The murders of African Americans is not only continuing unabated, but is actually increasing. Recently, two of the murders of black men were caught on video and we were overwhelmed with grief. One might have hoped that the cops would have realized no matter how bigoted they are that now, in light of the protests and the huge, overwhelming support for the protests, they needed to proceed with caution and avoid using deadly force at all cost. Of course, the bigoted thing in the White House did not watch the murder of George Floyd. This is a transcript and reporting of the murder of George Floyd.
The day after Mr. Floyd’s death, the Police Department fired all four of the officers involved in the episode. On May 29, the Hennepin County attorney, Mike Freeman, announced third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges against Derek Chauvin, the officer seen most clearly in witness videos pinning Mr. Floyd to the ground. Mr. Chauvin, who is white, kept his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for at least eight minutes and 15 seconds, according to a Times analysis of timestamped video. Our video investigation shows that Mr. Chauvin did not remove his knee even after Mr. Floyd lost consciousness and for a full minute and 20 seconds after paramedics arrived at the scene.On June 3, Hennepin County prosecutors added a more serious second-degree murder charge against Mr. Chauvin and also charged each of the three other former officers — Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao — with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
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.He actually should have been charged with first degree murder considering that they knew each other because they both worked together at the same place of employment.
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.It is equally clear that Mr. Rayshard Brooks was murdered. Nothing Mr. Brooks did justified the murder of Mr. Brooks by Mr. Rolfe. We know it is murder for several reasons. First, Mr. Brooks was unarmed when he was shot in the back running away. We know Mr. Brooks was unarmed because the taser Mr. Brooks had was no longer operable since it had already been fired twice. Mr. Rolfe knew that the taser was no longer operable because it was their taser and they knew it had already been fired twice and they knew that after it had been fired twice, it could no longer be fired again. Thus, Mr. Brooks was unarmed and they knew it. Shooting a victim who is running away and is unarmed is murder. Furthermore, Mr. Rolfe had a taser while chasing Mr. Brooks. Mr. Rolfe could have used the taser. Instead, Mr. Rolfe chose to take out his gun and shoot three times at Mr. Brooks. In fact, the prosecutor pointed out that it would have been against Atlanta police procedure to fire a taser at a person running away. Immediately after murdering Mr. Brooks, Mr. Rolfe triumphantly announced that he “got him” as if it were like he was hunting deer. Neither of the officers even attempted to render first aid to Mr. Brooks. Instead, Mr. Rolfe kicked Mr. Brooks and the other officer stood on top of him. Therefore, it is undeniable that Mr. Rolfe murdered Mr. Brooks. It is as clear that Mr. Brooks was murdered as it is clear that Mr. Floyd was murdered.
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.Here are three websites that track killings by the police. The first is fatal encounters. They list victims by name, age, and gender. It also lists the location of the dead. They have a link to reporting or video of the killing. It lists 28,280 killings by police since 2000.
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.A step toward creating an impartial, comprehensive, and searchable national database of people killed during interactions with law enforcement.
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.The next website is The Counted by the Guardian. This was for 2015-2016. They have many articles analyzing all of the killings by the police. They posted a statement by Senator Bernie Sanders saying, “Police should be obliged to report all officer-involved deaths.” They wrote that, “By the numbers: US police kill more people in days than other countries do in years.” NPR credits the Guardian for showing that police are under-counting of all the people they kill. They posted that the FBI found that the police did not even report their killing of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. Even former FBI Director James Comey said that it is “unacceptable” that the Guardian has better data on police killing than the federal government. They have an excellent article analyzing why it is troubling that prosecutors and police have such a cozy, close relationship. It is called the Ties that Bind. Here is an example of why this is so troubling:
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To win his election campaign and oust the top state prosecutor in Omaha, Nebraska, Don Kleine first needed to secure the support of an influential group of voters.
Promising a return to “tough on crime” priorities, and attacking the incumbent county attorney’s new rehabilitative programs, Kleine clinched the endorsements of the region’s major police unions – and their thousands of dollars in election campaign contributions.
Ever since his 2006 victory, Kleine has relied on the officers of those unions to help him convict everyday criminals. Omaha officer Alvin Lugod, for instance, was called to appear as a prosecution witness a dozen times, according to records released by Kleine’s office
Yet when Officer Lugod was facing possible criminal charges himself in February for fatally shooting an unarmed man in the back, Kleine saw no reason to step aside. Instead, the prosecutor oversaw a secret grand jury process that declined to indict his colleague.
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.This is a blatant conflict of interest. Prosecutors often rely upon police to testify and help make the case so that they can prosecute defendants. So, if a prosecutor angers the police that they work with, then they may struggle to perform their job. This is why all killings by police must either go directly to a special prosecutor or to local community board with community activists and other experts who determine if a case needs to go to a special prosecutor. Often, a prosecutor will intentionally fail to secure an indictment from a grand jury against a police officer when they are pressured to hold a police officer accountable for killing a victim. It is difficult to fail to secure an indictment from a grand jury since the prosecutor is the only person presenting evidence and the defense is not participating in the process. So, when a prosecutor fails to secure an indictment against a police officer for a killing that was not justified, then it will appear like the prosecutor lost intentionally. The article is well worth the time to read. It is just sickening.
