I've made this point before but I'm going to make it again: The reason people are in the streets isn't because there are "a few bad apples" is police ranks.
It's because there is systemic corruption in many law enforcement systems which actively enables and covers for bad police.
I suspect that people would have much different thoughts about George Floyd's murder if, in the immediate aftermath, the Minneapolis Police Department had gone after the four officers involved with hammer and tongs.
Instead, this is the official statement that was put out by the MPD:
Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police InteractionMay 25, 2020 (MINNEAPOLIS) On Monday evening, shortly after 8:00 pm, officers from the Minneapolis Police Department responded to the 3700 block of Chicago Avenue South on a report of a forgery in progress. Officers were advised that the suspect was sitting on top of a blue car and appeared to be under the influence.
Two officers arrived and located the suspect, a male believed to be in his 40s, in his car. He was ordered to step from his car. After he got out, he physically resisted officers. Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress. Officers called for an ambulance. He was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center by ambulance where he died a short time later.
At no time were weapons of any type used by anyone involved in this incident.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has been called in to investigate this incident at the request of the Minneapolis Police Department.
No officers were injured in the incident.
Body worn cameras were on and activated during this incident.
The GO number associated with this case is 20-140629.
Why did the MPD believe this was a "medical incident"?
If it was true that body cameras were active, then they had the footage. They saw what happened.
And they should have been suspicious to begin with because of the officers involved.
Officer Derek Chauvin had 18 official complaints lodged against him over the years.
Officer Tou Thou had been involved in an excessive force incident so serious that the city settled a lawsuit relating to it for $25,000.
If you're management in the MPD and a guy dies while being taken into custody by two officers with that history, your antennae should immediately go up.
And that's before you even look at the body camera footage.
Instead, the MPD's first response was to try to sweep this all away.
But it's not just management at the MPD. There's the medical examiner's, too.
The first autopsy report on Floyd that it “revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.” Instead, Floyd died because of, well, here. Have a look:
Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.
This is the problem. Yes, the officers involved are part of the problem. But even if the number of bad cops on the streets truly is small, the rest of the law enforcement system is too corrupted to manage them.
We're not done yet, though. Because last night Earl Gray, the lawyer for Officer Thomas Lane—one of the cops who participated in the murder of Floyd—went onto CNN to mount the legal defense of his client.
This is what Gray said:
If all these people say why didn't my client intercede, well, if the public is there and they're so in an uproar about this, they didn't intercede either.
That's the defense? The onlookers who were taping the incident and trying to tell the police that they were killing Floyd didn't rush the police and try to overpower them. So no reasonable person could conclude that what the police were doing was really all that wrong?
That's the defense from a cop's lawyer? |
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One last thing: Yesterday the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that police officers had taken to slashing the tires of parked cars during the protests.
You read that right. Police used knives to slash the tires of people's cars.
And here's the official explanation from the Department of Public Safety:
State Patrol troopers strategically deflated tires … in order to stop behaviors such as vehicles driving dangerously and at high speeds in and around protesters and law enforcement.
Destroying the tires on a legally parked car with no one in it is "strategic deflation" in order to prevent someone from maybe using the car in a dangerous manner at a later time. And this seems to be not the work of a rogue cop, but accepted policy on the part of law enforcement.
This is what I mean when I say that the protests aren't about a couple bad cops. They're about the way in which the entire chain of law enforcement in Minneapolis has been corrupted.
thebulwark |
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