The killing of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020 Poured gallons of gasoline on the hot burning embers of unresolved unjustified killings of Blacks and Latinos and others of color.
While we watched Derek Chauvin execute George Floyd by kneeling on the neck of this man who was subdued, hand cuffed and was a danger to no one we could not believe our own eyes
The plot to kill George Floyd began many years ago with slavery, lynching, Jim Crow laws, massive discrimination, mass incarceration and a national police enforcement machine that beat, tortured, incarcerated, and killed people of color with impunity.
Officer Chauvin was but a god awful instrument of weaponized racism in America. During the Obama administration they took steps to begin monitoring police and enforcing CONSENT DECREES on cities where their police were producing unbelievable acts of violence against the citizens. The Trump administration quickly withdrew consent decrees and sent a signal to all police that there was an open season on people of color. The Department of Justice under Trump became yet another instrument of oppression.
If Trump were still in office he would have by now probably pardoned Chauvin just as he did racist Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
The first report of the death of George Floyd made by the police made it sound like it was a death of natural causes and that the police had called in medical help and that Floyd died in the hospital.
At that point the Chief of police of Minneapolis had only seen police body cam images, and it was not until he saw the footage captured by a 17 year old Darnella Frazier that he saw that he had not been presented the truth by his own officers.
This video was soon on the internet and the world exploded pushing people out into the streets not only in Minnesota, but nationally and internationally. Me and my family joined these demonstrations and yet we saw the awful unnecessary killings by the police continue and these killings are still going on.
Minnesota Attorney general Keith Ellison stepped in to assume leadership of this historic case and organized a most amazing an powerful team of lawyers, Experts, investigators and many other staff to present this most important case to a jury of 12 American citizens.
The past history of lost causes in courts had many worried that this policeman would found be innocent or get at most slight slap on the hand,
Listening to the trial we saw the most artful and strategic presentation of the facts. Meanwhile the Defense team had nothing with which to defend the inhumane actions of their client. So they began grasping at straws that would easily crumple when faced with the truth.
Had it not been for the video and then the witnesses of the murder, plus the massive Demonstrations, prayers and social media activism and a most incredible team that was able to convict this policeman and by doing so convicting the racial bias of many police organizations . in this case for the first time we saw good policemen take the stand and condemn the actions of this Bad policeman\
Just remember that it was a 17 year old that gave us the evidence to wake us all up and to convict this policeman.
Over the years I have been able to work with good and honest police and have at the same time demonstrated against police and other law enforcement officials who seem to hate the poor and people of color.
When we heard the announcement of the conviction on all three counts I was in my van in California with Alex Sanchez Director of Homies Unidos who like so many others has been the victim of false arrests and lying police and prosecutors. We smiled and fist bumped our agreement with the jury decision
We all know that this court finding is a MOST HISTORICAL DECSION. We also know that we have much serious work to do to correct and reform our law enforcement mechanisms And we need to as the next step to vote out of the U.S. Senate the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
While we appreciate good court decisions we know that with that we need good and strong policies.
