Derek Michael Chavin, a former police officer, murdered George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American, in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020 by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes while Floyd kept calling out, “I can’t breath,” and slowly snuffed out his life. During his tenure as a police officer, Chavin had 18 complaints against him and was involved in three police shootings and he had received two letters of reprimand for misconduct.
On April 20, 2021, he was convicted on all charges and was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison. He is just one of many officers involved in the killing of black males and for using excessive force while serving as a police officer. Police officers have always marched to a different drumbeat it seems, that of carrying a gun and a badge but when it comes to paying for their indiscretions, murder no less, they are untouchable or they walk off with a slight reprimand and are free to carry on as if nothing had happened while their victims lay six feet under, their voices silenced forever. Since 2015, police officers have shot at least 135 unarmed black men and women nationwide. At least 75% of the officers involved in the shootings were white. Excessive force and overkill was and is the name of the game. Willie McCoy, a black rapper, was sleeping in his silver Mercedes CLS500 outside a Taco Bell minding his own business when officers, six of them arrived and within minutes they had fired 55 shots in 3.5 seconds killing him. They put it down to “imminent danger,” and self-defense” would be the other and most often used excuse for the killing of unarmed black men.
Fast forward to what happened across the pond in Manchester, UK. A video has gone viral showing a police officer of the Greater Manchester Police kicking and stomping on a man’s head while he lay motionless on the ground. An older woman is seen trying to protect the young man on the ground. The uproar around this situation brings back shades of what happened in the US and the protests that ensued after the killing of black males in the US. As usual everyone especially the police are scrambling to come up with legitimate excuses for use of such excessive force BUT the video speaks for itself. The man has a cyst on his brain according to CT scans and his condition has worsened. Whatever happened before the attack by the police officer has nothing to do with this excessive use of force. The man on the ground was unarmed, motionless and no threat to any of the officers involved. Did racism play a part in this horrific and over-excessive use of force? Definitely.
According to a University of Birmingham report, “Police violence is not just a problem in the United States – it’s a reality in the UK, and at its core is “warrior culture among police officers. Warrior culture is defined as, “police officers defaulting to violence and aggression when conflicts arise.” It is, “largely characterized by aggression, machoism, intolerance, bias, suspicion, and detachment from policed communities,” which creates a ‘us versus them’ mentality. Furthermore, “policing research over many decades has consistently found that misogyny and racism persist in UK street policing culture.
The uproar is justified, the outrage more so. The officer or rather officers involved in this incident should lose their licence to practice or rather their badges should be taken away from them. They do not belong in a police force that is supposed to be out there to protect and to treat every individual equally and they certainly should not be condoned to go out and unleash the brutality they did. Having a badge and a baton does not give you the right to act with no principles and with such aggression. Shame on you!
Site Title 