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 Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:35PM (2 children)
So what if he does? He's shackled. The cops know that if he tries he'll fail. There's no threat to him attempting beyond falling on his face and hurting himself. He's not going to bite a gun out of their holster and start hurting people. That incapacitation is why procedure had them shackle him. Afterwards he was zero true threat, and their training covers this scenario, where standard procedure is basically walk after the attempted escaper calmly until they fall, then help them up and back into processing. If they don't calm down then you just increase the number of restraints until they do.
They're trained in this. Your rationalization is incorrect. It doesn't matter what bad in the moment decisions George Floyd might have made; none of them would've resulted in anyone's harm but his own. Instead someone else killed him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:35PM (1 child)
also, someone enlighten me: after getting handcuffs (and it seems ankle cuffs) why is everyone waiting around on the floor? waiting for the ordered pizza or box of donuts? i mean like .... waaaaat?
also, one cannot cuff a suspect to a policecar?
anyways, for me it looks like "enjoying punishment" of suspect and "superiority demonstration". evil evil all the way.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:36PM
I've seen my black friend cuffed to the hood of a cop car and beaten, they took my cell phone first though. We weren't doing anything wrong - dropping off two friends after barbecuing. They were convinced he was selling me drugs though, and decided to beat him up for not "admitting" it.