Five years ago today, police were called to Cup Foods, a grocery store in south Minneapolis, because the clerk believed a man had passed him a counterfeit $20 bill. Thus began the story of George Floyd’s death and the ensuing outrage that sparked race riots across the nation. It was a tumultuous period in the nation’s history, likened to the social unrest that occurred in 1968. Now that five years have come and gone, this seems an opportune time for reflection. What lessons have we learned from the Floyd incident?
George Floyd and the Minneapolis Police
By the time law enforcement arrived on the scene, George Perry Floyd Jr. was found sitting in a vehicle with two other passengers. When approached by two officers, the 46-year-old refused to exit the car as commanded by police. It was clear early on that something was off with Floyd, and police remarked that he seemed under the influence of either alcohol or some other intoxicant.
According to the police bodycam footage, Floyd aggressively resisted arrest, was crying, and repeatedly said he was claustrophobic and couldn’t breathe. Nine minutes into the arrest, another patrol car arrived carrying Officers Derek Chauvin and Tou Thao. At this point, eyewitnesses began to record the police’s efforts to get Floyd into the patrol car. The video shows Floyd face down on the ground while being restrained by the officer’s knee, which looked to be on his neck. It was in this position that George Floyd would die.
Seeing and Believing
Eyewitness video of the altercation between Officer Derek Chauvin and Floyd was shown ad nauseam from coast to coast. The outrage was almost universal.
Lesson 1: All videos are not equal. This is why multiple cameras are used to decide calls in sporting events. What appears certain from one angle can look very different from another. The bodycam footage, in this case, gives the viewer a more nuanced perspective than a bystander’s cellphone video. It took approximately 78 days before law enforcement released the officers’ bodycam footage. Delaying that long did them no favors. The police video depicted the lead-up to the restraint and the chaos of the event, which added important context to the incident that Americans weren’t privy to until much later – a big mistake.
Civil Unrest Sweeps Across the Nation
The fact that Floyd was black and Officer Chauvin is white had everything to do with what happened next. The race card match was lit, and anger turned to violence. Stores were looted, inner cities burned, and innocent people were assaulted. At least 19 people died as a result of massive social unrest during the summer of 2020. The media too often pushes simplistic conclusions from complicated incidents. The George Floyd event was disturbing in numerous ways and was not clarified by a rush to judgment.
For example, Floyd was painted as almost saintly by the left-wing media despite the fact that he had a history of tangling with law enforcement, was incarcerated for a time, and openly admitted having a substance abuse problem. This, of course, did not mean he should have died during the arrest, but it certainly provided some context to the incident and the civil unrest that followed.
Lesson 2: Rushing to judgment often muddies the waters
Because there was so much that the public was unaware of – from the police video to Floyd’s history with law enforcement – the tragic circumstances of Floyd’s demise are not black and white. Thus, the opinions formed were not fully informed and most likely led to the punitive sentencing of fired police Officer Derek Chauvin. It also led to a larger, more disastrous law enforcement initiative: the defund the police movement. In a nutshell, rushing to judgment can lead to poor public policy.
Law Enforcement Cutbacks
Lesson 3: Governmental authorities have a way of going global, making the situation worse.
As is now evident, demonizing law enforcement, which resulted in reduced funding, only harmed Americans. Places where police presence is crucial had to be abandoned, and many inner-city businesses, as well as the people in the communities they serve, suffered. As is its wont, the federal government decided it should play a part in this reckless policy and was on the precipice of putting its nose into a situation where it did not belong.
It took until this week to fully right the ship: “The Justice Department moved Wednesday to drop police-accountability agreements with Minneapolis and Louisville, abandoning the Biden administration’s attempt to reshape law enforcement in cities where high-profile killings by officers ignited widespread outrage,” reported Washington, DC’s, most prominent newspaper.
This rollback did not happen on its own. In fact, the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, which has only recently struck out on its own, had to do a lot of the dirty work to stop the Biden Department of Justice from further handcuffing police departments in several cities. The Oversight Project press release revealed the back story, asserting that it applauded the Trump Department of Justice’s decision to “walk away from eleventh-hour consent decrees” that would have a negative impact on the safety of residents in the cities where they planned to implement their ham-handed measures. President of the Oversight Project, Mike Howell, explained:
“We are thrilled that the Department of Justice answered our call and walked away from the Biden Administration’s post-election federal takeover of the Louisville and Minneapolis police departments. When we saw these go into motion during the dying days of the Biden Administration, after the American people voted against woke policing, we jumped in and said enough is enough. As we argued in our brief, these woke consent decrees were an unlawful overreach by the federal government that did nothing to make these cities.”
Self-righteous public officials have a knack for overregulating and gumming up the works. However, in this case, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the US Department of Justice, backed away from the planned intervention of the Biden-era DOJ.
George Floyd and Race Relations
Incidents like the death of George Floyd undoubtedly impact race relations. The Napolitan News Service conducted a poll on the race issue in America this week. It found, “Thirty percent (30%) of all voters rate race relations in the U.S. today as good or excellent…. Another “36% say fair and 30% claim they are poor.” The survey found there were strong partisan divides: “Forty-five percent (45%) of Republicans say race relations are excellent or good, while just 17% say they are poor. Among Democrats, those numbers are essentially reversed. Sixteen percent (16%) say race relations are excellent or good, and 42% say they are poor.”
However, in the grander scheme of things, Napolitan used a methodology that provided a long view of race relations in America.
“Overall, the survey found that 71% say they are at least somewhat better today than they were in the 1960s. That includes 26% who say they are much better.” As for the future, Napolitan News Service discovered, “Sixty-four percent (64%) of all voters expect race relations to be better in 20 years. Both Republicans (73%) and Democrats (61%) are optimistic about the future.”
And so we are left with a mixed bag on the fifth anniversary of this incident. While the George Floyd affair was a messy and tragic business for both the individuals involved and the country as a whole, it appears many Americans are encouraged about the future with regard to race relations in the US.
