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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: 3, Insightful) by martyb on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:23PM (14 children)
I don't see riots as being a "path to success". There's likely no forethought about it.
I see it as an expression of long-standing suffering and frustration.
Have you ever worked hard towards a goal (say a promotion) and someone else who was not as well qualified got it instead of you? How did that feel?
How about just trying to get a job? Submit countless applications and get an equal number of rejections.
As for "Justice was already served in this case, extremely rapidly", I have to disagree. How many times have we learned of police being charged, put on administrative leave, and ultimately found not guilty? I will withhold judgement until the facts have been presented, the case argued, and the verdict read.
As for "raising awareness", that the foregoing still happens suggests that more than just awareness is needed.
Yes, rioting does nothing to advance their cause. I see this as misdirected, pent-up frustration and anger that is finally finding release. Like road rage for getting cut off on the highway, and chasing down the person who cut you off. It's not rational. Neither is this, but neither are these circumstances.
I do not condone the rioting, but I can understand the circumstances that lead to it.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:28PM (7 children)
A lot of the riots are being instigated by opportunistic groups like anarchists and white supremacists, not the people organizing the protests.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:38PM (1 child)
A lot of black politicians and other black leaders are coming out saying that, and appropriately worried that blacks will continue to be labeled as criminals, violent, etc.
I say, shoot the looters and arsonists. There are really only a few that instigate, and many marginal sheep that follow. Just shoot them. It'll all end quick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:44PM
And that is why you are regularly called a fascist and a racist.
Found the perfect mate for you! Knows how to lie through her teeth and everything!
https://reddit.com/r/MurderedByWords/comments/gvc0m9/good_old_meghan_mccain_i_assume_shes_a_staple_on/ [reddit.com]
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:40PM
Please give any evidence that any significant fraction at all are white supremacists. It's all anarchists, Antifa, daughters and sons of the commie mayors presiding over this dumpster fire. Why can't the left own it?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:12AM
And there's also a long history of agents provocateur, who are undercover police and/or the FBI sent in to start trouble in crowds to create an excuse for the cops to attack that crowd.
As an example: One hypothesis for why the Kent State shootings happened a little over 50 years ago is that an FBI informant was on the scene with a pistol, fired a shot at nothing in particular, and the National Guard returned fire into the crowd.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:50PM (2 children)
That may well be the case. Then again, it might not. Can you please provide supporting evidence of that? Being able to support that assertion would give it much more weight.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @01:21AM
Article [thehill.com] Moltov girl [twitter.com] NYC lawyer (Moltov girl 2) [swarajyamag.com]
This guy [knoxnews.com] apparently has a III%er [wikipedia.org] tattoo. Something and nothing because it's a constitutionalist group although one that attracts complete wingnuts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @01:41AM
Representing the boogaloo brigade [justice.gov] or just dodgy taste in Hawaiin shirts? [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:54PM (2 children)
Maybe or maybe not.
But protests have been extremely effective at times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March [wikipedia.org] among others.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:34PM
Yes and no.
From your link, the Salt March was based on Satyagraha [wikipedia.org]:
The riots here (at least the ones that get the media coverage) are not what I consider peaceful.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:34PM
As another user pointed out Gandhi engaged in peaceful protest, but even that I think is rarely productive. 'But India gained their freedom!' I hear you say, and that's absolutely true. But was it because of the protests? After World War 2 Britain was basically bankrupt and did not have the money to maintain their empire. Keep in mind that this was before the time of countries so overtly 'printing' money. If you wanted to maintain your empire you needed real money to do that, and the British Empire simply didn't have that money anymore. This [wikipedia.org] is a list of territories of the British Empire and when they gained their independence.
You might notice that shortly after World War 2 the entire British Empire collapsed. And many of the countries that were granted their independence had no meaningful independence movement. More importantly however, you'll also find that the Brits started mass liberating properties in order of profitability. They tried to hold onto their more valuable properties in the West Indies/Caribbean/etc though those were also eventually were granted freedom. India was historically a very rich nation but by the 20th century it was certainly not lucrative [stackexchange.com], at the minimum, for the Brits.
Ghandi may have helped roll the timeline ahead for India by some small amount, but the main reason India gained their independence is because the British Empire went bankrupt at a time when money meant something. It was certainly not because of protests, civil or otherwise.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:47PM (2 children)
Prior to the coronavirus, employment numbers for black men were the strongest they've ever been since they began keeping labor statistics. Once the virus hit, the shutdowns instantly erased most of those jobs.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:16PM (1 child)
That's good to hear. Do you have a link to that by chance? There's a saying "A rising tide lifts all boats", so I wonder how close their improved numbers got them to parity with (1) the overall rate and (2) the rate for whites?
In other words, "strongest...ever" could conceivably be still far behind. Not saying it is/was, but only that the quoted statement allows for that. I'd like to know the real numbers.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:58PM
I had trouble finding a historical plot of unemployment rates for black men apart from black women from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), but I found one for men from the Federal Reserve Bank that follows the trend of the aggregate for black workers from the BLS [stlouisfed.org]:
St. Louis Fed [stlouisfed.org], note the low point in 2019, and the spike in 2020 for the pandemic lockdowns.
I have not been able to find what the comparison was explicitly for blacks vs. whites in 2019. The closest I've come is this article [stlouisfed.org] from CNBC in 2018 that stated 5.9% unemployment for blacks. That was double the white unemployment at that time, but still the best black workers have ever done; when Barack Obama was president, unemployment for black men topped out at 19.3%, so 5.1% is a significant improvement.
But the data, and the huge spike at the end for the pandemic lockdowns, suggests there is a significant economic component to the unrest. To me it looks like the mayors of cities like New York and the governors of states like Michigan will have destroyed black economic progress for a generation. That is what racism looks like.
Washington DC delenda est.