Tag Archives: Derek Chauvin

Two Statues for George Floyd Square

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I am not a sculptor, nor do I play one on YouTube. But I have a recommendation for a statue — actually two of them — at George Floyd Square.

Along with all the imagery and signage about George himself, what that corner needs are statues of Darnella Frazier holding up her cellphone and the little girl next to her in her “Love” t-shirt. Why them? Because those two images encapsulate for me the brute motivation for the murder and how we evolve out of this violent, racist “enforcement” syndrome.

Let me explain: Reasonable minds may disagree, but the turning point of the incident, the precise, in-the-moment influence that turned just another episode of over-aggressive policing into murder was the crowd admonishing and taunting Chauvin to stop what he was doing. As Frazier’s video shows, his response was to, in effect, double down the pressure on a dying man.

Regarded as an alpha male by his rookie cohorts and by himself, (I’m guessing), Chauvin’s reaction in that moment was raw king (or at least prince) of the jungle. “I am The Man here.” “I am in charge.” “I do as I please.” “No one challenges my supremacy.” And so, rather than lift off Floyd’s neck as the crowd was pleading, he sustained force for long minutes … after Floyd was already dead.

“Anyone else want a piece of this?”

Throughout his trial, Chauvin’s defense attempted to create a picture of a tense, threatening situation — for Chauvin. It was yet another run at the classic, invariable and inevitable defense for every violent/freaked-out cop. “He/she feared for his life.”

Except that there there was no physically intimidating, much less threatening mob. There was Darnella and the little girl standing there in her “Love” t-shirt. Those two — and an older guy cussing him out — were what Chauvin the alpha dog was afraid of? No jury in the world, (with the exception maybe of some in Alabama or South Dakota), was going to believe that, and Chauvin’s didn’t.

The little girl in the “Love” shirt then represents unthreatening, life-affirming innocence affronted by the spectacle of hypocrisy — an authorized authority figure abusing his authority — committing a public murder. (When Judge Cahill assess the “aggravating circumstances” in Chauvin’s guilt, the fact that he — a cop, slowly, methodically and remorselessly murdered a man in plain view of children, should qualify Chauvin for another five to ten years.)

But superseding all other influences in Chauvin’s conviction is young Darnella’s camera.

You and I both know the situation this morning would be a lot different if Chauvin’s slow-mo murder hadn’t been recorded from start to finish. A statue of Darnella then represents the first and most powerful solution to reflexive cop racism and violence. Namely, an alert citizen with a camera and a potential audience of millions.

Not being particularly optimistic about political solutions to cop criminality, I expect little to nothing of significance from the usual clash of metropolitan liberals and their terrified, conservative, race-baiting rural colleagues.

But the public at large can’t help but have taken away from the conviction of an otherwise ordinary brute cop the searing power of video. The number of cameras (including cop body cams) recording the Floyd encounter was startling. And that level of “coverage” as they say in Hollywood is only going to increase as millions more citizen on-lookers hit “record” whenever they see cops (six of them in this case, in rabid response to that possibly counterfeit $20) go all pack-wolves on anyone, particularly another Black person.

It’s as though sinister, all-present, all-seeing Big Brother has molted into a sea of shocked and horrified teenagers and grade schoolers, all equipped with the ability to provide damning testimony against The Man.

If cities aren’t chastened by the $47 million Minneapolis has paid out in the Mohammed Noor and Derek Chauvin crimes, cops themselves have to be chilled by the sight of the brass and suits above them reacting to indefensible video evidence and cutting loose one of their own a veteran alpha. How they behave off public streets, or on lonesome stretches of road, is another matter. But even the average, fresh out of cop school rookie has to be smart enough to understand that each new Floyd v. Three Cars and Six Cops incident on a city thoroughfare is going to draw video coverage like the last quarter of the Super Bowl.

So yeah, two statues. Darnella and her camera: Alert citizen witnesses and their power of “testimony”. Alongside pint-sized “Love”: emblematic of the sick myth of mortal fear (of citizens!) among armed authority, plus a reminder of the scarring effect of police thuggery on innocents.

I’ll throw in $100 to Kickstart whatever real sculptor wants to take a run at that.

Police Reform, if I Were King.

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Someone, back in the civil rights fight of the mid-Sixties said, “The American attention span is ten days.” After that, lacking any fresh excitement, we get bored and gravitate to new stimulation. Today, in our digital age, there are studies saying goldfish have a longer attention span than the average human.

The context is of course the remarkable clamor for radical police reform in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. As a wizened creature of the Sixties, who saw months/years of angry anti-war street protests elect Richard Nixon … twice, I am skeptical anything seriously “reformative” is going to come out of any level of government, certainly not the Republican-controlled federal end of things.

The one wild card in this Debbie Downer thinking is the absolute certainty that as this summer goes on and leads into what is certain to be an absurdly chaotic autumn campaign season, American cops will continue to kill black men and women with appalling regularity.

