One Small Voice: Murder institutionally sanctioned

by Lynn Mandaville

Sunday evening in Minneapolis, a black man suspected of forgery was detained by police outside a convenience store.  Video taken by a bystander shows seven minutes of a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd while he pleads for relief, crying over and over, “I can’t breathe.”

While I have not been able to find reliable information as to what happened leading up to this video, it is undeniable that the officer in question continued to kneel with his full weight on the neck of George Floyd for five minutes and at least another two minutes after he became still, presumably unconscious.

The following split photo will allow the reader to view the difference between protesting peacefully and committing murder.

It is my own opinion that what you have witnessed, if you watched, was the institutionally sanctioned murder of a black man.

George Floyd died shortly after arriving at a hospital following this incident.  No autopsy findings are yet available.

The close of the video shows George being carelessly loaded onto a stretcher, still handcuffed.  It is possible he had serious neck injury inflicted by the officer, yet no care was taken to immobilize George on a backboard, immobilize his neck with a cervical collar, or stabilize him before loading him into the ambulance.

Better care is taken of professional football players who appear to have sustained possible neck trauma during a game.

A short while ago, three white men in Georgia were (finally) held to account for the murder of Ahmed Aubrey, a young black American, who was shot to death while he jogged the streets of his neighborhood.

None of these men was acting in an official capacity as law enforcement, yet they claimed they were conducting a citizen’s arrest because Ahmed was suspected (by them) of burglarizing the neighborhood.

It took two months before the men were arrested for the alleged murder.

I don’t know how this systematic pattern of violence against, and murder of, black men, and others of color, is allowed to continue.

Why aren’t taxpayers insisting their local law enforcement receive new, extensive training in diffusing situations rather than escalating them?  Why aren’t cops who are prone to displays of anger in engaging with the public given anger management intervention?  Where is the vital education for law enforcement personnel for peaceable enforcement in our communities?  What has happened to the motto “to protect and defend?”

I’ve seen too many such incidents in our neighboring city of Tempe, AZ, in which cops have murdered suspects in the peak of anger.  I have seen the videos of the same police resorting to brutality rather than de-escalation.  (It hasn’t happened here in my city of Chandler, but next door in Tempe it is all too common.)

I know that we are living through a very tough time with the COVID-19 pandemic straining all aspects of life.  That includes police being called out on an ever-increasing number of domestic violence calls.

But a pandemic is no excuse for the two incidents that opened this piece, or any others like them, where inordinate amounts of violence and death are inflicted on black Americans.  AMERICANS, who happen to be black.

Racism and prejudice are all too alive and well in America.  Each of us has it in us, and each of us has to strive to overcome that impulse.  And each of us has to speak out against those who inflict physical damage in the name of racism, especially the police whom we should turn to for help, not harm.

I watched Gayle King on “CBS This Morning” on Tuesday struggle to maintain her professional cool after first reporting on George Floyd’s murder, and then reporting on the white woman who called 911 claiming she was being assaulted by a black man who happened to be birdwatching in that particular part of Central Park in NYC.  What that man’s video revealed was him calmly asking her to leash her dog, while she ranted and raved about his presence there and calling 911 with false accusations of physical threat and assault.

King’s distress was deep.  I don’t know how she managed to reign in her justified anger at rampant racism that threatens the fathers, husbands and sons of black women.

I don’t know whether to scream along with her, or cry.