To many, this is a taboo topic and one that polarizes people like many other controversial topics. I have resisted addressing it during the year and a half I have been writing on my blog, but feel I cannot ignore the elephant in the room any longer.
On May 25th, an African-American man named George Floyd died after having his neck kneeled on by a Minneapolis police officer for at least seven minutes, all while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on the pavement. In the video of the incident, Floyd can be heard pleading with the officer that he couldn’t breathe.
Video taken before Floyd is down on the ground shows Floyd already handcuffed, and seemingly not putting up any resistance. Eyewitnesses also state the lack of any resistance by Floyd. The incidence has sparked violent riots in Minneapolis, which have now spread to other cities in the United States.
So here we go again… yet another incident in the U.S. involving deadly use of force by a white police officer against a black man. As the popular saying goes… “rinse and repeat.”
How many more times is the U.S. government and society in general going to accept this nauseating, never-ending rerun? It’s always the same story. Even with the advent of “dashcams”, “bodycams”, and everyone having cameras on their phones, the incidents continue. Incidents totally caught on camera are still dragged through needlessly long investigations, prolonging the agony for the victims’ families, and many times ending in a totally unsatisfactory result.
Imagine how these incidents would proceed without the existence of videos.
Racism is a sick, festering sore on society. With all the technological advancements man has made over the last few decades, racial relations are still back in the last century. I equate racism with ignorance, so this means there are still many woefully ignorant people in the world. Affirmative action laws only put a Band-Aid on the deep wound of racism… not treating its root cause.
Given the likelihood that racism isn’t going to go away any time soon, I would take some concrete measures to ensure this type of incident doesn’t keep on happening.
- Mandatory dashcams and body cams on all police officers at all times. Mostly the big city police departments.
- Mandatory periodic psychological evaluations on all police officers in big city police departments.
- Mandatory, auditable procedures for the proper screening of potential police officer new hire candidates.
- Mandatory neighborhood outreach programs to be attended and participated by all police officers in big city departments.
- Swift, streamlined, thorough investigations by an outside oversight department (call it what you will) on all incidents of excessive use of police force.
- Harsher penalties for murders committed by those who are paid to uphold the law.
The fact that this type of incident continues to occur in an otherwise civilized society is cringe worthy. This is reoccurring, blatant lethal abuse of police power, driven by racial prejudices. I will probably talk more about racism in future articles.
Seems to me that COVID-19 isn’t the only virus that needs to be eradicated.