Watching the killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, I was flasbbergasted that the two cops involved clearly has no sense of the large cultural moment. They had no presence of mind or impulse cntrol to consider that everyone in that Wendy’s parking lot was aiming a video camera at them and that they were poised to be the next poster-boys for panicked, racist cops. (The guy’s drunk and he’s running away. You’ve got his car. Go pick him up later. FFS.)

This past weekend The New York Times hosted an unusually good roundtable discussion of what “police reform” should include. It ran the gamut of everything currently on the table. Dissolving or neutering police unions. Reallocating/restoring money for armed cops to basic social services like mental health. The tricky transition period between dissolving a police department and replacing it with something better trained in de-escalation. Reassuring white suburbanites that they’re not going to be collateral damage in “defunding” the police. It’s worth the read.

For me, as I’ve ranted before many times, the bottom line begins with a better class of person hired to be an armed cop. Time after time the curriculum vitae of cops involved in these killings plays along the lines of: high school drop out, GED diploma, junior college drop out, odd assortment of “security jobs”, maybe a hitch in the Army then on to four months at police academy where they get eight times as many hours of gun and “defensive” training as de-escalation education. After that they’re handed a badge, a loaded gun and assigned to a “senior officer”, think Derek Chauvin, who shows them how the game is really played.

That is nuts.

Add up the property damage, over-time for ensuing protests, impact on reputation and legal pay-outs (when rarely convicted) and you’re talking the most expensive employees any city puts out on the streets. Drop-outs and semi-deadenders with guns? Jesus.

Is it too much to ask and wonder how many of these characters ever took a humanities course? Ever read a novel, other than “The Turner Diaries” or some Vince Flynn pulp? Shouldn’t an education in human psychology, the roots of rage and depression and a broad depth of understanding of dissimilar cultures be primary criteria for graduation from police academy if not acceptance into cop school to begin with?

Were I allowed to play king, (feel free to bend the knee), I’d coordinate a temporary force of the State Patrol, county sheriff’s department and National Guard as needed, (deal with them later), simultaneous with the dissolution of the Minneapolis police department (and its “union” — not that the AFL-CIO wants anything to do with Bob Kroll et al). The dissolution would come with a promise that all current officers would be allowed to immediately re-apply for the new Minneapolis Peace Force (or whatever). This would be conditioned on them proving they have not been a repeat violent offender, have not participated in one of Betsy DeVos’ brother’s paranoid “Bulletproof Warrior” trainings (or the like) and pass a dramatically upgraded and aggressive psychological examination designed to thoroughly assess their worst authoritarian impulses.

The carrot to all this would haver to be — have to be — a substantial increase in pay and benefits. Day to day policing is miserable work, (made worse by the cast of alpha dog Derek Chauvins you have to kowtow to). If you want better people, you’re going to have to lure them away from jobs that don’t require them to get in between raging spouses, chase around gang-bangers, piss off average citizens with nuisance, revenue-enhancing traffic tickets and write up minor car accident reports.

The savings would come with — picking a number here — 35-40% fewer armed cops. And significantly more mental health counselors, accident investigation personnel and similar non-uniformed, unarmed civilian staff to respond to things like, well for example, suspicion a guy tried to pass a counterfeit $20.

“Over-policing” is a real thing. It’s expensive to sustain, and catastrophically expensive when it goes bad. How much better off would George Floyd and the city of Minneapolis be if two MPD plus a Park Police squad, totalling six officers didn’t show up to “investigate” that bogus $20?

But I’m not holding my breath for anything of the sort. The old Cold War mentality that any “cuts”, any changes, anything other than more firepower would leave us “nekkid before the Rooskies” applies in this case as well.

Walz and Ellison Are On a Short Leash to Get This Right

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On the list of people for whom I sympathy, down past George Floyd, his family and those who were close to him are Gov. Tim Walz, Mayor Jacob Frey and now Attorney General Keith Ellison. In the midst of an economy-crushing pandemic, with no constructive national leadership and the usual “opposition party” petulance, they have to deal with this. Another thug cop race killing jacked up to an epic national scale.

Walz and Keith Ellison, who is now getting “final say” over Hennepin County Mike Freeman in running the Floyd case, have just left their 7 p.m. news confrence, and I wish I could say I was encouraged that they were getting a grip on the situation.

Some thoughts:

The Governor, as he should, continues to express his anger and indignation over the Floyd killing, as well as a decent human being’s understanding of the pent-up frustration over police brutality exploding here and all over the country. But when he says “we”, meaning Minnesota government and courts, have to get this right, I couldn’t help but say out loud, “Uh huh. But as in this case and right now. Not in maybe the next killing or the one after that and not in a year’s time.”

Ellison than got up and reminded viewers of the difficulties in prosecuting cops.

Uh. Sir, we know that. All too well. Those “difficulties” are seeping wounds of America’s original sin, which is going back a ways now.

The unenviable job you have, taking over for (although in coordination with) Freeman, is getting the prosecution train up to speed in days, not weeks and months, and securing a murder conviction of not just Derek Chauvin, but his three accomplices as well, all of whom should have been charged and taken into custody by now.

