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Author Topic: R.I.P George Floyd  (Read 6919 times)

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Offline Trini _2026

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R.I.P George Floyd
« on: May 27, 2020, 08:39:44 AM »
So Sad
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Offline asylumseeker

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #1 on: May 27, 2020, 02:10:16 PM »
One would think that the conduct and instincts of law enforcement officers in these incidents would have shifted ...

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #2 on: May 27, 2020, 02:17:24 PM »
And re: that woman in Central Park who called 911 on the bird watcher during her invented attack ... I hope not to read or hear anyone inserting the term 'unconscious bias' into the mix.

Offline Deeks

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2020, 06:23:34 PM »
And they want to know why Colin Kaepernick used to take a knee every time the anthem is played.

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #4 on: May 27, 2020, 07:41:41 PM »
And they want to know why Colin Kaepernick used to take a knee every time the anthem is played.

And the one who used his knee to suppress Floyd's neck might be the biggest tailgater.

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #5 on: May 28, 2020, 09:07:16 AM »
Kevin Molino, well done on showing a recognition of social responsibility in touching this issue - particularly as a Minnesota-based player. :applause:

Offline soccerman

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #6 on: May 30, 2020, 11:07:19 PM »
The looting started....Just like Bob Marley's song Burning and ah lootin tonite

Offline Sando prince

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #7 on: May 31, 2020, 12:37:33 PM »

China Reminds America About Their Human Rights Hypocrisy: "I Can't Breathe"

https://socamusictv.blogspot.com/2020/05/china-reminds-america-about-their-human.html

Offline Flex

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #8 on: May 31, 2020, 02:30:00 PM »
The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #9 on: June 01, 2020, 02:13:08 PM »
Curious to see how FIFA will treat players who render individual protests in support of prosecuting the police officers.

Offline soccerman

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #10 on: June 01, 2020, 10:35:02 PM »
Curious to see how FIFA will treat players who render individual protests in support of prosecuting the police officers.
If FIFA don't give the players the freedom in this instance it will be a very bad PR move and will show they're complicit. The NFL is looking very bad right now. Roger Godell posted a message and almost everyone viewed it as hypocrisy, FIFA should let the players express themselves.

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #11 on: June 02, 2020, 03:17:50 AM »
Curious to see how FIFA will treat players who render individual protests in support of prosecuting the police officers.
If FIFA don't give the players the freedom in this instance it will be a very bad PR move and will show they're complicit. The NFL is looking very bad right now. Roger Godell posted a message and almost everyone viewed it as hypocrisy, FIFA should let the players express themselves.

Agreed! Of course within the leagues is where support or condemnation start ... but it would be to be seriously tone deaf for FIFA or its agents to frown "out loud". 

Your comment on Goodell brought me to Joe Lockhart (Bill Clinton's press secretary). It's a roadmap of plantation slavery in professional sport - informed by the "benign" views and self-congratulation of an overseer.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/opinions/now-is-the-moment-to-sign-colin-kaepernick-lockhart/index.html

According to Lockhart:
Quote
"Though Kaepernick didn't get his job back, I thought we had all done a righteous job, considering.

I was wrong. I think the teams were wrong for not signing him. Watching what's going on in Minnesota, I understand how badly wrong we were."
« Last Edit: June 02, 2020, 03:28:56 AM by asylumseeker »

Offline soccerman

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #12 on: June 02, 2020, 10:25:51 PM »
Curious to see how FIFA will treat players who render individual protests in support of prosecuting the police officers.
If FIFA don't give the players the freedom in this instance it will be a very bad PR move and will show they're complicit. The NFL is looking very bad right now. Roger Godell posted a message and almost everyone viewed it as hypocrisy, FIFA should let the players express themselves.

Agreed! Of course within the leagues is where support or condemnation start ... but it would be to be seriously tone deaf for FIFA or its agents to frown "out loud". 

Your comment on Goodell brought me to Joe Lockhart (Bill Clinton's press secretary). It's a roadmap of plantation slavery in professional sport - informed by the "benign" views and self-congratulation of an overseer.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/opinions/now-is-the-moment-to-sign-colin-kaepernick-lockhart/index.html

According to Lockhart:
Quote
"Though Kaepernick didn't get his job back, I thought we had all done a righteous job, considering.

I was wrong. I think the teams were wrong for not signing him. Watching what's going on in Minnesota, I understand how badly wrong we were."
I noticed the Premier League issued a statement today giving players and teams the opportunity to express themselves against racism without penalty so that was well done on their part. The NFL owes Kaepernick an apology imo before they should consider issuing any statements in regards to this at this time. I've been noticing a few white people have been forthcoming and acknowledging they need to educate themselves more, listen and do better. I think the NFL owners should follow suit.

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #13 on: June 03, 2020, 01:58:12 AM »
Curious to see how FIFA will treat players who render individual protests in support of prosecuting the police officers.
If FIFA don't give the players the freedom in this instance it will be a very bad PR move and will show they're complicit. The NFL is looking very bad right now. Roger Godell posted a message and almost everyone viewed it as hypocrisy, FIFA should let the players express themselves.

Agreed! Of course within the leagues is where support or condemnation start ... but it would be to be seriously tone deaf for FIFA or its agents to frown "out loud". 

Your comment on Goodell brought me to Joe Lockhart (Bill Clinton's press secretary). It's a roadmap of plantation slavery in professional sport - informed by the "benign" views and self-congratulation of an overseer.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/opinions/now-is-the-moment-to-sign-colin-kaepernick-lockhart/index.html

According to Lockhart:
Quote
"Though Kaepernick didn't get his job back, I thought we had all done a righteous job, considering.

I was wrong. I think the teams were wrong for not signing him. Watching what's going on in Minnesota, I understand how badly wrong we were."
I noticed the Premier League issued a statement today giving players and teams the opportunity to express themselves against racism without penalty so that was well done on their part. The NFL owes Kaepernick an apology imo before they should consider issuing any statements in regards to this at this time. I've been noticing a few white people have been forthcoming and acknowledging they need to educate themselves more, listen and do better. I think the NFL owners should follow suit.



