The killing of Minneapolis forgery suspect George Floyd shocks the conscience at a level above even the immediate, righteous revulsion against a wanton act of brutality.
Upon further reflection, what tears at the guts of a viewer is more than just the casual viciousness of officer Derek Chauvin, who brutally pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck. What is far worse is the complete indifference (indeed, the tacit approval) of the other three officers on the scene. This is especially true of officer Tou Thao, the one on camera trying to shoo away the onlookers pleading for Floyd’s life.
Kaylee McGhee and James Gagliano have done masterful jobs elucidating the details of the event and limning the considerations that should guide our analyses. Obviously, there is no reasonable excuse, not even close, for how Chauvin behaved. This is especially clear now that further video footage has emerged, showing that while Floyd was a bit recalcitrant, he never, not once, appeared to pose a threat to any of the officers. He had no weapon, threw no punches, and took no other aggressive action.
Again, though, if it were only the one officer involved, it would have been tragic and enraging, but not quite as evil. As inexcusable as it is for even a single cop to lose his temper in such a deadly way, that could at least conceivably be a “one-off” — a sickening misfiring of the brain and soul of a troubled individual.
That’s not what happened in Minneapolis. Floyd was suffocated in plain view as three other officers watched and declined to intervene. Thao in particular looked on, directly, as Floyd begged, agonizingly, for his life. “Please, please,” pleaded Floyd. “My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. I can’t breathe.”
Multiple onlookers also pleaded for Floyd’s life. Rather than tell Chauvin to stop, Thao instead threatened a woman who dared to try to record the scene on her phone. Even as onlookers begged to “check his pulse” after Floyd appeared to lose consciousness, neither Thao nor the other officers made any move to ensure Floyd’s safety.
Then, to make matters worse, the department covered for all four officers at first by releasing a disgustingly mendacious statement overplaying the degree of Floyd’s resistance and calling the killing a mere “medical incident.”
In sum, this was not a one-off; it evinced a systemic problem. If not one but four police officers directly countenance the abhorrently inhumane treatment of an incapacitated suspect, even as multiple onlookers beg and beg for mercy to be shown, it’s not just something snapping in the brain of one officer. This was a cold-blooded, multiperson indifference to (indeed, disdain for) human life.
The systemic nature of the savagery is what should haunt us. A jury will make a legal judgment, but in the vernacular, this was murder by the apparatus of state power. This foul deed can never be forgiven, and the apparatus must, absolutely must, be fixed.
