Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/05/29/minneapolis-mayor-declares-cur.html
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The best thing to do, when responding to riots and protests over the unjustified killing of an unarmed and heavily-subdued black man, is obviously to bring in the same police force to enforce a curfew and crack down on those riots.
It’s just science.
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I don’t think “impunity” means what you think it means. Everyone involved was fired and now the cop has been arrested. It looks like he will be held responsible for murdering George Floyd.
I don’t think you grasp the timeline implicit in the headline. He murdered a man and was only fired after video surfaced. He was only charged as the result of days of outrage and protest, and the charging documents are still going out of their way to exonerate the officer for his actions. It shouldn’t take that long or require that much effort to impel the state to action.
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- The cops who beat Rodney King were eventually put on trial. They were acquitted.
- The cop who murdered Oscar Grant was out of prison within 8 months of being sentenced.
- Wannabe cop George Zimmerman was acquitted for murdering Trayvon Martin.
- A grand jury chose not to indict the cop who strangled Eric Garner to death.
We could list dozens of similar cases. Just because the justice system is making some show of belatedly getting involved doesn’t remotely mean that the killer cop will be “held responsible” in any meaningful sense of the word.
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Oh, I agree with you 100% and understand the timeline. Thankfully the video evidence exists. I’m just pointing out that impunity means they get away with no repercussions (like Trump tweeting that Scarborough is a murderer) and in this case it looks like that won’t happen. The arrest is the right first step and I have faith he will be convicted.
Remember, this is cold-blooded murder; killing by strangulation suffocation of a man who was restrained and helpless. It took place in broad daylight, with dozens of witnesses and loads of video.
If George Floyd’s murderer had been anyone besides a police officer, he and all of his accomplices would have been taken into custody the same day.
Instead, they were fired as police officers, which literally means they drive a few miles down the road and get another cop job, because their personnel records are sealed. The city attorney announced no charges would be filed.
That sounds like impunity to me.
Faith is what we have when there is literally no evidence to support a belief.
It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s a journey of a thousand miles.
There will be no justice for George Floyd until his murderer and all the accomplices are convicted and imprisoned. That will take years at the least.
Edit in strikethrough.
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Impunity can also mean “exempt from the normal repercussions other people would face under the same circumstances.”
If a rich person can get away with murder by paying a nominal fine instead of going to prison then it’s not an unreasonable statement to say “rich people can commit murder with impunity.”
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Good luck with that
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When will white nationalists start protesting for their right to protest while armed?
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Its not so much to break up the protestors, but to protect against the professional aggitators brought into the cities to fuck up as much as they can, latching onto these sick events to further fuel it.
But that is only a tiny fraction of why we are seeing protests in so many cities across the country. The murder itself is horrific. But it’s the structure behind it, behind why a cop knew he could just kneel on a man’s neck for eight minutes, more than three minutes after the man stopped moving, stopped struggling for breath, in broad daylight, with people looking on, with people recording it, and get away with it.
The murder of George Floyd was terrible, but it’s only a small part of the bigger problem of structural racism. It was just the spark that lit the whole tinder pile on fire.
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Why?
(Oh, it needs to be at least 8 characters, right.)
Whhhyyyy?
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I am not entirely convinced of that
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Isn’t that sweet.
Where is this magical place everyone is being bused in from? We’re up to substantial events in dozens of cities. At some point the outside agitator thing moves firmly into the realm of laughable.
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But the cops are the ones enforcing the curfew.
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Third degree murder charges are bullshit, it’s needs to be at least 2nd, if not 1st degree murder, as it was a slow, torturous execution. And all those cops there need to be arrested and charged.
That’s what we need to burn down and rebuild.
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They’re doing it in my city, too
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