On George Floyd & the Trial
Image via Mana5280
Today marks the beginning of what will likely become another notorious case in American history; the trial of Derek Chauvin, the man accused of murdering George Floyd. The jury selection will begin tomorrow and from there the trial will proceed towards its unsavory end, on display for the entire country to see. The outcome of the trial will serve as a litmus test as to whether the events of the last year, and years before that, have altered the mind of the American republic enough to deliver a more just decision now. It will carry with it the weight of the question, what is the American attitude towards those who wield power dangerously?
Incredulous at it seems, a question that inevitably will be asked is whether or not Chauvin caused the death of Floyd. Conviction for the charge of second-degree murder which Chauvin faces hinges on the answer to this question. There will be now, as there were then, voices that proclaim Chauvin’s innocence and those that contest it, hence the need for a fair and judicious legal process. However, if one looks at and considers the thresholds that must be met for conviction, it is clear that Chauvin blasted through them. Second-degree murder entails causing someone’s death while committing third-degree assault, which is defined as the reckless infliction of the fear of serious bodily injury, or recklessly causing a fear of injury through the use of a deadly weapon. Recordings of the incident made it so that the use of imagination was not required to conjure up the sights and sounds of Floyd on the ground trapped underneath the force of Chauvin. The fear of Floyd was plainly visible.
Chauvin was negligent by any definition of the word, whether judged by the typical standard applied to an everyday citizen of this country, or the greater standard applied to those in positions of power and privilege, as was the case for Officer Chauvin. It seems that this principle, that those with greater power and freedom must willingly resign themselves to greater responsibility, works in reverse in many instances in America. Instead those with the most power operate with reckless impunity, housed inside of a psychological funhouse where every image they see is a powerful distortion of themselves and others which they unquestionably believe. The least of us suffer for these illusions.
The crimes committed without consequence by Chauvin and the like, whose chief concern should be upholding the law, range from the mundane to the murderous. One thinks of Jeronimo Yanez, the officer who murdered Philando Castile in 2016, who was acquitted of any and all charges and received a buyout from his police department. Or Timothy Loehmann, the officer who murdered twelve year old Tamir Rice in 2014, and was also acquitted of any and all charges. I do not know Yanez or Loehmann, just as I do not know Castile or Rice, but a society that produces encounters where innocent citizens can be murdered for no good reason and families can be left without any earthly retribution is a society that must rethink itself. It must reconsider its entire way of doing business and ask what exactly is its chief business—is it the perpetuation of the free market, the importation of democracy, or some other lofty ideal? Perhaps it should settle for the protection of its citizenry.
The second question to be answered is whether or not Chauvin’s actions were reasonable. Again, looking honestly at that term we can only answer negatively. Reasonable implies fairness, sensibility, moderation, and nothing of the like was contained in the actions of Chauvin. The acts of kneeling on a man's neck for nine minutes while ignoring his pleas for relief, his crying out for his mother, and even the sensation of his body giving up on itself as he went limp do not function within the realm of reason. These are the actions one reads about in books outlining the barbarism of past days and witnesses in films of the Tarantino type, with violence at times so hyperbolic it becomes a caricature of itself.
George Floyd may have had drugs in his system at the time of his death, and this is being trotted out as an actual cause of death instead of the actions of Chauvin, and being used to defame Floyd. But what is the likelihood that Floyd, even in an intoxicated state would have rapidly declined and spontaneously succumbed to his condition without the intervention of Chauvin? The assertion seems ludicrous, as does the assertion that the officer was so fearful of the threat that Floyd posed that he had no other choice but to react the way he did. I am aware of several pieces of anecdotal evidence of black people behaving drunkenly and belligerently and living to tell the tale. I am unaware of any anecdotes about white people behaving in the same way and not living through it, and that is what troubles the conscience.
Questions that should be raised and debated, especially in the medical field and other related fields, is how do we treat the chemically intoxicated in this country? How should we treat them? Should a person’s being sufficiently intoxicated, or even insufferably intoxicated essentially become a license to do grave bodily harm to them, or even a license to kill? There exists in my mind an easy answer to the question, which is no, intoxication should not be met with excessive force, but how to clarify what that means and how to not merely teach, but actually infuse that ethos into our way of thinking is not something I can pretend to know for now.
In the meantime, consider the kinds of things the thousands who organized and protested over the last year will want to know—such as why it seems an accepted norm in this country for police officers to violate citizens' constitutional right to life and get away with it? There are laws in this country that are sacred when one considers the fact that the ink with which they were written is doused with the blood of countless martyrs to the cause of freedom and liberty. No one should be able to trample on those rights easily.
Chauvin’s case will test the resolve of the American legal system’s beliefs. I am not at all interested in the question of whether or not the American legal system has the power to punish—it is clear that it does. I am interested in whether or not this system will continue to err on the side of protecting those, who through their own actions, do not warrant the level of protection they receive. This question is not purely rhetorical or theoretical; it is an urgent issue, and the answer must be worked out to perfection. Another instance of acquittal on all charges would be a disaster, proving once again the presence of a body politic that is chiefly concerned with the preservation of power for the few who wield it at the expense of the many who do not.