'H' for humans and humanity. Maybe the message will reach the Bundesliga.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11998952/george-floyd-death-fifa-tells-fas-to-use-common-sense-over-player-protests

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #14 on: June 03, 2020, 12:43:46 PM »
Amy Klobuchar must think she's the Attorney-General of Minnesota. It's not her place to scoop Keith Ellison's announcement of whether the other officers are to be charged. I hope Biden steers clear of her naked self-promotion.

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #15 on: June 06, 2020, 04:51:40 AM »
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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #16 on: June 06, 2020, 05:17:08 AM »
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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #17 on: June 06, 2020, 11:53:29 AM »
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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #18 on: June 07, 2020, 05:12:23 AM »
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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #19 on: June 07, 2020, 06:14:47 PM »
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« Last Edit: June 07, 2020, 06:35:11 PM by asylumseeker »

Offline asylumseeker

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #20 on: June 09, 2020, 03:48:33 AM »
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Offline Flex

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #21 on: June 22, 2020, 01:50:27 PM »
Minority jail officers were barred from guarding ex-cop charged with George Floyd's murder: Complaint
BILL HUTCHINSON (ABC News


Eight Minnesota correctional officers of color have filed a discrimination complaint alleging they were barred from guarding the white former police officer charged with murdering George Floyd, a Black man.

The eight minority officers assigned to the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center in St. Paul complained to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights that the decision to segregate them and keep them away from fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, and the entire floor he was being housed on at the jail, was based solely on the color of their skin.

"I am not aware of a similar situation where white officers were segregated from an inmate," reads a statement in the complaint from a Black officer that was anonymously filed on Friday with the Department of Human Rights through his lawyer.

The employee called his superintendent's order "the most overtly discriminatory act that has occurred during my employment" and that it left some of his colleagues of color in tears and demoralized that their superiors thought they couldn't professionally carry out their duties because of their race.

"My fellow officers of color and I were, and continue to be, deeply humiliated, distressed, and negatively impacted by the segregation order," the officer wrote in the complaint. "The order and Ramsey County's failure to adequately address it have caused a hostile work environment for officers of color at Ramsey County Correctional Facility -- Adult Detention Unit."

Another minority officer, who described herself as Hispanic, said she and other officers of color were reassigned to the third floor of the jail once Chauvin was brought to the fifth floor of the facility, and that they were instructed to remain there even when an all-hands emergency response was called.

"When we arrived on the 3rd floor, we realized that the facility's employees of color were all on that floor, and that we had been segregated from the 5th floor," the Hispanic officer said in a statement contained in the complaint. "During the same afternoon, an 'A-Team Response' was called, which normally means there is an emergency and correctional officers are to drop what they are doing in order to assist the affected inmate and help transport the inmate to the 5th floor. Several officers of color responded to the call, but were prohibited from taking the inmate to the 5th floor due to the order to segregate."

Bonnie Smith, a Minneapolis attorney representing the eight officers, said during a news conference on Sunday outside the jail that her clients have chosen to remain anonymous for "fear of retaliation."

The incident occurred on May 29 when Chauvin was brought to the jail's fifth floor to be processed after he was initially arrested on charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd's death. The murder charge against Chauvin was later upped to second-degree murder and he has since been moved to the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Oak Park Heights, where he is being held on $1.25 million bail. He has not yet entered a plea.

Chauvin was captured in a citizen cell-phone video on May 25 kneeling on the back of Floyd's neck as he lay in a prone position with his face to the pavement, calling out for his dead mother and repeatedly saying "I can't breathe" until he became unresponsive. Floyd was later pronounced dead at a hospital, setting off protests and acts of violence in Minneapolis and in cities throughout the nation.

Three other Minneapolis police officers involved in the fatal encounter with Floyd have also been fired from the police department and criminally charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.

Jail Superintendent Steve Lydon admitted issuing the order to keep minority officers from Chauvin after he was given 10 minutes notice by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension that Chauvin would be arriving at the facility, according to a statement he gave investigators that was provided to ABC News on Sunday by the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office.

"Recognizing that the murder of George Floyd was likely to create particularly acute racialized trauma, I felt I had an immediate duty to protect and support employees who may have been traumatized and may have heightened ongoing trauma by having to deal with Chauvin," Lydon's statement reads. "Out of care and concern, and without the comfort of time, I made the decision to limit exposure to employees of color to a murder suspect who could potentially aggravate those feelings."

The sheriff's office claims three minority officers were reassigned to different posts at the jail prior to Chauvin's arrival and that the order was only in effect for 45 minutes, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.

Lydon, in his statement to investigators, said he realized he'd made an error and reversed the order after staff members expressed concern.

"I then met with the individuals that were working at the time and explained to them what my thought process was at the time and assured them that the decision was made out of concern for them and was in no way related to a concern regarding their professionalism or Chauvin's safety," Lydon statement reads. "I realized that I had erred in judgment and issued an apology to the affected employees."

Asked if Lydon has been disciplined, Roy Magnuson, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, said Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher is reviewing the matter "to determine if any additional action is necessary."

Fletcher met with the complaining officers on June 4 and plans to hold an additional meeting with them following the investigation, Magnuson said.

Smith alleged that instead of immediately offering her clients a formal apology, the sheriff's department issued a false statement to the Reuters news agency over a week ago insisting there was no truth to the employees' claims of the segregation order.

"Superintendent Lydon's action created lack of trust and respect for minority officers," Smith said. "Ramsey County's segregation order caused immediate and long-lasting damage. It has made going to work difficult for the affected employees."

Smith said Lydon remains employed by Ramsey County "and in the same building as my clients, despite promises that he would be reassigned from the jail."

"To address the harm they've faced, these eight officers are asking for the removal of Superintendent Lydon and swift discipline of any other leadership who were involved or complicit in this action," Smith said.

