Submitted by Nathan’ Jolly’ Green
George Floyd was no innocent when it came to crime; he was from an early age, becoming a career criminal.
Unable to find work in Texas as an ex-prison convict, he moved to Minneapolis in 2014 for a fresh start after release from prison in Houston, having served time for aggravated robbery with a firearm [deadly weapon].
On the day of George Floyd’s death, Floyd was arrested by police officer Derek Chauvin, at whose forcible detention he met his death. An end that most decent people would declare unlawful and a disgrace, regardless of what we now know about Floyd’s past, and perhaps latest alleged behaviour.
Following a complaint from a store clerk, Floyd was approached and spoken to by two police officers outside the store while sitting behind the wheel of his car. Floyd was then pulled from the vehicle and handcuffed by the two police officers.
https://www.fox9.com/video/688157
The police officer Derek Chauvin had knelt on his neck, after trying to get him into the back of a police car, which Floyd refused to enter. Floyd was arrested for allegedly paying for cigarettes with a fake $20 bill.
Some newspaper stories state that “None of the officers could have been aware of Floyd’s more than a decade-old criminal history at the time of the arrest.
But George Floyd and officer Derek Chauvin had worked at the same club, the El Nuevo night club in Minneapolis. Derek Chauvin as a security officer, and Floyd as a bouncer.
There is a distinct possibility that George Floyd and officer Derek Chauvin were acquainted, and the officer may have even known Floyd’s criminal background and that he was dealing with a man capable of violence.
The owner of El Nuevo Rodeo confirmed it was likely Derek Chauvin had “crossed paths” with George Floyd during their time working at the club. It turns out that Floyd, a former bouncer at Minneapolis bar El Nuevo Rodeo, was a long-time co-worker of Officer Chauvin — who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes until he died.
Local politician Andrea Jenkins, who sits on Minneapolis’ City Council told NBC affiliate WRAL-TV “He knew George,”. “They were co-workers.” Jenkins went on to say to MSNBC that Chauvin and Floyd both worked at the same bar for years as well.
Chauvin and the three other officers involved in Floyd’s arrest have been dismissed from the force, a spokesperson for the Minneapolis Police Department confirmed. The case has now been turned over to Minnesota Attorney General, Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s governor, announced over the weekend. Chauvin has been transferred to a maximum-security facility.
The Floyd family believed that 46-year-old Lloyd had left behind his past in Houston after being released from prison stemming from a 2007 robbery, in which he plead guilty to entering a woman’s home, pointing a gun at her stomach and searching the house for drugs and money.
The financial cost of demonstrations, peaceful but angry, is acceptable whatever they should be. But the cost of billions of dollars in the looting and burning of property and vehicles is not. Neither is the violence, the murders, setting police 0fficers on fire, looting, arson, and destruction, unacceptable under any circumstances, and cannot be excused.
It was not only George Floyd who had a violent background, Police officer Chauvin, who joined the force in 2001, had been involved in several other violent incidents.
But perhaps most police officers in Minneapolis are subject to being involved in the inherent violence in the communities in which they work.
In 2006, according to a database by Minneapolis’ Communities United Against Police Brutality, Chauvin was involved in the fatal shooting of a man who stabbed two people before reportedly turning a gun on police.
In 2008, Chauvin shot a man who allegedly reached for an officer’s gun during a domestic-violence call. (The man survived the shot.)
In 2011, he was one of five officers placed on a standard three-day leave after the non-fatal shooting of a Native American man. The officers returned to work after the force determined that they had acted “appropriately.” (Another officer, not Chauvin, fired the shot.)
Communities United Against Police Brutality also faulted Chauvin indirectly for the deaths of three people that Chauvin and another officer were chasing after a crime in 2005, were struck by a car.
Minneapolis’ Office of Police Conduct complaint database shows seven complaints against him, although all are listed as “closed,” “non-public,” and resulting in “no discipline.” The city’s Civilian Review Authority, which lists complaints before September 2012, reveals five more complaints, which are also closed and resulted in no discipline.
A prisoner at a Minnesota prison sued Chauvin and seven other officers for “alleged violations of his federal constitutional rights” in 2006, although the case was dismissed.
Since the death of George Floyd, a GoFundMe for Floyd’s family has raised more than $7 million.
Black Lives Matter, so do all lives, some politicians in the Caribbean have treated the citizens as if the only lives that matter is their own, and those of their family. People have been processed, metaphorically speaking, as if they had a knee on their neck and the whole country is choking to death. With black police beating black people, worse than any white policeman behaves in America. The politicians allow it to happen and condone it by saying nothing.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.