New revelations regarding the death of George Floyd get stranger by the day.
The live videos of the arrest and subsequent demise of George Floyd have gone viral around the world. Several videos show the original arrest of Mr. Floyd as he was pulled from his car and handcuffed by two police officers from the Minneapolis Park Police Department. He was then taken to the sidewalk and seated, showing no signs of resisting arrest on the videos released..
The reason for his arrest was suspicion of passing a fake $20 bill. He was apparently unarmed at the time of his arrest.
A second police vehicle arrived and Mr. Floyd was moved from his seated position against a wall to the second car. It is still not clear as to what transpired during this time that resulted in Mr Floyd being face down on the pavement next to the car, being held down by 3 police officers with a fourth officer standing between the crowd of onlookers and Mr. Floyd.
As witnesses recorded the scene, it was apparent that Mr Floyd was having trouble breathing. One of the officers identified as Derek Chavin had his knee directly on the neck of Mr Floyd who ignored his pleas for help stating he could not breathe. Witnesses begged the officers to relax their hold on Mr. Floyd, and watched in horror as he appeared to lose conciousness. The crowd made several requests for the officers to check his vitals, when he was clearly unconcious.
It is beyond any reasonable response for four police officers who have someone in handcuffs and subdued to continue to behave as though the man was a threat to them or the public, especially after he became unresponsive. They coninued to keep pressure on the neck of Mr. Floyd until the EMT unit arrived to find Mr Floyd not breathing and unresponsive.
It's hard to imagine anyone could condone the behaviour of Officer Chauvin who continued to keep pressure on the Mr Floyd's neck with the whole incident streaming live. The thought that none of the other officers who were present attempted to intervene is equally disturbing. At any time they could have placed him in the police vehicle and the incident would have been over.
Instead someone died over the possibility that he had been involved in passing a bad $20 dollar bill. Seriously?
And if that was not strange enough, it appears Mr Floyd and Officer Chauvin may have worked together in the recent past.
According to a report by KSTP Channel 5:
A former club owner in south Minneapolis says the now-fired police officer and the black man who died in his custody this week both worked security for her club up to the end of last year.
George Floyd and now-former Officer Derek Chauvin both worked security at the El Nuevo Rodeo club on Lake Street, according to Maya Santamaria. Santamaria owned the building for nearly two decades, but sold the venue within the last few months.
"Chauvin was our off-duty police for almost the entirety of the 17 years that we were open," Santamaria said. "They were working together at the same time, it's just that Chauvin worked outside and the security guards were inside."
Although the two overlapped working security on popular music nights within the last year, Santamaria can not say for certain they knew each other because there were often a couple dozen security guards, including off-duty officers.
Santamaria says she did not recognize either one of her security guards in the video showing Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck not far from where they used to work.
Reporters camped out in front of Officer Chauvin's home in a vain attempt to score an interview with the now fired officer. Neighbours in his suburban neighbourhood said they had no idea he was a police officer, but that they had seen him leave long before the news crews arrived.
Clearly more information will follow on this sad case that has resulted in the needless death of another human being, at a time when we are all grieving for the thousands lost to a disease they had no defense against. Protection and preservation of life should be our goal in this time and into the future. The world is losing patience for anything less.
