Saw that video. Made me angry. It took literally less than a second for one cop to stop it. What the fuck were the three cops doing while they watched George Floyd die? We know what it takes to prevent it now. Any one of them could've taken less than a second to move a Derek Chauvin's knee, and none of this would be happening. The country is burning because George Floyd was killed by a psychopath, and because those three men were deaf to the pleas of onlookers and unwilling to look weak, even at the cost of a man's life. A split-second decision to do their job - to protect and fucking serve - is all it would have taken. Fuck 12. No justice, no peace.There's even video of a cop kneeling on the neck of a looter they are arresting - exactly the same thing that killed Floyd in MPLS - and the other cop with him PUSHES THE COP'S KNEE OFF THE PERSON'S NECK.
It made me angry for a more cerebral reason. A dude gets murdered by a cop, slowly and deliberately, on video. The world erupts over it. This cop uses the EXACT same technique on a protestor, protesting THE EXACT THING HE IS DOING. The mental agility it requires for someone to be so completely tuned out and unaware of their personal role in the tensions they are currently trying to squelch, is astounding to me. There is absolutely zero understanding of WHY the cops are there, what their role is, and how they should perform that role in a conscientious manner, that ultimately serves the public good. SPD is just a gang, that gets released to run rampant over human beings, whenever traffic gets backed up for a moment. There is a genuine fear of SPD in Seattle. ANY time anything happens - like the dude who climbed the tree downtown - all Seattleites hold their breath... they know SPD will respond with force, and be completely tone deaf to the situation and environment. That says it all, really. When middle class white people fear the police force, then you know shit is fucked.