It's murder surely? (**Trigger upsetting content**)

[Nymeriastark1]

The video of the man who was killed in America by the police officer's has just come up on my Facebook news feed. I couldn't watch all of it and had to hide it as it was just so upsetting to watch. Fucking disturbing actually. You can see the officer putting pressure on his neck while looking right down at him as he is literally suffocating to death. It's murder surely?! It was almost as if he was enjoying it. Please tell me charges are going to be pressed against these police officer's. I keep thinking about it getting upset that these men are going to get away with it.

@user764329056 the police in America do wear body cams. The footage has not been released to the public but you can be sure the police and FBI investigators have seen it. I am impressed with the Minneapolis mayor’s swift decision to condemn the officers. There have been too many cases like this but it seems this one may be used as an example.

I expect that the officers will be charged to the fullest extent of the law, but it takes time to investigate the crime and establish the facts. The officer’s actions here were repugnant and inexcusable, but whether or not circumstances meet the requirements for a charge of first or second degree murder remains to be seen. The law in America (and most other countries, including those in the UK) sets forth very specific factual elements that must be present in order to bring a murder charge, usually based on the perpetrator’s mental state at the time of the killing. To bring any murder charge there must be evidence that the officer intended to kill Mr Floyd. The “intent” requirement can in some jurisdictions include ”depraved indifference to human life,” which may be at play here. For first degree murder it must be shown that the officer’s actions were premeditated, which may be difficult to establish in this case. If the officer’s specific intent cannot be shown it would be charged as manslaughter, voluntary or involuntary based on the facts.

Also I’d like to note that America is a huge country. I see a lot of “broad brush” thinking on this thread but the reality is a lot more complex. There is most definitely a big problem with police treatment of people of color, but keep in mind that each of the 50 states has its own independent police force, and within each police force there exists a particular culture with its own attitudes and norms. To some extent this may reflect the sentiment of many of the state’s residents, but bottom line there is an ENORMOUS range of police culture from state to state. Likewise the range of problems and crimes police must handle is SO much wider than you typically see in the UK. To people who haven’t traveled much outside the UK it can be tempting to condemn the entire USA as dangerous or “backward,” but it’s not that simple. Would you base your opinion of Denmark on a bit of information you’ve heard about Greece? It’s kinda like that.

Disclaimer: homicide charges are very nuanced and can differ in some ways between jurisdictions. I do think what I’ve described is accurate but it’s been many years since I finished law school so if I’ve mixed anything up please forgive me.

@whatexit I think that a broad brush can be applied to the USA. I have been to nearly evey state in the USA, and I have saw extreme racism in every state.

They treat black people in the USA, how they treat women in the Middle East.

Though it is very hard to get anyone to stand up and protest about women in the middle east, because women are seen as the lowest of the low. As worth even less than minorities.

People in the west have let women in the middle east be treated like dirt for decades. No one has protested. No one has cared

A man in the USA said to me once - " if we are racist here , we know that if we are found out we will be in lots of trouble, we could lose our jobs etc. However if we are sexist - no one cares, no one bats an eyelid"

When there was extreme racism in South Africa, Apartheid, the rest of the world blocked trade deals to South Africa. To put oressure on them to stop being racist.

However, women have been treated as second class citizens in the middle East for a long time, suffering severe abuses, no one has cared. Why didn't we block trade deals to the Middle East to put pressure on them. The West could easily have intervened more. We have let those women suffer a long time

Too much money involved between UK and Middle East, we are in bed with Saudi, Dubai, etc and money means more than human rights/life

I haven’t watched it but yes murder.

I cannot believe those policeman have just been 'fired'.

What is depicted in that video is murder plain and simple.

America is such a shit hole country.

I have to say - i think if i were a bystander i would have done something more. I would have Pushed him off that man. It is that man's life!!

People did try to help, they were pushed back and threatened with mace. You would have been shot before you even got a chance to push him

@pertella there were many bystanders.

Only one person ever stepped forward.

I am sure they are absolutely terrified of the police there , which is why they did not move.

Guns are the problem. They are afraid of being shot. If it was a police man killing some one here, and there were five people around, they would intervene.

I have to say - i think if i were a bystander i would have done something more. I would have Pushed him off that man. It is that man's life!!

Would you? Really?! Considering that a police officer, a upstanding man of the law, had a built like a brick shit house man by the neck and that huge man was powerless? You would get involved and risk ending up the same way?

No you wouldn't.

Oh right, so another person stepping forward to manhandle a police officer would have achieved a different result.

Have you even stopped to think why a crowd of people watching a group of policemen killing someone in broad daylight like that might not want to put themselves at risk?

You seriously think the police wouldnt have hesitated to shoot someone trying to intervene?

Plus the police officer had a gun I presume

Oh you said that read quickly

So yes agree it’s very unlikely anyone would get close enough to intervene

A video would be risky as it was

I'm not broadly brushing America or saying this isn't an issue in the UK. I said it was a global condition. I also don't think this has anything to do with training but I agree it is about a power rush in a diseased mind who no longer sees a fellow human being in front of them.

I can't even watch the video. That poor man. And the by standers that had to witness such a terrible thing. It's murder I agree. So so upsetting I can't stop thinking about it.

I am wondering how much a gun makes a difference.

Say that we were in the UK, and there was a police man literally killing a man on a pavement, wouldn't we pull the man off him?

However if we knew that he had a gun, that is the only thing that would make me watch a man die in front of me and not do anything

The second one of the bystanders took a step forward the officer pulled out his mace. They had no chance. I think they were incredibly brave to film and try to reason with them. They all stayed calm and rational under the circumstances.

Yeah I did at first think “why didn’t people intervene” and then I remembered American police carry guns. And tasers. And mace. And truncheons.

The public had no chance

They would have been shot if they intervened, that much is certain. It’s wrong that the police have that much power. So wrong. The executed George Floyd and the one kneeling enjoyed it. It’s sick.

They*

That is the worst part, seeing how he was really enjoying taking the life of some one else.

The superiority, the power, the thinking he was better because of his race, and the other person is worth so low that he does not deserve to live.

It made me think of Auschwitz.

That is the worst part, seeing how he was really enjoying taking the life of some one else

The cameras being pointed at him seemed to add to the thrill.

It's such a double edged sword isnt it. Without the filming those officers may never have been exposed the way they were. But the filming also seemed to make things worse. Not that we will ever know really anyway.

I hope their cell mates take them all down a peg or 2...

And it's still 100 percent on those cops. Their focus should have been their job not what people already being watched and " controlled " were doing. ( just oin case that sounded like I was pointing any blame on the civilians which I'm not as they are the only peope who seemed to care )

It's murder motivated by racism. It's the same shit, different day in America. THIS is our legacy, our history.
I'm American and I love my country because we have an amazing catalogue of exceptional people who have lived out their lives defending freedom and rights. But then George Floyd comes along to remind me that once again, America, you wrote a bad cheque. What Emancipation Proclamation? What 'freedom'? Freedom for some. One rule for the white man, another for the black.
The Jim Crow laws have embedded themselves in the very essence of American society. They are not just a bad stain, a bad memory of a bad time in history. They stayed. They became a malignant thread that continues to run through our cultural identity.

I always get chills when I read this. THIS is the black person's plight in America. Muhammed Ali, one our greatest Americans said:

"Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.” ... It's more than 400 years now. 2020 and your people are still not free.

George Floyd is proof that since Muhammed Ali made that speech over 50 years ago, not a whole hell of a lot has changed. Those voices like Muhammed Ali's can reach the heavens, they stir, magnificently, the human heart, and yet the hatred still wins.