She said the officers are also demanding a retraction of the statement the sheriff's office gave Reuters, that comprehensive in-person diversity and anti-bias training to instituted for all jail staff, and that a concrete plan be developed "to ensure that this discriminatory behavior never happens again at Ramsey County."

Smith said her clients are also asking for a formal apology from the sheriff's office and compensation for their emotional stress and lost earnings, adding that some of the officers have had to take time off or give up overtime and promotions due to their distress.

While a sheriff's office spokesperson said on Sunday a chief deputy with the agency is conducting a probe, Smith said none of her clients have yet to be interviewed for the investigation.

ABC News Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.


PHOTO: Derek Chauvin was booked into the Hennepin County Jail after being transferred from the Ramsey County Jail. (Hennepin County Jail )

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Offline Flex

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #22 on: June 22, 2020, 05:28:53 PM »
'Do you feel any remorse?': Officer charged in killing of George Floyd confronted while buying groceries in Minnesota
Richard Hall
The Independent


One of the four officers charged in the killing of George Floyd was confronted by a shopper while buying groceries on Saturday in Minnesota.

J. Alexander Keung, 26, was released from Hennepin County Jail on Friday night on a $750,000 bond. He was approached by a woman while shopping at a Cub Foods grocery store the next day.

“So you’re out of prison and you’re comfortably shopping in Cub Foods. As if you didn’t do anything,” said the woman who confronted him and filmed the incident.

“Did you think that people weren’t going to recognise you?” she added. “You killed somebody in cold blood. You don’t have the right to be here.”

Keung responds: “I understand. I’ll get my stuff paid for.”

To which the woman replies: “No we don’t want you to get your stuff, we want you to be locked up.”

Keung is facing charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder for his part in Mr Floyd’s death. According to court documents, Keung helped to hold Mr Floyd down on the ground during an attempted arrest over the alleged use of a counterfeit $20 bill.

During the fatal incident, another officer, Derek Chauvin, held his knee on Floyd’s neck despite constant pleas that he couldn’t breathe.

“Do you feel any remorse for what you did?” she asks him.

The video was posted to Twitter by a user named Josiah, who wrote: "look who my sister caught at Cub Foods in Plymouth. J. Alexander Keung, one of the officers who lynched #GeorgeFloyd in cold blood."

It has since been shared tens of thousands of times.

Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Mr Floyd’s neck, is facing charges of second-degree murder. Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and Kueng were charged with aiding and abetting murder earlier this month. All of the officers were fired from their jobs.

The killing of Mr Floyd on 25 May sparked global protests against police brutality and racial injustice that continue to this day.



« Last Edit: June 22, 2020, 05:35:17 PM by Flex »
The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Offline Flex

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #23 on: June 23, 2020, 12:08:58 PM »
Backlash to Asian American wife in Floyd case reveals disturbing truth
Kimmy Yam
NBC News


As more details around the death of George Floyd are revealed, other developments, including that the ex-officer charged with murder in the case was married to a Hmong American woman, have prompted discussion. It's also led to a spate of hateful online remarks in the Asian American community around interracial relationships.

The ex-officer, Derek Chauvin, was fired the day after Floyd's death and now faces murder and manslaughter charges. The day after his arrest last month, his wife, Kellie, filed for divorce, citing "an irretrievable breakdown" in the marriage. She also indicated her intention to change her name.

The Chauvins’ interracial marriage has stirred up strong feelings toward Kellie Chauvin among many, including Asian American men, over her relationship with a white man, including accusations of self-loathing and complicity with white supremacy.

Some on the internet have labeled her a “self-hating Asian.” Others have concluded her marriage was a tool to gain social standing in the U.S., and several social media users on Asian American message boards dominated by men have dubbed her a “Lu,” a slang term often used to describe Asian women who are in relationships with white men as a form of white worship.

Many experts feel the reaction is symptomatic of attitudes that many in the community, especially certain men, have held toward women in interracial relationships, particularly with white men. It’s the unfortunate result of a complicated, layered web spun from the historical emasculation of Asian men, fetishization of Asian women and the collision of sexism and racism in the U.S.

Sung Yeon Choimorrow, executive director of the nonprofit National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, told NBC Asian America that by passing judgment on Asian women's interracial relationships without context or details essentially removes their independence.

“The assumption is that an Asian woman who is married to a white man, she's living some sort of stereotype of a submissive Asian woman, who’s internalizing racism and wanting to be white or being closer to white or whatever,” she said.

That belief, Choimorrow added, “just goes with the whole idea that somehow we don't have a right to live our lives the way we want to.”

Little about the Chauvins’ marriage has been revealed to the public. Kellie, who came to the U.S. as a refugee, mentioned a few details in a 2018 interview with The Twin Cities Pioneer Press before becoming United States Of America's Mrs. Minnesota. She explained she had previously been in an arranged marriage in which she endured domestic abuse. She met Chauvin while she was working in the emergency room of Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.

Kellie Chauvin is hardly the only Asian woman who has been the target of these comments. In 2018, “Fresh Off the Boat” actress Constance Wu opened up about the anger she received from Asian men — specifically “MRAsians,” an Asian American play on the term “men’s rights activists" — for having dated a white man. Wu, who also starred in the culturally influential Asian American rom-com “Crazy Rich Asians,” was included in a widely circulated meme that, in part, attacked the female cast members for relationships with white men.

Experts pointed out that the underlying rhetoric isn’t confined to message boards or solely the darker corners of the internet. It’s rife throughout Asian American communities, and Asian women have long endured judgment and harassment for their relationship choices. Choimorrow notes it’s become a sort of "locker room talk" among many men in the racial group.

"It's not [just] incel, Reddit conversations,” Choimorrow said. “I'm hearing this amongst people daily.”

But sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen, a scholar focused on Asian American media representation, pointed out that the origins of such anger have some validity. The roots lie in the emasculation of Asian American men, a practice whose history dates back to the 1800s and early 1900s in what is referred to today as the “bachelor society,” Yuen said. That time period marked some of the first waves of immigration from Asia to the U.S. as Chinese workers were recruited to build the transcontinental railroad. One of the preliminary immigrant groups of Filipinos, dubbed the “manong generation,” also arrived in the country a few decades later.

While Asian men made their way stateside, women largely remained in Asia. Yuen noted that simultaneously, limits on Asian female immigration were instituted via the Page Act of 1875, which banned the importation of women “for the purpose of prostitution.” According to research published in The Modern American, the legislation may have been meant to cut off prostitution, but it was often weaponized to keep any Asian woman from entering the country, as it granted immigration officers the authority to determine whether a woman was of “high moral character.”

Moreover, antimiscegenation laws, or bans on interracial unions, kept Asian men from marrying other races, Yuen noted. It wasn’t until the 1967 case, Loving v. Virginia, that such legislation was declared unconstitutional.

“Americans thought of [Asian men] as emasculated,” she said. “They’re not perceived as virile because there’s no women. Because of immigration laws, there was a whole bachelor society … and so you have all these different kinds of Asian men in the United States who did not have partners.”

As the image of Asian men was once, in part, the architecture of racist legislation, the sexless, undesirable trope was further confirmed by Hollywood depictions of the race. Even heartthrob Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa, who did experience appeal from white women, was used to show Asian men as sexual threats during a period of rising anti-Japanese sentiment.

Often, these portrayals of both men and women evolved with war, Yuen added. For example, the sexualization of Asian women on screen was heightened after the Vietnam War due to prostitution and sex trafficking that American military men often took part in. Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film “Full Metal Jacket” infamously perpetuates the stereotype of women as sexual deviants with a scene featuring a Vietnamese sex worker exclaiming, “Me so horny.”

Asian women were seen as "the spoils of war and Asian men were seen as threats,” she said. “So always seeing them as either an enemy to be conquered or an enemy to be feared, all that has to do with the stereotypes of Asian men and women.”

Yuen is quick to point out that Asian women, who possessed very little decision-making power throughout U.S. history, were neither behind the legislation nor the narratives in the American entertainment industry.

The historical emasculation of Asian men stings to this day. A study from OkCupid found that Asian men were ranked least desirable among all demographics. Another study found that the majority of its Asian American female respondents reported their attraction, from a young age, was overwhelmingly to European American boys.

Pawan Dhingra, a sociologist and a professor of American studies at Amherst College, said this is in part due to the fact that Asian American women were not only consumers of Western media that perpetuated such stereotypes about Asian men while romanticizing the sensitive, “masculine” white man, they also internalized some cultural baggage from the often-patriarchal societies of their heritages.

“It comes from a set of assumptions we internalize ourselves. We see immigrant parents, or relationships between men and women in the homeland, that might be more traditional gender roles,” Dhingra said. “We assume that it applies to all people of our background, even no matter where they grew up.”

However, directing anger toward Asian women for their interracial relationships uncovers a host of problematic underlying beliefs, experts said. Some of the vitriol stems from erroneous assumptions that because women are seen as more sexually desirable, they are therefore more privileged. Anthony Ocampo — a sociologist who focuses on race, immigration and LGBTQ issues — bluntly referred to that particular argument as “unbelievably stupid.”

“Privilege is the ability to navigate the social world and experience social mobility without your identity hampering your journey. In what world do you see Asian women getting frontrunners for public office, being tapped to be CEOs of companies, to be considered for leads in Hollywood movies?” the scholar said. “Sure, Asian men aren't being tapped for these opportunities either, but Asian women aren't the problem — white gatekeepers are.”

Moreover, Choimorrow said the idea that Asian women are more privileged ignores the dangerous byproducts of their fetishization. This includes not only the dehumanization of these women, but also the susceptibility to harassment and violence due to the submissive stereotype.

From "21 to 55 percent of Asian women in the U.S. report experiencing intimate physical and/or sexual violence during their lifetime," the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence reported. The range is based on a compilation of studies of disaggregated samples of Asian ethnicities in local communities. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center reported that about 1 in 5 women in the U.S. overall have experienced completed or attempted rape during her lifetime.

“I just hate this whole Olympics of the oppressed,” Choimorrow said. “I just think it’s such a short-sighted approach. Dude, you don't walk out every day worrying about your physical safety. For women, that’s exactly what we worry about when we walk out our door.”

Yuen echoed her thoughts, adding, “Just because Asian women don't share the same kinds of challenges as Asian men doesn't mean that they should be held to a different standard or at their struggle within the racial sexual politics of the United States. It isn’t any less valid.”

Dhingra also acknowledged that there lies a double standard when it comes to Asian women, leading the group to be judged more harshly than their male peers. He explained that it comes down to a uniquely racialized brand of sexism. Being in relationships with other Asian Americans has been seen as a sort of litmus test for how “committed” one is to the race. Additionally, because of the existing stereotype of Asian women as submissive, particularly to white men, the sight of an Asian woman in an interracial relationship can trigger the idea that she is perpetuating existing stereotypes. He explained that there’s a perception that Asian women are reproducing racism toward Asian men and affirming the idea that they’re not worth dating.

He said the collision of sexism and racism has made it so that there’s a stricter, more unfair dynamic placed on Asian American women.

The burden placed on Asian American women to date within their own race also presents another problematic idea: that women are still thought of as property, Choimorrow noted. It’s just another form of toxic masculinity, she said, as the expectation that Asian women date Asian men means there is no agency in their dating choices. It’s a mentality that has been inherited through our heritages, she said.

“Even in Korea, as a woman, your value isn't so much as you are marriageable,” she said. “So many of our cultures have these things very deeply ingrained in the way we value and think about women.”

Little has changed, Choimorrow believes. Even as many Asian Americans continue to fight for racial justice, some ideas have been slow to evolve.

“Especially in the progressive circles, they're focused on their oppression as a racial minority, that they often don't think about what they're perpetuating as men,” she said.

