After working in law enforcement with the FBI for 25 years, I often find myself defending police officers who are getting tarred and feathered by the public for an offense gone viral. For example, I wrote that Amber Guyger was perhaps guilty of manslaughter but not murder, defended Steven Mattson after he killed a black man (who had charged at Mattson with a knife), and said that Daniel Pantaleo (the officer at the center of the Eric Garner case) shouldn’t be fired. All too often, the mob misses the nuances of a case that help explain an officer’s actions. But don’t ask me to defend the actions of the Minneapolis police officer who applied his knee to the neck of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who lay face down on a Minneapolis roadway and begged for relief from the pressure. I will not defend that officer — because there is no excuse for his actions.

Floyd had a right to breathe. He also had a right to exist. And yes, his life mattered.