystander cell phones. YouTube footage: Full George Floyd Available Footage (21:12). If anyone has more complete footage of the arrest, please mention it clearly (with a link) in the comments.
Lastly, this is a hard time for everybody. Pandemic. Lock-down. Unemployment. Fears. Please be mindful of others' circumstances when commenting. We are a community sprung from a time of challenge. Let us continue to be here for one-another during this difficult time. SoylentNews is People.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:45PM (7 children)
Abolish all policing:
https://www.city-journal.org/abolish-police-call-to-action [city-journal.org]
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/police-abolish-criminal-justice-reform-20200102.html [inquirer.com]
https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/george-floyd-protests-police-abolition/Content?oid=80349691 [chicagoreader.com]
https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/06/police-abolition-george-floyd/ [motherjones.com]
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/opinion/george-floyd-police-funding.html [nytimes.com]
Legalize guns too:
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/10/738493491/with-a-growing-membership-since-trump-black-gun-group-considers-getting-politica [npr.org]
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(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:31PM (6 children)
Are you advocating the abolition of police, or arguing against it? Your first link does the latter, at least two of the others are on the other side.
Regardless, many people who have not experienced violence first hand, but have only seen it on TV, tend to think of it as fictional. They are not personally violent, so they can't imagine that other people are; it must be somebody else's fault that those people are violent. So they think that if everybody is spoken to gently and are allowed to have their way, even if it's to somebody else's detriment, that there will be no violence in the world and police won't be necessary. Somehow, a psychopath or a person hopped up on drugs or alcohol or who intends to do violence to control or intimidate, can be stopped with a well-reasoned argument and a caring attitude.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:30PM (3 children)
It's an answer to the question "what do the protesters hope to achieve?" That's probably what it would take to satisfy the protesters (immediately). Advocacy for police abolition predates the protests and has been gaining slight traction. Probably a lot more in the past week.
If you turn it into a numbers game, it might work. Abolish police entirely, and you get zero police brutality and deaths by police. Redirect the funds into helpful programs. See what happens. Maybe the assumed rise in crime is offset by other factors. One way to modify the strategy is to make sure lots of people have access to guns, which is the position of the National African American Gun Association.
As NRA membership wanes, America's largest black gun group is thriving [cbsnews.com]
This can be tried out in a single community.
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:55AM (1 child)
English common law emerged from natural law because of the killing and blood feuds. The US was founded on common law principles and police were a development meant to deter crime. I'm all for holding the police to account but abolition would result in a huge increase in deaths from self-defense, it's not realistic.
Gun sales are hitting record highs BTW.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 04 2020, @05:06AM
There could also be a partial reduction:
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/l-a-city-council-members-introduce-motion-to-reduce-police-funding-as-calls-to-defund-the-lapd-echoed-in-protests/ [ktla.com]
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(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:22PM
The only thing that you get in the absence of police is a rise of vigilantism and a general dissolution in law & order. Organized crime will explode, and we'll have Mexican drug cartels beheading entire towns in the American heartland, because there's nobody there to stop them. No shop owner will dare to open his doors because looters will descend and take what they want. It's lunacy. The world's sole superpower would instantly become Somalia.
But we don't have to speculate about what would happen. We know. The "Wild, Wild West" was wild because there was no effective police force. If you had a feud with someone, you shot them or rounded up your buddies and cousins and hanged them.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:42PM (1 child)
Could it be that when the psychopaths grow up in poverty, in a neglected area, violence is the easiest way to get what they want. If they're given more opportunities in life, they could wind up as a CEO instead, and subjugate thousands instead! Or run for president... When you're powerful enough, other people will do the violence for you and it will be dressed up as right and proper.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:06PM
The people pushing these policies, which will be catastrophically disastrous, believe that, contrary to all of human history and other available evidence, that humanity is perfectible, and that some day everybody will greet each other with happy smiles and sit down to tea to work out their differences. It's fantasy.
Washington DC delenda est.