The undue pressure toward Asian American women to “fix” the existing structures is not productive in helping mend the reductive perceptions of Asian men, Ocampo said.

Simply put, “You don't need to subjugate women, including Asian women, to feel sexy. That's just f------ lame.”

Dhingra is adamant that no assumptions should be made about any couple’s racial dynamic, particularly if there’s no personal connection to the couple. But he also emphasized that people need to push back on the perpetuation of the problematic ideas in society that devalue Asian Americans while upholding whiteness.

Ocampo had similar thoughts, explaining that more people should be demanding more complicated Asian male characters on screen, rather than those who fit “some perfectly chiseled IG model aesthetic,” he said, referencing carefully curated photos from models on Instagram.

While there are many social reasons for why we value whiteness that Dhingra said are “pretty messed up,” Asian Americans should seek to dismantle them and thus “get to the point where we have more confidence when people do form interracial relationships, because we actually care about that particular individual as a person.”


Kellie Chauvin in 2018 when she was vying for the title of Mrs. Minnesota America. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press via AP file)

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #24 on: June 23, 2020, 08:04:38 PM »
Welcome to the club

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #25 on: August 27, 2020, 04:42:14 PM »
Cue the band again. No one is a sub; everyone is a player.
 
Big up to Bob Costas for speaking unequivocally about race, politics, sport and willful ignorance.

"2020" x "7 in the back".
« Last Edit: August 27, 2020, 04:47:22 PM by asylumseeker »

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #26 on: August 31, 2020, 12:57:53 AM »
Officer charged in George Floyd's death argues drug overdose killed him, not knee on neck
BILL HUTCHINSON (ABCNEWS)


A defense attorney for the fired Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in connection with the death of George Floyd is asking a judge to drop all charges, arguing the 46-year-old man's death was allegedly from a drug overdose and not caused by the officer planting his knee in the back of Floyd's neck.

Defense attorney Eric J. Nelson filed the motion in Hennepin County, Minnesota, District Court on Friday, claiming prosecutors have failed to show probable cause for charging Derek Chauvin with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Chauvin has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Nelson contends Chauvin acted on his training from the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) in the use of a "Maximal Restraint Technique" and did so out of concern that Floyd might harm himself or the officers struggling to arrest him.

The Minneapolis Police Department policy on "Maximal Restraint Technique" says it "shall only be used in situations where handcuffed subjects are combative and still pose a threat to themselves, officers or others, or could cause significant damage to property if not properly restrained."

MORE: Newly released video show onlookers' reaction to George Floyd's death

Nelson also included Minneapolis Police Department training materials on the proper use of the "Maximal Restraint Technique," in which photos show demonstrations of officers simulating putting their knee on a handcuffed subject's neck. Nelson argued the training material appeared to contradict a statement made shortly after the incident by Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo that he had not seen "anything that says you place your knee on someone's neck when they're facedown, handcuffed."

"Thus, any risk created by Mr. Chauvin's conduct lies largely with those who train MPD officers and those who approve such training," Nelson wrote in the motion filed on Friday.

Nelson also cited the autopsy conducted on Floyd that found fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, a combination of drugs Nelson says is known as a speedball. He noted that the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's post-mortem report showed Floyd had arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease, hypertension and sickle cell trait. Floyd also purportedly told the officers that he had contracted COVID-19 and was still positive for the virus at the time of his death, a claim confirmed by his autopsy.

"Put simply, Mr. Floyd could not breathe because he had ingested a lethal dose of fentanyl and, possibly, a speedball. Combined with sickle cell trait, his pre-existing heart conditions, Mr. Floyd's use of fentanyl and methamphetamine most likely killed him," Nelson argued. "Adding fentanyl and methamphetamine to Mr. Floyd's existing health issues was tantamount to lighting a fuse on a bomb."

Nelson added a footnote quoting Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker saying, "If [Mr. Floyd] were found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes, this could be acceptable to call an OD."

A Sept. 11 court hearing before Judge Peter Cahill has been scheduled on the motion filed by Nelson.

The attorney for Floyd's family, Benjamin Crump, did not respond to an ABC News request for comment on the motions. Previously, Crump stated regarding the drugs in Floyd's system, "The cause of death was that he was starving for air. It was lack of oxygen. And so everything else is a red herring to try to throw us off."

An independent autopsy ordered by Floyd's family found his death was a "homicide caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain."

A viral cellphone video of Floyd's fatal arrest on May 25 showed Chauvin with his knee on the back of Floyd's neck while he was handcuffed and prone on the ground next to a police patrol vehicle. Two other officers, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, are seen in the footage helping Chauvin restrain Floyd, whom they initially confronted when they responded to a 911 complaint that Floyd had allegedly used a phony $20 bill to purchase cigarettes at the Cup Foods store in Minneapolis.

The footage of Floyd's arrest showed him repeatedly saying "I can't breathe" and calling out for his dead mother before his body went listless. Floyd was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Floyd's death sparked nationwide outcry and massive protests across the U.S. and around the world against racial injustice. The episode, the latest in a string of police killings of unarmed Black people in the United States, has become a rallying cry against police brutality and part of a call to defund law enforcement agencies.

Lane, Kueng and Officer Tou Thao, who arrived at the scene with Chauvin when back-up was requested, have all been terminated from the Minneapolis Police Department and charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder in the death of Floyd.

Lane, Kueng, and Thao have not yet entered pleas -- in court documents, attorneys for Thao and Kueng said their clients intend to plead not guilty to the charges.

Attorneys for Lane, Kueng and Thao have also asked that charges against them be dropped. Cahill has yet to render a decision on those motions.

Prosecutors in the case filed a notice on Friday saying they intend to seek an "upward sentencing departure" from state judicial guidelines if the defendants are found guilty at trial, tentatively scheduled for March 2021.

