Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
June 1, 2020
Police brutality is alive and well, sadly, and not just living in Minneapolis, where 46 year old George Floyd was pronounced dead at 9:25 PM on Monday, May 25, at the hands of a police officer, or more accurately, the knee of a police officer, one Derek Chauvin.
The autopsy results show “no physical signs of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation; death [was] attributed to being restrained, his underlying health conditions, and any potential intoxicants in his system,” according to Jim Mone of the Associated Press. Floyd’s pre-existing health conditions included coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. However, there is no doubt that now former officer Chauvin exacerbated the situation gravely during the seven to eight minutes pressing his knee onto Floyd’s neck. Floyd was non-responsive for nearly three minutes before Chauvin removed his knee from Floyd’s neck. Chauvin’s irresponsible actions were absolutely a contributing factor of Floyd’s death.
Sound demonstrated that Floyd choked out, “Please, I can’t breath,” upwards of 10 or more times, while pictures show Chauvin with his left hand in his pants pocket while his knee was lodged into Floyd’s neck, clearly indicating Chauvin was in no danger from Floyd. Chauvin and the three officers standing by all lost their jobs, and rightfully so, and Chauvin has since been arrested and charged with third degree murder and manslaughter. His now former colleagues, also fired, and rightfully so, should, at the very least be charged with depraved indifference - one of whom videoed just standing next to Chauvin while he had his knee pressed into Floyd’s neck. “The lack of humanity in this disturbing video is sickening. We will get answers and seek justice,” said Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
The video of Floyd’s arrest leading to his death went viral setting off a firestorm of protests peaceful and violent alike nationwide - more than 65 cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington, DC. In DC, protesting that turned violent right across from the White House in Lafayette Park, where among other signs, many anti-Trump signs, as if the President was responsible for the thuggish act of one specific now former police officer. Trump himself said, “At my request, the FBI and Department of Justice are already well into an investigation.” What more should he do? Go to Minneapolis and punch out Chauvin? Of course not. He has condemned the acts of the specific officers, and he has also condemned the acts of the protesters who had no intention of protesting peacefully, calling them thugs, which they are.
Trump also announced he is officially declaring the agitators and radicals that comprise Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. So troubling are Antifa’s actions, that Twitter suspended its account. They stand for anarchy and the destruction of the United States from within. “Antifa and Black Lives Matter should both be labeled domestic terror organizations,” said Brandon Tatum, a former member of the Tucson, AZ police force and co-founder of Blexit. Blexit is a movement of black Americans leaving the Democrat Party, explained co-founder Candace Owens. Tatum further condemned the rioting, arson, and looting. “They destroy property, they destroy our country,” said Tatum, noting with the arrest of Chauvin and the firing of all four officers, “justice is being served. They’re protesting what?
This is, once again, history repeating itself - an unarmed black man dies at the hands of a white police officer. Make no mistake, on a per capita basis, more white men die at the hands of police officers, not that that excuses anything; it’s just not reported by the lame stream media. Unfortunately, when pointed out by a white person, they are automatically tagged a racist for all eternity - just for speaking the truth. Not all suspects are innocent of the commission of a crime, and not all police officers are guilty of abuse of power. It’s not all black or white, absolutely no pun intended. This is not a laughing matter. In fact, Floyd had not been suspected of a violent crime. He was suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill in a deli. Chauvin, on the other hand, has 10 conduct complaints in his 19 years on the force, sans disciplinary action. He is being held in a maximum security prison on $500,000 bail.
Regardless of what happened to Floyd, and it is not being dismissed by any stretch, the response is criminal and should be dealt with appropriately - with arrests, charges, convictions as well as fines and/or jail time, just as Chauvin deserves should he be found guilty of murdering Floyd. The problem is, that when all hell breaks loose in city after city across the fruited plain, all credibility is vanquished. Most of what people now see on the televisions news is the aftermath of the Floyd death - arson, rioting, looting, vandalism, pillaging and plundering, assault and battery on police officers, even firefighters attempting to put out fires started by thugs in their own neighborhoods.
“We built this country, we’ll burn it down,” said one angry protester to a FOX News reporter.
In Minneapolis, the mobs advanced and the police retreated. The mobs burned down police precinct number three - burned it down. The news footage shows stores being vandalized, windows smashed, and merchandise stolen. How does that send a message of protest pertaining to the death of George Floyd? Floyd’s younger brother Terrence said this is not what George would want. Peaceful protests should be protected, but this kind of mayhem and licentiousness should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Stealing televisions and sneakers is a crime. With all the video footage, thugs should be identified, arrested, charged, and prosecuted. More than 300 people were arrested on Sunday in Minneapolis.
In Chicago, Neiman Marcus and Nike on the Magnificent Mile were but two among a number of stores vandalized and robbed. High end stores Chanel, Dior, and Gucci in Manhattan were all but cleaned out. The looting went on through the wee hours, as “cars filled to the brim,” in multiple boroughs, reported Brian Llenas of FOX News, who pointed to a torched New York City Police van. He also said that part of the weekend’s vandalism in Atlanta included the CNN headquarters. Graffiti marred St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. Why? To what end? How does that help fix the problem? Will that prevent another officer from abuse of power? Many cities instituted curfews - 6 PM in Philadelphia, where 13 police officers were injured, 7 PM in Dallas, and 8 PM in Detroit and Indianapolis, where local WalMarts closed their doors at 5 PM “in preparation of” potential rioting and looting.
