by Margaret Kimberley

(originally published by American Herald Tribune, 5/29/20)

On May 25, 2020 a man named George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis, Minnesota police while being arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill. An onlooker recorded video showing Floyd gasping, “I can’t breathe” numerous times as a policeman pressed a knee on his neck. The killing evoked memories of Eric Garner, who was also recorded speaking the same words as he died at the hands of New York City police. What happens in secret on a daily basis can become a national crisis when a killing is witnessed by millions of people.

Minneapolis exploded into a full scale rebellion in the wake of Floyd’s death. Some use the word riot, but the motivation for the mass action is quite serious and should not be so casually dismissed. The protest has taken such a serious turn in large part because the odds of punishment are so low. Eric Garner’s killer is free, so is the Minnesota cop who killed Philando Castille on video. Photographic evidence is of little use when prosecutors are an integral part of law enforcement machinery. Their job is to indict and convict those who fall into the hands of police, often for minor offenses like Floyd. Prosecutors are therefore compromised and unable to provide justice when their police partners become the accused.
Minneapolis prosecutor Mike Freeman gave credence to the worst fears when he said, “That video is graphic and horrific but there is other evidence that does not support a criminal charge.” Like the officer who killed Floyd, Freeman’s home is now surrounded by angry people. Another group of protesters forced police to flee from a precinct building as they set it on fire. Because there is little hope of justice, there is no peace either.

Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar is one of the politicians complicit in police violence. She was the prosecutor in Minneapolis from 1999 to 2007 and she declined to prosecute more than two dozen fatal police encounters during her time in office. She was a presidential candidate and is now being vetted as a possible running mate for presumptive democratic party nominee Joe Biden. Her inaction in bringing justice to police victims didn’t hurt her political fortunes. Other prosecutors chose not to charge Floyd’s killer, Derek Chauvin, when he was involved in three separate shooting incidents.

Chauvin and prosecutors are two sides of the same coin. They are the people who keep the engine of over policing, brutality and mass incarceration running at full speed. The system may react by terminating officers when they become the subject of press scrutiny, but the wheels of a corrupt machinery keep turning.

It is also important to point out that Floyd’s killing did not occur in a vacuum. The one black person killed every day by police, private security and vigilantes includes victims like Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. Arbery’s killers were arrested more than two months after the murder and only after video surfaced, ironically taken by a man now charged as an accomplice. Breonna Taylor was killed by Louisville, Kentucky police serving a search warrant on the wrong home. These deaths spawned anger across the country and Floyd’s killing was the last straw for thousands of people now protesting across the country.

This popular anger is not new. The cry for justice goes unheeded and there has been no lasting mechanism for responding to the deaths and injuries that take place out on a routine basis. The movement spawned by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization inspired hope of change but it eventually fizzled out. BLM’s leadership are now among the non-profit industrial complex, dispensing patronage for the democratic party and prospering off of undeserved reputations.
Police violence spawned rebellions in Harlem in the 1940s, and Watts and Newark in the 1960s. The initial acquittal of the police who brutalized Rodney King in 1992 also sparked a violent reaction. This pattern of violence, injustice and reaction will go on until there is real change. That will not happen without desperately needed grass roots organizing.

In Chicago, the National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression (NAARP) fights for legislation that would bring the police under full community control. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) campaign “No Compromise, No Retreat: Defeat the War on African/Black People in the U.S. and Abroad” includes a candidate pledge organizing tool. The pledge demands the end of militarized policing as seen in the Department of Defense 1033 program which sends military equipment to police departments all over the country. BAP also demands federal investigation of all instances of lethal force carried out by the police. This tradition of organizing and engagement with the political structure must be renewed and strengthened if the carnage is to be stopped.

The cycle of video death, protest, outrage and brief media attention must be transformed. The people who burned the Minneapolis police precinct did so because as the saying goes, they have seen this movie and know how it ends. It is now time for a new ending. The Klobuchars and Freemans of the world must be put on notice that they cannot go unchallenged when they have blood on their hands just as the police do. This must be the last time that politicians think that platitudes in a Twitter post will be acceptable to an angry public. Outrage can and must be turned into meaningful organizing that challenges the system. George Floyd’s death can be a turning point if the people stay in motion.