"Mr. Floyd was treated with particular cruelty," prosecutors wrote in their notice. "Despite Mr. Floyd's pleas that he could not breathe and was going to die, as well as the pleas of eyewitnesses to get off Mr. Floyd and help him, Defendant and his co-defendants continued to restrain Mr. Floyd."

But Nelson argued in court papers that Chauvin and the other officers were trying to protect Floyd, who he alleged was acting erratically and resisting arrest, from injuring himself by "falling and hitting his head on the sidewalk, being struck by an oncoming vehicle, or in his struggles, injuring himself against the squad car."

"Mr. Chauvin demonstrated a concern for Mr. Floyd's well-being -- not an intent to inflict harm," Nelson wrote in the motion.

He said Chauvin was "clearly being cautious about the amount of pressure he used to restrain Mr. Floyd" and pointed out that in the video Floyd was able to raise his head several times while he was prone on the ground.

"If Mr. Chauvin's knee had been on the structure of Mr. Floyd's neck, he would not have been able to lift his head," Nelson wrote.

He also claimed that as the officers were restraining Floyd they requested a "code 3" response from emergency medical services requiring an ambulance responding to the scene to use lights and sirens, and that the officers together decided against the using a hobble restraint device on Floyd "which would have significantly delayed the transfer of Mr. Floyd into the ambulance and also have required an MPD sergeant to respond to the scene."

Nelson again cited the autopsy report that found no bruising or evidence of trauma on the back of Floyd's neck, his neck muscles or his back.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's office ruled Floyd's death a homicide, finding he perished as the result of "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression."

Floyd's death has been roundly condemned by law enforcement, politicians and protesters nationwide and has been held up as an exhibit of excessive use of force by police.

Just days after the incident, President Donald Trump expressed the "nation's deepest condolences and most heartfelt sympathies to the family of George Floyd."

"Terrible, terrible thing that happened," Trump said on May 29, adding that he had asked the U.S. Department of Justice to expedite a federal investigation into the death. "We all saw what we saw and it's very hard to even conceive of anything other than what we did see. It should never happen. It should never be allowed to happen, a thing like that. But we're determined that justice be served."


PHOTO: In an image made from video posted to Facebook, a Minneapolis police officer kneels on the neck of a man identified by a family attorney as George Floyd, May 25, 2020. Floyd died shortly after the incident. (Darnella Frazier via Storyful)

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #27 on: February 02, 2021, 02:27:42 PM »
'Don't Kill Me': Others Tell of Abuse by Officer Who Knelt on George Floyd
Jamiles Lartey and Abbie VanSickle
NY Times


Nearly three years before Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd as he cried out that he couldn’t breathe last May, Zoya Code found herself in a similar position: handcuffed facedown on the ground, with Chauvin’s knee on her.

The officer had answered a call of a domestic dispute at her home, and Code said he forced her down when she tried to pull away.

“He just stayed on my neck,” Code said, ignoring her desperate pleas to get off. Frustrated and upset, she challenged him to press harder. “Then he did. Just to shut me up,” she said.

Last week, a judge in Minnesota ruled that prosecutors could present the details of her 2017 arrest in their case against the former officer, who was charged with second-degree unintentional murder in Floyd’s death.

Code’s case was one of six arrests as far back as 2015 that the Minnesota attorney general’s office sought to introduce, arguing that they showed how Chauvin was using excessive force when he restrained people — by their necks or by kneeling on top of them — just as he did in arresting Floyd. Police records show that Chauvin was never formally reprimanded for any of these incidents, even though at least two of those arrested said they had filed formal complaints.

Of the six people arrested, two were Black, one was Latino and one was Native American. The race of two others was not included in the arrest reports that reporters examined.

Discussing the encounters publicly for the first time in interviews with The Marshall Project, three people who were arrested by Chauvin and a witness in a fourth incident described him as an unusually rough officer who was quick to use force and callous about their pain.

The interviews provide new insight into the history of a police officer whose handling of Floyd’s arrest, captured on video, was seen around the world and sparked months of protests in dozens of cities.

Chauvin, who was fired, has said through his attorney that his handling of Floyd’s arrest was a reasonable use of authorized force. But he was the subject of at least 22 complaints or internal investigations during his more than 19 years at the department, only one of which resulted in discipline. These new interviews show not only that he may have used excessive force in the past, but that he had used startlingly similar techniques.

All four people who told of their encounters with Chauvin had a history of run-ins with law enforcement, mostly for traffic and nonviolent offenses.

Code’s arrest occurred June 25, 2017. In a court filing, Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric J. Nelson, said the officer acted properly in the case, responding to “a violent crime in a volatile situation.” He said that “there was nothing unreasonable or unauthorized about Mr. Chauvin’s actions.”

Code’s mother had accused her of trying to choke her with an extension cord, according to the arrest report. Code said in an interview that her mother was swinging the cord around, and that she merely grabbed hold of it.

She said she had left the house to cool off after the fight and when she returned, Chauvin and his partner had arrived. In the prosecutors’ description, based on Chauvin’s report and body-camera video, Chauvin told Code she was under arrest and grabbed her arm. When she pulled away, he pulled her to the ground face first and knelt on her. The two officers then picked her up and carried her outside the house, facedown.

There, prosecutors said, Chauvin knelt on the back of the handcuffed woman “even though she was offering no physical resistance at all.”

Code, in an interview, said she began pleading: “Don’t kill me.”

At that point, according to the prosecutors’ account, Chauvin told his partner to restrain Code’s ankles as well, though she “was not being physically aggressive.”

As he tied her, she said, she told the other officer, “You’re learning from an animal. That man — that’s evilness right there.”

Misdemeanor domestic assault and disorderly conduct charges filed against Code were ultimately dropped.

‘You’re Choking Me’

The earliest incident in which prosecutors said Chauvin used excessive force took place Feb. 15, 2015, when he arrested Julian Hernandez — a carpenter who was on a road trip to Minneapolis to see a band at the El Nuevo Rodeo nightclub. Chauvin worked as an off-duty security officer there for almost 17 years.

