I am not watching George Floyd’s trial, I had already made my mind up about his death a year ago. It was not murder as defined by law but it was manslaughter. Derek Chauvin did not know that at the time Mr. Floyd was positive for Covid, which we now know is a lung disorder that affects one’s ability to breathe. Added to that Mr. Floyd was on drugs which also may have contributed to his ability to breathe well. Then add the knee of a Cop to the neck of a man supine on the ground for over 11 minutes, you have lead him to take his last breath regardless. The neglect and abuse came when he begged for his life and was ignored, in fact we may never know if Chauvin at those moments just put a little more pressure on that neck as Floyd took those last fateful breaths as a camera cannot capture that. We know now that Chauvin explained that to the passer by’s who took video and spoke to the Officers, one an EMT that understood how to save lives and watched one expire despite her efforts to somehow change this deadly encounter.
All of the witnesses have expressed immense emotion and a quiet rage that given what they witnessed is justified, the excuse that they expressed outrage is seemingly the explanation, if not the defense, for why Chauvin just kneeled there a little longer, and maybe a little harder as to justify the show. Again we will never know those last moments of thought that passed Mr. Floyd or through Officer Chauvin’s mind that day as they are gone like a breath in the wind.
I am not sure what the outcome will be but then again this Jury is definitely more diverse and racially composed than others that have been in similar situations so we hope they can collectively use the information presented in the trial to come to a conclusive and unanimous decision. I know I made up my mind already and little will change that.
But what I have found interesting is the lies by Cup Foods to the media and now the witnesses and the employee that day who took that counterfeit 20. And that is what I perhaps find as the most controversial and the most disturbing that it was a child who did nothing wrong, was sent to fix it and it led to the fateful call over what was over nothing. The same thing that led to Michael Brown in Ferguson, a pack of smokes that were less than 10 bucks. And the same with Eric Garner in Staten Island selling loose smokes for a buck near a bodega that also sold cigarettes and did not want the competition or the activity as it was near a park that often was the site for selling much harder stuff. As of today, little has changed on that fateful street.
And this is what the Washington Post had to say about Garner’s death:
The more than 20 hours of trial testimony — together with previous public accounts of the incident — permit a comprehensive and detailed examination of Garner’s death, one of the most consequential events in the 174-year history of the NYPD and a pivotal flash point in what would become the Black Lives Matter movement.
That examination reveals how a mundane interaction between a black man and white police officers can quickly devolve, and how split-second decisions can alter the outcomes of such encounters. Five years later, it also sheds light on the extraordinary difficulty of holding police to account for deadly violence — even when the death is captured on camera and witnessed by the world.
In the end, a case that sparked a national reckoning over race and justice will reach its conclusion in a largely semantic inquiry about police takedown tactics.
And with that we are here today. Not a lot has changed in the years since Garner’s death, Brown’s death or will with Floyd’s death. As noted earlier the murder’s by Cops this year fell from 1,000 to 985. A 15 drop in body count. I am sure that is more pandemic related than actual behavioral/policy changes.
But what again is noted is that these owners of Bodega’s that set up businesses in minority neighborhoods are not members of the same community, they have distinct policies in place and they don’t hire members of said community to work in them. That may be the first step needed to build bridges not burn them down.
But as we heard the testimony of the clerk whom the owner/manager said in the Times interview that he did not know, had sent him away was another lie. This is from the New York Times
In an interview, Mr. Abumayyaleh provided new details of the moments before Mr. Floyd’s fatal encounter with four Minneapolis Police officers, saying that another man had tried to use a fake $20 bill minutes before Mr. Floyd walked into the store.
The first man handed the bill to an older employee who had worked at the shop for several years and used a special marker to determine that the bill was counterfeit, Mr. Abumayyaleh said. The employee refused the sale and handed the bill back to the man, who left.Reconstruction-Era Violence The Equal Justice Initiative has documented a rate of killing in the period following the Civil War that was far higher than the decades that followed.
A few minutes later, Mr. Floyd walked in and gave a $20 bill to a teenage clerk, who did not immediately recognize the bill as fake. After a machine scan determined that the bill was counterfeit, the young clerk followed Mr. Floyd outside, asking him to return the items he had bought, but he refused, according to a transcript of the clerk’s call to 911.
“He’s only been in the States for about a year,” Mr. Abumayyaleh said of the teenage clerk, who is no longer working at the store. “It’s his first time probably ever calling the police.”
Mr. Abumayyaleh, who is Palestinian-American and has spent all of his 35 years in Minneapolis, said he had left the store about three hours before the killing. It had been a busy day, like most Mondays, Mr. Abumayyaleh recalled, but he was used to that. The store had always been in his family, and by age 10, he was helping out behind the counter. By 15, he was working there full time.
That night, just after 8 p.m., an employee called Mr. Abumayyaleh, crying and screaming, saying, “they’re killing him,” he recalled. He said he told the employee to record the scene and “to call the police on the police.”
Since then, Mr. Abumayyaleh said, he has been bombarded with hateful messages. He asked a member of a local violence prevention group to serve as a spokesman and issued a public statement condemning Mr. Floyd’s killing and saying that the store supported the protesters and shared their rage.
Things have been even worse for the teenage clerk, Mr. Abumayyaleh said, describing the aftermath as “a nightmare.” He also said that Cup Foods has been rethinking when its workers should call the police. Mr. Abumayyaleh said they will now only call 911 to report violence.
Mr. Floyd’s death was not the first time that Cup Foods has been drawn into a killing that drew national scrutiny.