Ellison is a pretty savvy political animal. So I hope he’s also aware that the collective antennae of outraged Minnesotans are going to be watching — closely — to see if he is just a black face getting slapped on the usual institutional rope-a-dope. If he is a cynical move to give the bureaucracy time the public wasn’t going to give a establishment white guy like Freeman he’s in for a very rough time, black be damned.

The point again being, this case has to move, dramatically and quickly. Everyone understands the courtroom peril of a jury of 12 law and order-abiding citizens giving the men in blue the benefit of every implausible doubt. And everyone is aware the 1992 Rodney King riots — with destruction far beyond what we’ve seen here to date — came after the trial, when the jury acquitted LA cops in spite of the filmed evidence.

Walz and Ellison have to gather what lessons they can from that failed prosecution, (i.e. venue and jury selection) and somehow apply them to a winning verdict against Chauvin and the others. Moreover, to repeat myself, they are not going to have the luxury of months of secretive, exhaustive investigation. I could be wrong. (I often am.) But this case is so egregious, so outrageous and so fully processed in the entire country’s mind there is not going to be any patience for the normal, glacial pace of evidence gathering. (As though we needed more than what our lying eyes are already telling us.)

Then, adding to my sympathy for them all, is the matter of these “outside agitators”. I’m sorry. But healthy skepticism is in order, and will remain in order until I see unequivocal proof that “professionals” have descended in our midst and have been guiding the attacks on property.

Of course it’s possible. But what little evidence there is in terms of social media chatter to date, is pretty vague and inconclusive. There was talk tonight of planted incendiary devices and an unusual influx of stolen, plateless cars, and a guy in Bloomington pulled over in such a vehicle getting out and setting the thing on fire. All of that stuff is very provocative, and supports a wishful narrative that no Minnesotan would ever do such things, apparently because there couldn’t possibly be a hundred of us so enraged and despairing at the endless cop beat downs and court system bullshit they’d torch a dozen city blocks.

Give me a break. Twin Cities cops pulled Philando Castile over 49 times before they killed him. Of course there are enough people, black folks mainly, who are enraged.

On a pure reptilian level, I’d love to have solid evidence that white supremacists are here in town acting out their long-planned “boogaloo” scenario by juicing up a race war. But if a major publc official is even going to hint at something like that, they better have the goods. Otherwise they sound hysterical, which seriously undermines their hard-earned credibility.

“He Feared for His Life” Isn’t Going to Cut It This Time

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While we wait for County Attorney Mike Freeman and his advisors to assure themselves they have an “airtight” case against Derek Chauvin and the three other ex-cops who killed George Floyd, I’m preparing myself for the appearance of Earl Grey, or someone of his, um, stature.

A slick, high-priced lawyer like Grey (who successfully defended the hapless, panicked cop who killed Philando Castile) is, in my mind, umbilically linked to the tried and true cop defense, “He feared for his life.”

The argument being that the average cop (pick any of them from any of the hundreds of dead black man/woman incidents) faces such constant peril protecting and serving their city they have every reason — and therefore right — to operate with a hair-trigger for “resistance” to their authority.

Grey’s problem — of whoever accepts the high-profile challenge of defending Chauvin and his band of brothers — is all the video documentation of Floyd’s killing. Not being a great legal mind, I can’t imagine how you create a situation of peril … to the cops … with killing an unarmed man already on the ground and in handcuffs. But based on experience we’ve all seen with the American court system, given enough time and money, I’m sure there’s a way.

But until the logic-bending court room theatics begin, you have to feel overwhelmed by the reaction to this particular incident of race-based violence. This one is as stark a case of “depraved indifference” as you could imagine. Newsfeeds are filling with police chiefs, retired law enforcement officials, legal scholars and such making unequivocal condemnations of Chauvin and partners. With them — right now, based on videos alone — there’s no “wait to see all the evidence”. It’s right there. Caught in the act. You’re looking at a capital crime.

With all this, and searching for solutions, I’ve found myself most interested in … police union contracts. The outrageous thuggery of Chauvin and the jaw-dropping complicity of the other three proves that stricter guidelines and all the city/community hours spent improving “dialogue” are a futile waste.

Police culture is diseased. It’s infected. And will continue to undermine its own authority unless and until you A: Hire better quality people to be cops, and B: Make them sign contracts with swift and heavy penalties for what, let’s face it, is regarded within “the brotherhood” as sanctioned brutality.

I’ve said before there’s a solution to this institionalized thuggery in better, tougher psychological screening of cop candidates. Half-facetiously, I’ve also said the red warning lights should start flashing when any candidate tells you they’ve always “dreamed of being a cop.”

Obviously, pay and benefits would have to be a lot better than they are if you want to attract and hold people who don’t get a secret tingle over being “the man”, the dude in uniform, with a badge … and nearly unlimited authority over whoever they cross in the street. Because as we’ve seen, there’s obvious racism in that “tingle”. A racism that becomes more overt and less restrained once out on the job and interacting with a lot of marginal people.

As of this morning Keith Ellison is telling CNN he expects charges soon.

That’s already overdue and will be one small step. The big ones come with thundering criminal penalties on the heads of Chauvin et al and a top to bottom re-write of the current police union contract.