Going backwards

How I feel today is equivalent to nearly four years ago when Philando Castile was shot in Falcon Heights, MN and then the next day when violence erupted in Dallas, TX in response. I am crestfallen.

What exacerbates my anguish is seeing actual video footage of another black man being killed by police (WARNING: Graphic content) Monday in Minneapolis.

Four Minneapolis officers involved in the arrest of a black man who died in police custody were fired Tuesday, hours after a bystander’s video showed an officer kneeling on the handcuffed man’s neck, even after he pleaded that he could not breathe and stopped moving.

Mayor Jacob Frey announced the firings on Twitter, saying “This is the right call.”

The man’s death Monday night was under investigation by the FBI and state law enforcement authorities. It immediately drew comparisons to the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died in 2014 in New York after he was placed in a chokehold by police and pleaded for his life, saying he could not breathe.

In a post on his Facebook page, Frey apologized Tuesday to the black community for the officer’s treatment of the man, who was later identified as 46-year-old George Floyd, who worked security at a restaurant.

“Being Black in America should not be a death sentence. For five minutes, we watched a white officer press his knee into a Black man’s neck. Five minutes. When you hear someone calling for help, you’re supposed to help. This officer failed in the most basic, human sense,” Frey posted.

Police said the man matched the description of a suspect in a forgery case at a grocery store, and that he resisted arrest.

This display of brutality was something I routinely witnessed when watching documentaries talking about unrest in the 1960s. The fact that this still crops up in twenty first century is equal parts heartbreaking and infuriating.

Given what we witnessed in the video footage of Mr. Floyd being brutally detained, the four officers being fired is indeed the correct call.....but it is only a start. Mr. Floyd's family deserves justice for this untimely death and I pray they receive it quickly, BUT not at the expense of due process. As cut and dried as that video appears, the officers are still afforded the presumption of innocence not because they were cops but because they're Americans. Sadly, George Floyd was not afforded that courtesy.

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