When a 17-year-old boy went on trial for the 2002 killing of an 11-year-old girl, he insisted he was at Cup Foods and not at the scene of the crime. Senator Amy Klobuchar was the district attorney in Hennepin County who oversaw the first prosecution of the teenager, Myon Burrell, and an investigation by The Associated Press raised serious questions about the verdict and shadowed her presidential campaign.
Investigators never followed up with two people whom Mr. Burrell said he was with at Cup Foods during or following the shooting. Both told The A.P. they were with him.
Since the killing of Mr. Floyd, several residents have said they support the store and its owners. On Monday, Kendrick White, 26, arrived at the store to connect with some friends, something he has done for years.
“You see brothers, sisters, cousins, people from the neighborhood,” Mr. White said. “There are people who grew up here who have been coming here their whole lives.”
But everything had changed. The streets were barricaded off, and many nearby businesses were still closed. Visitors snapped photos as they wandered around the memorials and wilting flowers.
“We respect the fight, but it’s emotionally draining for those of us who have been in the heart of it,” said Ebony Wright, 38, who lives not a block away from the store and has been kept awake by people shouting into megaphones and playing music from speakers. “People who come down here don’t realize that there are people who actually stay here.”
So as you read the portion highlighted there are some discrepancies I noted in the testimony of the clerk.
In other emotional testimony, prosecutors for the first time detailed the incident that led to Floyd’s arrest and eventually his death — including security video from inside Cup Foods, the market where an employee called 911 to report the passing of a counterfeit $20 bill that resulted in officers responding to the scene.
Christopher Martin, 19, a cashier at the time, recalled how Floyd had come into the store and appeared to be “high” but functional. The surveillance video presented in court showed Floyd, dressed in a black tank top and pants, casually walking around the store with a banana.
Floyd is shown fiddling with his pockets and shifting back and forth in stretch-like movements as he interacts with two people in the store, including Morries Lester Hall — a friend who was a passenger in the car he was driving that day.
Martin testified that Floyd purchased a pack of cigarettes with a $20 bill that he believed to be fake because of its blue tint. Under store policy, employees who are found to have accepted counterfeit bills have their pay docked for the amount, Martin said, but he testified that he initially considered putting the cost on his “tab” as a favor to Floyd
He said a previous customer had tried to pass a fake $20 bill in an effort to “get over,” but he didn’t think that was Floyd’s intention.
“I thought that George didn’t really know that it was a fake bill,” Martin testified. “I thought I’d be doing him a favor.”
But Martin said he raised the issue with a manager who ordered him to go outside to where Floyd was sitting in a parked car and ask him to come back inside the store. When Floyd did not do so, another employee called 911 to report the counterfeit bill — a fateful call that would lead to the 46-year-old’s death.
Martin, who quit his job after Floyd’s death because he said he didn’t feel “safe,” recalled returning to work and noticing a commotion outside. Leaving the market to investigate, he found Floyd restrained, “motionless, limp” with Chauvin’s knee “resting” on the man’s neck.
Martin, who lived upstairs from Cup Foods, said he called his mother and told her not to come outside, and then he began filming the scene — a video he said he later deleted after watching Floyd’s body loaded into the ambulance that drove the opposite direction from the closest hospital, leading him to realize Floyd was probably dead.
Martin told the jury he felt “guilt” over Floyd’s death. “If I would have just not taken the bill, this could have been avoided,” he said.
So we have the idea that racism, stereotyping and discrimination is a white-black thing. Uh no. Many of the assaults on Asians here in New York are from Black individuals. And that history is often one well known and documented. We rule by making sure all marginalized groups keep the hate going and it works. Again racism and hate are not owned by one group of folk; however, it’s not called White Supremacy for nothing! What it is is poverty and the faux meritocracy nonsense that we continue to spout as a type of egalitarian notion of American prosperity. Many members of the Asian community can assure you that there is an economic divide there that parallels the wider society. But then again who is Asian? And what does that mean? Again African? What does that mean? We are not of one color, but one of many. And with that comes the confusion about Cup Foods or the Ferguson Market where Michael Brown took a pack of smokes. These are the markets and stores that cut across the landscape, often owned by faces of color and largely shopped by them. They are cornerstones of small businesses and have found themselves targeted by Police and by thieves, the pandemic may literally be the death of many. But that many bodegas do sell drugs it does make one ask, did Michael Brown exchange pot for smokes and in turn who called the Police and why? Oh wait they didn’t. Brown was stopped for failing to walk on a sidewalk. So no there was no robbery or crime.
We don’t know the story until we know the story and even people lie to protect their own interests, videos show a picture but they don’t always tell the story, they show the event and without audio we have to fill in the blanks. The story of Floyd is still occurring. Who were his friends that day in the vehicle with him? Will they testify? Why not? Again this is never going to be a full accounting or recounting of the events as even witnesses have shared how they felt and what they saw. A 16 year old girl, a 19 year old boy. A EMT, a MMA fighter and they all share one thing – shame and anger as you can do nothing regardless when you are in the loop of the system. Once a Police man has decided you are the criminal, his knee is on your neck, metaphorically or not. They just manage to do it to more men of color than most. And that is due to opportunity. Men and boys who don’t have jobs, or homes or places to be and income to earn so they are just there trying to make it work, and sometimes it doesn’t to fatal ends. And those are not always by cops but it they just do it with the law and the protections they offer. Must be nice to be a Cop.
Off the Rack Publishing 