Tommy Tainant
Diamond Member
How white America excuses its own violence
The killing of George Floyd has, like other killings of black Americans, been quickly repurposed as a story about the violence of the ensuing protests.
www.newstatesman.com
This was recorded by a teenage girl, 17-year-old Darnella Frazier. Because it was recorded, the four officers involved in Floyd’s death were fired on Tuesday. Online city records show that the officer who killed him, a white man named Derek Chauvin, has had 17 complaints filed against him. Sixteen of those complaints were closed without any disciplinary action.
The article covers a number of issues that surround this murder but the one that caught my eye was the track record of the thug. How many complaints do you have to accrue before somebody in a suit is prompted to take a look at what is going on ?
There seem to be institutional issues with US police forces across the country. Whether it is racism, criminality, corruption, violence or whatever. Maybe the job attracts the wrong sort of individual ? Perhaps the training is deficient. Maybe the support structures are not in place when officers go off the rails ?
Its obviously a stressful job in a violent country and that is not going to change any time soon. But the police seem to be divorced from the people that they serve and that is a recipe for disaster.