George Floyd

Police claim that they feared for their lives in confronting civilians and use deadly force solely in self-defense. Judges and juries routinely buy this line and acquit.

Little has changed in policing in the year since the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.

Police unions have been wildly successful in watering down, if not outright killing, many police reform measures in state legislatures, even in the most liberal, Democratic-controlled states.

Cops are sending a deadly message that Chauvin will in no way change things. Their message: Police will continue to police in mostly minority communities the same way, up to and including the use of force.

Following the unanimous triple-guilty pronouncement that a Minneapolis jury handed former police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, President Joe Biden spoke to the country. “Such a verdict is,” he said earnestly and with empathy, “much too rare.” Biden’s assessment contains a crucial detail about why racism is so persistently intractable.

Protestors expressed optimism, determination during demonstrations last week.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin got his day in court. He was able to put on a plausible defense that George’s Floyd’s death did not come at his hands (or knee) but because of Floyd’s prior severe medical conditions.

The bulging numbers of Blacks in America’s jails and prisons seem to reinforce the wrong-headed perception that crime and violence in America invariably comes with a Black male face such as Floyd’s.

The officers who worked with Chauvin almost certainly were not blind to his actions. As Chauvin’s knee slowly choked the life out of him, other officers either did nothing to assist Floyd, or worse, piled on to subdue a man already lying on the ground near death.

It took months and months, and many tries, for the House to finally get passage of the much-shelved George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Now the real slog to get the bill into law begins.

The year 2020 was a stressful one. With George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer as an inflection point about race and racism in America, an unprecedented presidential election, and social unrest during an ongoing pandemic with a rising death toll, something is deeply broken in America’s body politic.

Black neighborhoods long ignored, overlooked or illegally bypassed for investment may see a surge of new businesses, jobs and development as a result of major commitments from public and private funds launched in the wake of massive nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd and other victims of police violence.