The arrest report filed by Chauvin said Hernandez tried to leave the club through the wrong door, and Chauvin stopped him and escorted him down a stairwell. Hernandez said in an interview that he had been drinking, but felt like Chauvin was pushing him down the stairs.

Outside, Hernandez said, “things escalated.”

Chauvin’s report said that Hernandez tried to turn around as he was preparing to handcuff him, so he pushed him away “by applying pressure toward his lingual artery” at the top of the neck.

Hernandez said the officer told him “you just need to leave,” and he remembered thinking that he was trying to leave but was not being allowed to do so. As Chauvin pushed him into a wall and grabbed him by the throat, Hernandez recalled thinking, “You’re choking me.”

Hernandez said he tried to sue the department, but no lawyer would take his case. He was charged with disorderly conduct, but under a court agreement he avoided punishment by staying out of trouble for a year, records show.

Nelson, the officer’s lawyer, said in a court filing that there was no evidence that Chauvin acted improperly in “dealing with a resistant, aggressive arrestee by himself.”

Under the judge’s order, only Code’s arrest, among the six cases showing what may have been excessive force, can be used at Chauvin’s trial. Prosecutors also sought to include two additional cases they said showed just the opposite — that Chauvin knew how to use reasonable force to properly restrain a person.

The judge’s order will allow them to use one of those cases: an incident in which the police department commended Chauvin and other officers for taking lifesaving steps in placing a restrained, suicidal man on his side so he could breathe. Chauvin even rode with the man to the hospital, according to prosecutors.

According to the attorney general’s office, the arrest showed that he knew how important it was to avoid breathing problems in detainees. When he did not put Floyd in a similar side position, prosecutors contend, he understood that it could jeopardize his life.

Chauvin’s lawyer objected to any of the previous arrests being admitted at his trial, which is set to begin in March. He argued that Chauvin’s actions “were not crimes,” but rather part of Chauvin’s job as an officer, and that a police supervisor at each arrest scene reviewed his use of force and concluded that it comported with department standards.

The Minneapolis Police Department did not respond to queries about past complaints against Chauvin. Critics say the department has a long history of accusations of abuse, but never fully put in place federal recommendations to implement a better system of tracking complaints and punishing officers. Only a handful over the years have faced firing or serious punishment.

‘I Can’t Breathe,’ the Man Said

In another case prosecutors highlighted to try to establish a pattern of excessive force, a man said he landed in the hospital overnight after an encounter with Chauvin. The man, Jimmy Bostic, had made a purchase at the Midtown Global Market in April 2016 and was waiting for a ride when private security guards asked him to leave. A different shop owner had accused him of panhandling, the arrest report said. Bostic argued, and Chauvin was called in.

Chauvin escorted Bostic outside, writing in the arrest report that Bostic had threatened to spit on the owner.

“I closed distance with” Bostic, Chauvin wrote, “and secured his neck/head area with my hands.”

Bostic said in an interview that as Chauvin and the private security guards attempted to put him in cuffs, he yanked his arm back.

“The next thing I felt was arms just wrapped around my neck,” he said. “I started telling him, ‘Let go, I’m having trouble breathing. I have asthma. I can’t breathe.’”

Chauvin’s lawyer, in a court filing, said the officer “acted reasonably” and followed police policy in restraining Bostic, who he said was refusing orders and making threats.

After he was released from police custody at the scene, Bostic said, emergency medical workers took him to a hospital. Suffering from an asthma attack, he said, he stayed for over a day. A disorderly conduct charge against him was ultimately dropped.

“Looking back on Mr. Floyd, that could have been me,” said Bostic, who is now in state prison on an unrelated burglary conviction. “And I would no longer be alive right now to even tell my story.”

Monroe Skinaway, a 74-year-old Minneapolis resident, was a chance witness to another incident prosecutors cited that occurred in March 2019. He said in an interview that he had called the police after he spotted his grandson’s stolen car parked at a South Minneapolis gas station.

As he answered police questions about the car, Skinaway said, he saw a young man wandering nearby, asking officers to give him a ride. Skinaway said the man seemed “off.”

The man, named in the arrest report as Sir Rilee Peet, 26, followed one officer to his squad car. After Peet refused to take his hands out of his pockets, the officer tried to grab him, and they scuffled, the police report said.

That is when the other officer, identified in the report as Chauvin, sprayed Peet with Mace. Chauvin restrained him by the neck and pinned him facedown on the ground by kneeling on his lower back, according to the prosecutors’ description of body-camera video.

Skinaway said he remembers seeing the officer on top of Peet, but also something not mentioned in Chauvin’s account in the arrest report. Skinaway said the officer put Peet’s head, facedown, in a rain puddle. Other officers were present as well, he said.

“He said, ‘I can’t breathe — can I just put my head up?’” Skinaway said. “And they just held his face in the water, and I couldn’t see a purpose for that.”

Skinaway said he was about 7 feet away as he watched Peet struggle for air, bubbles surfacing as he tried to breathe. He estimated that the officer kept Peet in the puddle for two to three minutes. Whenever Peet managed to turn his head for air, Skinaway said, the officer grabbed him by his long hair and put his head back in the water.

When he spoke by phone with a reporter, Skinaway said he did not know the officer’s name or that there was a connection with the Floyd case, but the details he described match those noted in the police report and prosecutors’ account.

Chauvin’s lawyer, Nelson, said in a court filing that the officer had acted according to police policy. “It was after midnight in South Minneapolis, and a man who refused to remove his hands from his pockets repeatedly approached the officers after being told not to,” he said. The filing said Peet’s actions had created concern for the officers’ safety.

Peet was charged with misdemeanor obstruction of the legal process and disorderly conduct, but it is unclear from court records what happened to the charges. The records show Peet has a history of court-ordered treatment for mental illness. In a phone call, Peet told a reporter that he did not recall the encounter.