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The case was one of 217 this year where a police officer who killed someone was cleared of wrongdoing in a process led by a prosecutor who typically works alongside the officer’s department. The total represented 85% of all killings by police that were ruled justified in 2015, according to a Guardian analysis. This week, the police officer who killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice last year in Cleveland, Ohio, was cleared in the same way.. Only 12.5% of killings by police that were ruled justified in 2015 were handled completely independently.A 1984 US supreme court ruling holds that a police officer may shoot a so-called “fleeing felon” if he has “probable cause to believe” the suspect “poses a significant threat” of serious injury to others.
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..Another article from 2015 states that
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Young black men killed by US police at highest rate in year of 1,134 deaths
Final total of people killed by US police officers in 2015 shows rate of death for young black men was five times higher than white men of the same age.
Young black men were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police officers in 2015, according to the findings of a Guardian study that recorded a final tally of 1,134 deaths at the hands of law enforcement officers this year. Despite making up only 2% of the total US population, African American males between the ages of 15 and 34 comprised more than 15% of all deaths logged this year by an ongoing investigation into the use of deadly force by police. Their rate of police-involved deaths was five times higher than for white men of the same age.
Paired with official government mortality data, this new finding indicates that about one in every 65 deaths of a young African American man in the US is a killing by police.Overall in 2015, black people were killed at twice the rate of white, Hispanic and native Americans. About 25% of the African Americans killed were unarmed, compared with 17% of white people
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They also provide an interactive graphic. The third link is to the Washington Post’s work on the topic.
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.1,034 people have been shot and killed by police in the past year.In 2015, The Washington Post began to log every fatal shooting by an on-duty police officer in the United States. In that time there have been more than 5,000 such shootings recorded by The Post.
After Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, was killed in 2014 by police in Ferguson, Mo., a Post investigation found that the FBI undercounted fatal police shootings by more than half. This is because reporting by police departments is voluntary and many departments fail to do so.
The Post’s data relies primarily on news accounts, social media postings and police reports. Analysis of more than five years of data reveals that the number and circumstances of fatal shootings and the overall demographics of the victims have remained relatively constant.
Black Americans are killed at a much higher rate than white Americans
Although half of the people shot and killed by police are white, black Americans are shot at a disproportionate rate. They account for less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, but are killed by police at more than twice the rate of white Americans. Hispanic Americans are also killed by police at a disproportionate rate.
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.They have many great graphics and statistics to make this epidemic clear. Statista has a website in which they look at police killings by race and by year. They wrote that 223 black people were killed by police in 2017 , 209 black people were killed by police in 2018, 235 black people were killed by police, and 88 black people in 2020 so far have been killed by police.
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.Sadly, the trend of fatal police shootings in the United States seems to only be increasing, with a total 429 civilians having been shot, 88 of whom were Black, as of June 4, 2020. In 2018, there were 996 fatal police shootings, and in 2019 this figure increased to 1,004. Additionally, the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 30 fatal shootings per million of the population as of June 2020.In recent years, particularly since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, police brutality has become a hot button issue in the United States. The number of homicides committed by police in the United States is often compared to those in countries such as England, where the number is significantly lower.
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.Another excellent resource is mapping police violence. They wrote that in only 29 days in 2018, the police did not kill somebody. They wrote that they are “America's most comprehensive database of killings by police. “ They write that we can “ Learn the facts about police brutality and how to address it “. This is a really great website and source of information. They stated, “Black people were 24% of those killed despite being only 13% of the population .” They write the following about UNARMED VICTIMS KILLED BY POLICE :
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Nearly 1 in 3 black people killed by police in 2015 were identified as unarmed, though the actual number is likely higher due to underreporting
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36% of unarmed people killed by police were black in 2015 despite black people being only 13% of the U.S. population
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Unarmed black people were killed at 5x the rate of unarmed whites in 2015
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Only 13 of the 104 cases in 2015 where an unarmed black person was killed by police resulted in officer(s) being charged with a crime. 4 of these cases have ended in a mistrial or charges against the officer(s) being dropped and 4 cases are still awaiting trial or have a trial underway. Only 4 cases (Matthew Ajibade, Eric Harris, Paterson Brown Jr., and William Chapman) have resulted in convictions of officers involved, with a fifth case (Walter Scott) resulting in the officer pleading guilty.
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.This is absolutely heartbreaking. It is devastating. Another website is dedicated to the murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. They have a heart gripping quote followed by a list of the victims of police violence:
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.How are we supposed to feel safe knowing that the people who are supposed to protect us are KILLING US ? Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown Jr., Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, John Crawford III, Antonio Martin, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Ryan Twyman
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