“We cannot, will not, have mobs taking over businesses… I’m very proud of my Detroit police officers,” said Detroit Police Chief James Craig, himself a black leader in his community. “This brings back memories of the Rodney King riots; police gave it over to the mobs,” said Craig, who was on the job in Los Angeles during the 1992 riots, and reminded viewers of the near death beating of Reginald Denny, a truck driver, just for being white. “We’re not going to stand for lawlessness,” said Craig, noting his officers arrested 84 people the previous evening.
Even typically anti-police New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, nee - Warren Wilhelm, Jr. condemned the vandalism, rioters, looters, and defended the police. Police have been assaulted with bottles, bricks, rocks, shards of glass, even bodily fluids. But the liberal, lame stream media fanned the flames by downplaying the rioting and attempting to upsell the peaceful aspect of the protesting, which ceased to exist almost as quickly as it started. These have not been peaceful protests across the nation and this is not democracy, but chaos and anarchy. Virtually all Americans support the right of the people to peacefully protest just about anything. When it turns violent, caustic, ugly, destructive, even deadly, that is where the line in the sand must be drawn.
In Minneapolis more than 170 businesses and buildings have been destroyed in the neighborhoods where the thugs and criminals reside. A local Target, corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, was being vandalized in full view of the cameras - brazen thieves and thugs, some actually mugging for the cameras. As the mobs advanced toward the police - clad in protective garb and armed - they stood down and retreated like gutless weasels, leading to the destruction of the Third Precinct police house. The retreat no doubt had to do with the fear of being labeled racist. This fear of being labeled racist is what keeps far too many people silent, as in this politically correct era, just about anything is considered racist, sexist, homophobic and any other -ist or -ism there is. People are genuinely fearful of losing their jobs, their livelihoods all because they expressed an opinion - an opinion that is protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The major problem is a lack of education. Briefly - the socioeconomics of young people in miserable public schools, the lack of support for school choice - parochial schools, charter schools by teachers’ unions, the tenure system protecting bad teachers’ jobs when they should be protecting the jobs of new teachers who are paid peanuts, and find ways to encourage them to stay on the job. The average teacher’s career is about 4.5 years. With almost 10 years classroom experience in suburbs, inner city public and charter schools, I know what the problems are, but conservatives and libertarians are rarely heard because it destroys the narrative of the teachers’ unions. While there is no discipline in the schools, there is violence, teen pregnancy, and little genuine time spent on task. Teachers at all levels and all neighborhoods are expected to be nurses, doctors, psychologists, nutritionists, priests or rabbis, and oh, yeah, once in a while squeeze in some teaching. When school systems like Baltimore have one student in 13 high schools testing at grade level in math and English, that’s a failed system - one student. When graduation rates are below 50 percent in just about every major urban center, it’s obvious there’s a problem. It's not that students in socioeconomically disadvantaged circumstances can’t learn, there’s just too much chaos in the halls and classrooms of these schools.
Problem is, when white folks point this out, and it needs pointing out; no, it needs shouting out from the top of the mountain, there’s that pesky label of racism once again, so few and far between want to risk their jobs to speak up. But another problem is how few prominent black intellectuals there are on the national stage willing to take the slings and arrows from liberal blacks degrading them and calling them despicable names for being conservative or libertarian. Some of the more prominent include author and commentator Deneen Borelli, businessman Herman Cain, author and commentator Larry Elder, civil rights leader Niger Innis, writer and commentator Deroy Murdoch, writer and motivational speaker Star Parker, stateswoman Condoleezza Rice, author Jason Riley, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, economist Thomas Sowell, author Shelby Steele, commentator David Webb, retired US Army Lt. Col. Allen West in Texas (a former member of Congress), writer Armstrong Williams, and professor Walter Williams. But how long can the same dozen or so people be a voice for an entire race? Sure there are some up and coming commentators and candidates running for Congress and Senate like Winnie Heartstrong in Missouri, combat veteran John James in Michigan, Lacy Johnson in Minnesota, Lawrence Jones of FOX News, Kimberly Klacik in Maryland, former NFL safety and author Burgess Owens in Utah, Candace Owens of FOX News and PragerU. But many more are needed - and not just for the benefit of the black community, but for the American community.
But in the interim an important message must be sent to the criminals who are masquerading as law abiding protesters. The government - neither state nor federal - should pay to rebuild these destroyed communities. Their message should be - you broke it, you fix it. And that includes the Third Precinct. The kind of maladaptive behavior that believes arson, robbery, assault, vandalism, and general mayhem is acceptable and appropriate in a non-antifa society needs to learn a lesson - and a rather painful one it may be, but it is not a lesson that the honest, law abiding citizen protester should be paying for - that money is earmarked for more important uses - like defending our borders and educating our young people.
Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.
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