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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: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:14PM (4 children)
It was not extensively covered. It was covered in passing for the two days it happened, and universally in approving terms. They didn't even get upset when the cops killed a guy by shooting him point blank with a tear gas canister.
If Occupy Wall Street had been burning buildings, breaking into the banks and stealing everything, and beating people to death with 2x4s Obama would have acted immediately. They weren't. 100% peaceful.
There is no time limit to the first amendment. There is no caveat that says you can express your opinion "until the public is weary of it." Obama had no right to do what he did, but everybody gave him a pass because he was cool (tm).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:24PM
That's the law. Every single U.S. citizen breaks multiple laws every day.
The caveat is: what are people actually going to do? what's really going to happen? and, which laws should we call for enforcement of vs. which laws should be ignored to obtain an outcome that everybody is happier with. If somebody feels a law has been ignored that they think shouldn't have been, that's what the courts are for - file suit and demand enforcement.
Occupy Wall Street has faded in memory quite a bit, but as I recall - it was turning into a situation where the protesters were going to be facing health challenges due to the weather / exposure, etc. The whole thing ran for longer than COVID-19 has been going so far. The gas canister episode certainly could have been handled better, probably by both sides, but these things happen when people dig in and disagree. Hopefully the current round of protests will bring some measure of reform to how excessive force is both defined and enforced in domestic police activity.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:04PM (2 children)
What First Amendment right was violated? The First Amendment doesn't grant you the right to camp in public spaces indefinitely. What happened with OWS was selective enforcement of law. As long as the protests further Obama's interests, they were allowed to continue. When that ceased to be the case, they were disbanded.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:04PM (1 child)
The First Amendment does not say, "Sure, go ahead and assemble and protest in an afternoon, then go away so we can ignore you." If we follow your logic then Rosa Parks had no right to defy segregation by sitting in the wrong part of the bus. It's preposterous. Occupy Wall Street had a list of demands that were ignored, so they persisted. They were not staying there out of homelessness.
I agree with you about how cynical Obama was about it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 04 2020, @10:41PM
Who is "we"? And last I checked, a right to protest doesn't mean a right to not be ignored.