The Killing Of George Floyd

Yesterday afternoon, I forced myself to see the video of the killing of George Floyd.

And that is what it was. A Minneapolis police officer, armed with handcuffs and probably a taser….or chemical mace…who put his knee into the neck of a man who was begging to breathe. That knee stayed there for nine minutes….over two minutes after Floyd was non-responsive.

There is no other way to interpret it. It was a murder captured on videotape.

You take that video and mix it with a country reeling from a pandemic and you have a match igniting a racial fire in many of our major cities.

There are some obvious things that need to be said.

Innocent business owners shouldn’t be looted. Downtowns need not be battle zones…and every person wearing a badge shouldn’t be judged by what officer Derek Chauvin did. The average city police officer or county deputy in our area are everyday heroes and do not deserve anything but our respect. They certainly shouldn’t be held responsible for the criminal behavior of one bad apple in Minnesota.

And by the way, violence in the name of protest is counter to the words and actions of Dr. Martin Luther King. I’ll leave you with his words….

“Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate.”