Let me start off by stating a few "facts".
Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.
Myles Cosgrove murdered Breonna Taylor.
Kim Potter murdered Daunte Wright.
Darren Wilson murdered Mike Brown.
Amber Guyger murdered Botham Jean.
Daniel Pantaleo murdered Eric Garner.
Aaron Dean murdered Atatiana Jefferson.
These are just a few of the Black men and women who have been fatally shot and killed by police officers over the past few years or so. There are countless others stretching over the amount of time that I have been alive. There are still many others that we may not even know about. Each case has its own particular details, but one thing is true with each case:
They were all murdered!
Here is an actual fact that is shared by many of these cases:
Most of the officers involved in these shootings were never prosecuted.
The case against Derek Chauvin ended with him being found guilty of second and third degree murder and second degree manslaughter. He faces up 75 years in prison but is likely to serve no more than 40, since those sentences will likely run concurrently. As skeptical as many of us were that he would be found guilty, a lot of us are just as skeptical that he will receive a sentence that fits the crime.
The definition of murder is "the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another", according to the Oxford dictionary. The law breaks down murder and manslaughter in varying degrees, hence my placement of quotation marks around the word "facts" at the beginning of this blog post. History shows the law also broke down murder to avoid convicting white people who lynched and hung Black people just because they were Black.
Today is, and these aforementioned cases are, no different.
A lot of people reacted to the conviction of Derek Chauvin with words like "relief "and "accountability". Some people said they were glad to see justice had been served. Others made a clear distinction that accountability and justice were not the same. I whole heartedly agree that those two terms are completely different. Justice is defined one way as "the quality of being fair and reasonable". The term is also looked at to mean someone being arrested for a crime and ensure that they are tried in court. So justice absolutely means different things, by definition and by opinion.
But Derek Chauvin's conviction is not justice. It is merely accountability.
Accountability, simply put, means being held responsible for ones actions. Derek Chauvin being found guilty of killing George Floyd is what was supposed to happen! Derek Chauvin serving time in prison for killing George Floyd is what is supposed to happen! When you kneel on someone's neck for over 8 minutes while hearing them say that they cannot breathe, you murdered them. Maybe you didn't set out to murder that person when your day began, but that does not negate the fact that you had absolutely no regard for that person's life. As a police officer, Derek Chauvin was supposed to protect and serve and exhibit value for human life. He didn't, along with the other officers who did nothing to prevent George Floyd's death. Each of those officers should serve time right along with Chauvin. Police are supposed to be held to a higher standard. They are supposed to be held to a higher level of accountability. They, too often, are not.
In an ironic twist of fate, Daunte Wright was shot and killed by Kim Potter shortly before Chauvin was found guilty. She is said to have mistaken her gun for her Taser and was heard yelling "Taser, Taser, Taser!" before she fired a shot into Wright's chest. Like Floyd's case, Wright's killing was captured on video. But many of the aforementioned cases were caught on body cam, dashboard or cell phone video and no conviction occurred. The biggest consequence for some of these officers was that they lost their jobs or had to end their law enforcement careers immediately. So even in the face of explicit evidence, neither justice or accountability was served.
In the light of these recent police shootings, the cause for police reform in some counties, cities and states has been explored. To date, no substantial reform has occurred in many of these areas. I don't believe it ever will. The number of police shootings of Black men and women since the Chauvin verdict and the circumstances around them supports my feeling on that. Many will say that all police officers aren't rouge cops, that they take their jobs seriously and that they truly are out there trying to protect and serve. I believe that to be true. But the system in which these officers serve is corrupt and it has been since its inception. The system is not designed to hold police officers accountable to the fullest extent of the law. In many cases, the police as a whole are above the law they are commissioned to uphold. History shows an unwillingness for courts to indict officers in the cases, which allows these rogue officers to operate with no sense of impunity.
Again, NO ACCOUNTABILITY!
When it comes to Black unarmed men and women at their various points of engagement with the police, the so called "crime"rarely fits the "punishment". A number of these encounters have been during traffic stops, home wellness checks and other non-violent engagements. To get shot and killed during a routine traffic stop while not posing any kind of threat to an officer is absurd. To be shot and killed when the reason police officers showed up at your home was because they were called to do a wellness check is unconscionable. To have an officer kneel on your neck until you die, after you are in custody, all because you were accused of trying to pass off a counterfeit bill is disgusting. To be shot and killed in your own home and the excuse of the officer responsible was that she "thought she was in her apartment and that the occupant was an intruder" is ridiculous.
But just as disgusting is how white offenders have been treated in comparison after much heinous crimes. We all know the story of how Dylan Roof murdered nine Black men and women (including a state senator) in a church in Charleston, SC. We all know how the officers who found him in a parked car treated him with care, asking if he was hungry and making sure he was fed. Those officers knew who he was and what he had done and that he was a potential threat. Dylan Roof survived to see his court date. Many of us know about Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17 year old white male who shot into a crowd of peaceful protesters after the police shooting of Jacob Blake with an assault rifle he should not have had. Accounts from witnesses and video footage tell how Rittenhouse was allowed to walk past police officers with the rifle he used to kill two people and wound another and leave the scene. This all transpired while people in the crowd were yelling for police officers to arrest him because he had shot people. He was eventually arrested the next day.
Eventually arrested the next day...
I'm not in any way suggesting that Dylan Ruth, Kyle Rittenhouse or any other white offender should have been shot and killed after committing their violent and deadly crimes. What I am suggesting is that none of the aforementioned Black unarmed men and women should have been killed while committing no crime at all. I am also saying that as violent offenders, what saved Roof and Rittenhouse was the color of their skin. What has killed the numbers of unarmed Black men and women was the color their skin was not. If police handled each encounter as they are supposedly trained to do, then maybe we wouldn't have this problem in our country.
Or maybe they are doing what they have been trained to do. Maybe they are dispositioned to value white lives and view Black men and women as a threat from the jump. Kim Potter was supposed to be some sort of training officer, so her excuse of mistaking her gun for her taser holds no water at all with me. None of the excuses we hear hold any water with me. And when people like Derek Chauvin are found guilty for their crimes and sentenced accordingly, I don't feel any sense of relief or justice.
It's what is supposed to happen.
It just hardly ever does. It probably won't happen more frequently now. And even if it does, it won't bring any of those Back men and women who died for nothing back.
Be safe out there, my people.
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