Some of those whom Chauvin arrested said that learning the same officer had been involved in Floyd’s death made them regret they had not pushed harder to hold the officer and the department accountable.

“I don’t have nothing against cops, I got relatives that are cops,” said Hernandez, the carpenter arrested at the nightclub. “But he should have never been on the force that long.”

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #28 on: February 10, 2021, 06:21:06 PM »
Minority officers were barred from guarding Derek Chauvin in jail, lawsuit alleges
By Minyvonne Burke
NBC NEWS


Eight minority correctional officers at a Minnesota county jail filed a racial discrimination lawsuit claiming they were barred from guarding the former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd's death.

The suit, filed Tuesday in state district court, alleges that a superintendent at the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center, or ADC, in St. Paul reassigned officers of color to another floor when the former officer, Derek Chauvin, was arrested on murder charges in May.

The suit says the officers — who identify as African American, Hispanic, Pacific Islander and mixed-race — were "segregated and prevented from doing their jobs by defendant solely because of the color of their skin."

The officers also claim that Chauvin received special treatment from a white lieutenant.

"When Officer Chauvin arrived, they were prepared to do the jobs they had done every single day up to that point, until, that is, Superintendent Lydon's order prevented them from doing so," the officers' attorney, Lucas Kaster, said at a news conference Tuesday, referring to jail Supt. Steve Lydon.

"The impact on our clients has been immense. They're deeply humiliated and distressed, and the bonds necessary within the high-stress and high-pressure environment of the ADC have been broken," he said.

Chauvin was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter four days after video recorded on May 25 showed him kneeling on Floyd's neck for about nine minutes as Floyd repeatedly said he could not breathe.

The lawsuit says the correctional officers were performing their regular duties at the jail when they were informed that they would be reassigned because of Chauvin's arrival.

The suit claims that Lydon ordered that all minority officers were not allowed to guard Chauvin or interact with him or to even be on the fifth floor, where Chauvin was held.

The officers were "extremely upset and offended," the lawsuit says.

One of the plaintiffs, Devin Sullivan, regularly processes and books high-profile inmates. The suit alleges that he was in the middle of patting down Chauvin when Lydon told him to stop and replaced him with a white officer.

The suit also says two other officers saw on security cameras that a white lieutenant "was granted special access" to Chauvin. The lieutenant was allowed access to Chauvin's cell unit, sat on his bed, patted his back "while appearing to comfort him" and let Chauvin use a cellphone.

Several of the minority officers asked to speak with Lydon, who "denied he was racist and defended his decision."

The Ramsey County Sheriff's Office did not return a request for comment Tuesday, and Lydon could not be reached at numbers listed for him.

In June, the plaintiffs filed discrimination charges with the state Department of Human Rights. Kaster told the Star Tribune newspaper of Minneapolis that the case never gained traction, so attorneys requested that it be closed so they could pursue legal action.

Kaster said at Tuesday's news conference that his clients sued to hold Lydon and Ramsey County "responsible for the discrimination that occurred under their watch."

According to the Star Tribune, a spokesman for the sheriff's office initially denied the officers' claims but later acknowledged Lydon's order and said Lydon had been temporarily demoted while the department conducted an internal investigation. The outcome of the investigation was not clear.

In a statement that he gave during the investigation and that the sheriff's office provided to the Star Tribune, Lydon said he was trying to "protect and support" minority employees by shielding them from Chauvin.

Kaster said Tuesday that Lydon's explanation was never given to his clients and that it was provided only after the fact.

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Re: R.I.P George Floyd
« Reply #29 on: February 12, 2021, 02:57:20 AM »
AG Barr quashed plea deal by fired officer in George Floyd death
Pete Williams and Janelle Griffith
NBC NEWS


The fired Minneapolis police officer who held his knee to George Floyd's neck agreed to plead guilty to third-degree murder days after Floyd's death, but then-Attorney General William Barr rejected the deal.

Derek Chauvin and the three other officers involved were fired days after Floyd's death on May 25 and later arrested. Chauvin faces second-degree murder charges and is scheduled for trial in March. The other three are charged with aiding and abetting and are to be tried together in the summer.

The details of the failed deal were first reported by The New York Times.

A former Justice Department official confirmed the failed deal to NBC News, saying that both politically appointed and career Department of Justice officials had rejected the idea.

"His lawyers were trying to rush us, and we didn't want to be rushed," the official said.

Chauvin's lawyer, Eric Nelson, declined to comment Thursday.

A spokesperson for Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is leading the prosecution, said he could not comment because it covers a period before Ellison was assigned to the case.

Lacey Severins, a spokeswoman for the Hennepin County attorney's office, which was handling the case at the time, said: "As is typical in many cases, early negotiations can occur between all relevant parties involved. Many times, a defendant will explore their options with a negotiation. It is also common for these types of discussions to happen in the beginning of a case and then have no agreed upon negotiations develop. This case was no different. Negotiations were discussed, nothing developed."

Floyd's death sparked nationwide protests and renewed calls for an end to police brutality and racial inequities.

"As part of the deal, officials now say, he was willing to go to prison for more than 10 years," the Times reported. "Local officials, scrambling to end the community's swelling anger, scheduled a news conference to announce the deal."

But the deal fell apart, the Times reported, citing three law enforcement officials, because Barr worried that it was too early in the investigation and would be perceived as too lenient. Barr also wanted to allow state officials taking over the case time to make their own decisions, the Times reported.

Chauvin had asked to serve his time in a federal prison, and the deal was contingent on the federal government's approval because Chauvin wanted assurance he would not face federal civil rights charges, the Times reported.

It would be highly unusual for the Justice Department to agree in advance to stop a civil rights investigation and forgo any possible federal prosecution before state proceedings have fully played out.

The incident involving Floyd was recorded by a bystander and widely shared on social media. Police were investigating whether he used a counterfeit $20 bill at a nearby store.

The video shows Floyd begging, "Please, please, please, I can't breathe. My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Please, please. I can't breathe," before he went silent.

The real measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

 

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