Unsatisfactory Relief

The verdict came back quickly--something like ten hours of deliberations for this latest "trial of the century." Guilty on all three counts: Second degree murder, third degree murder, manslaughter. Certainly the right verdict, and seemingly obvious, but the degree of relief that I'm feeling indicates just how troubled our society is.

For the sake of posterity--in case someone stumbles upon this blog in some distant future when recent events have faded into obscurity--the facts of the case: In late May 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic (or one of the heights, anyway), in Minneapolis, Minnesota, police responded to a call about a man passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store.  Police subdued the suspect, George Floyd, and laid him face down on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back.  One of the cops, Derek Chauvin, knelt on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes, despite Floyd's protestations that he couldn't breathe and his pleas for his mother.  A crowd of onlookers gathered during these minutes, recording Chauvin on their phones and begging him to get off of Floyd.  Three other police officers warned the crowd back but did nothing to intervene on behalf of Floyd.  Chauvin kept kneeling on Floyd's neck, even after Floyd fell silent.  Floyd was soon pronounced dead.

The evidence against Chauvin was overwhelming.  Obvious.  Of course, he had caused Floyd's death.  Of course his behavior was unjustified by any conceivable "threat" posed by the handcuffed, prone, and thoroughly subdued George Floyd--who really never seemed to pose any threat throughout the entire encounter. Multiple medical professionals testified that Chauvin's actions had caused Floyd's death, and multiple police professionals testified that Chauvin's actions were unjustified by any police procedures. The trial lasted about three weeks, with virtually no defense presented.  The prosecution eviscerated the defense.  In the last lines of its closing argument--words that should live forever in the annals of legal history--prosecutor Jerry Blackwell said, "Mr. Floyd died because his heart was too big. You heard that testimony. . . And the truth of the matter is that the reason George Floyd is dead is because Mr. Chauvin's heart was too small."

And then, after less than ten hours of deliberation, the jury returned its verdict.  The speed—combined with common sense—certainly suggested a guilty verdict.  And yet memories of the Rodney King verdict and any number of other miscarriages of justice in the face of blatant police brutality and racism gave pause as we waited to hear the verdict.  And therein lies the problem: The fact that we are so relieved by what should be an obvious result shows how damaged we are as a society.

It's reminiscent of last year's presidential elections, when we were all holding our breath to see if the one candidate who had received seven-plus million more votes than the other candidate would be declared the winner (after the previous presidential election when the loser had only received about three-million more votes than the winner).  This is a democracy?

A police officer casually murders an unarmed, incapacitated man in front of numerous witnesses, and we need to keep our fingers crossed that he's found guilty.  This is a society of law?

"Chauvin Guilty" is a good headline.  But there's no celebration here.  Just a recognition of how far we need to go.

In Which Hurricanes Diminish while Crime Rises

Hurricane Patricia received an unsatisfactory performance review and was downgraded to a tropical storm.  Good news for Mexico.  Same-sex marriage is mostly legal in Mexico, though, so I'm waiting to hear Mike Huckabee explain why the country wasn't wiped off the face of the Earth like it should have been.  Maybe not being America automatically condemns Mexico to hellfire regardless of its misguided tolerance for sodomites.

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FBI Director James Comey attributes a creeping rise in violent crime to the so-called "Ferguson Effect"--a reluctance by police officers to use aggressive and occasionally violent or lethal pre-emptive tactics against would-be perpetrators, lest they be held to account in the court of public opinion ('cause God knows they're unlikely to be held to account in any other court).  It makes a certain statistical sense: Because police now must exercise excessive caution not to harass and occasionally kill people for no particular reason, it just stands to reason that some of those people who would have been arrested--or killed--now go off and commit violent crimes.  I mean, why wouldn't they?  For me, every day I'm not stopped and frisked, is an opportunity to break the law.  I'm not a violent person by nature, so I generally confine myself to petty larceny and occasional wire fraud, but that's just me.  Like Sir William Blackstone said, Better ten innocent men get tazed than one guilty man go free.

Well?

Over the last year, seemingly every week has featured a new instance of extreme police brutality, resulting in the death of an unarmed man.  The fact that all the victims were black has only aggravated the underlying outrage, adding a grimy layer of institutional racism to what was at best an ugly situation indicating a need for better training for--and perhaps screening of--those who would serve as police officers in our communities.  But I've been struck by something: In nearly every news article written about these killings--from Michael Brown (Ferguson, MO) to Eric Garner (Staten Island) to Freddie Gray (Baltimore)--we see some variation of the following disclaimer:

"Because no nationwide database of police killings exists, it is impossible to draw definitive conclusions about the actions of the officers in this case."

Fair enough, but doesn't this suggest it might be time to start compiling such a database?

Unjustified

I've watched a few different videos of the UC Davis pepper-spray incident.  In case you've missed it, a number of protesters at the college, inspired by both the nationwide "Occupy" movement and the ever-increasing tuition at California state schools, staged a sit-in.  They were confronted by campus police, one of whom (as the video shows) strolled along the line of seated students, pepper-spraying them casually as if he were freshening his living room with Febreze.

For the record, I like the police.  I respect the police.  I think police officers do a difficult and often dangerous job, and any time I have had to deal with police, I have found them helpful and considerate.  So I want to give the police the benefit of the doubt when possible.  And I am sure that the police officers involved in this incident will offer some kind of justification for their actions.  But watching the various videos, I can see none.

For me, the most distasteful moment comes early on, as the officer triumphantly brandishes the can of pepper spray before the crowd.  Perhaps he is warning the seated students about what's about to happen, but, if so, why isn't he facing them?  Instead, he appears to be addressing the watching crowd.  The way he waves the can around reminds one of nothing so much as a magician showing the audience that he's picked the correct card.  There is something so stylized in the motion, and then so casual about the way he walks down his row of victims, that it looks as though the policeman is performing--like this is some big moment for which he's rehearsed.

What's also striking is the sheer arrogance of the police.  It was shocking when the video of policemen clubbing Rodney King surfaced: It was sheer luck (if that's the right word) that a witness with a camera happened to be in position to capture the action.  But in Friday's incident, the police could see cameras all around--both professional caliber video gear and ubiquitous cell phones recording every wretched moment.

One wonders if the police will use the very fact of the cameras' obvious presence as a defense: Of course we were justified!  How stupid would we have to be to pepper-spray helpless students--unprovoked--when we know there are cameras everywhere?

How stupid indeed?