generalspeaking

Sunday, May 31, 2020

Riots, Looting and Sacking

"It is time to rebuild."

"Rebuild the city, rebuild our justice system and rebuild the relationship between law enforcement and those they're charged to protect."

Tim Walz, state governor, Minnesota

"We cannot continue to allow this destruction to continue. It is very much complete chaos, or it was."

"It's very much a spiralling situation."

"It's disrupting innocent people's lives. It's putting innocent people in harm's way."

Andrea Jenkins, Minneapolis City Council

"This shouldn't be 'normal' in 2020 America. It will fall mainly on the officials of Minnesota to ensure that the circumstances surrounding George Floyd's death are investigated thoroughly and that justice is ultimately done."

"But it falls on all of us to work together to crate a 'new normal' in which the legacy of bigotry and unequal treatment no longer infects our institutions or our hearts."

Former President Barack Obama

Video shows Minneapolis officer kneeling on black man's neck

Four days of mass protests that have turned into violent conflagrations, looting, and total disorder in Minneapolis have spread to Chicago, New York, Denver, Los Angeles and Oakland. Authorities have been pleading for public order, for orderly demonstrations in respect of the law, and people have responded by enlarging the protests, complete with higher rates of violence, leaving a number of police stations virtually destroyed and burnt out, along with neighbourhood shops, local businesses looted, glass fronts smashed.

Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, since discharged, has now been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter for his having deliberately held down George Floyd, a 42-year-old black man under arrest, pressing his knee on the prostrate Floyd's neck, asphyxiating him, even as the victim pleaded for air, repeatedly groaning and stating "Please, I can't breathe". Three other officers present at the scene were also fired --Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J.Alexander Kueng and may face charges as well.

"That's less than four days. That's extraordinary. We have never charged a case in that time frame", stated the Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner. And if authorities hoped that by speedily firing the four officers, and charging the major perpetrator of the murder of the black man it would serve to soften the fury of the Minneapolis protesters, they were mistaken. As another fire was set at a police station in close proximity to the crime scene, protesters cheered.

Nearby St.Paul saw dozens of fires set there as well, with close to 200 businesses damaged and looted. Many business owners had placed handmade signs in their windows with messages such as "This is a black-owned business", and "This is a community-owned business", to little avail. Thugs among other protesters were on a rampage of rage and would not be appeased; appeals to civic spirit and respect for the rule of law abased by what the law had just done.

While the mob caroused and destroyed and looted, nothing was done to apprehend them. Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis defended the city's response, which was effectively to do nothing to further inflame the rioters, with the explanation that the situation had become too dangerous for police to be seen doing their legitimate duty. Louisville, Kentucky saw gunfire breaking out. Minneapolis saw black smoke rising above its skyline, where the state governor finally deployed some 500 soldiers to restore the peace.

Soldiers blockaded the streets surrounding the most heavily damaged areas of the city, armed with assault-style rifles. Firefighters worked putting out blazes. Tuesday's airing of a bystander's video of the unfolding event, with George Floyd's appeal to the police officer whose knee was jammed into the man's neck, sent the city into paroxysms of rage. According to Andrea Jenkins, both men knew one another prior to Mr. Floyd's arrest. They had both worked as security staff at the same nightclub.

Non-violent protests also took place in Minneapolis by hundreds of people genuinely outraged on George Floyd's behalf in the belief, through long experience, that what happened to Mr. Floyd was distinctly connected to his race, that this means of controlling an arrested suspect would be unlikely to take place had the man arrested been white. Whatever an investigation will ultimately reveal about the relationship between the two men it will not go far in explaining why yet another black man in America met an untimely end.