Why was George Floyd’s death such a big deal compared to other police killings?

[Tekken_Guy]

What was it about George Floyd’s death that was really impactful compared to other similar deaths?

[Crumpets]

A big part of it was when it happened. I remember reading an article during the protests that compared the reaction to George Floyd to the New York blackout in 1977. Unlike other blackouts, there was widespread looting in 1977 because it was happening at a time when the city and country already felt like they were in a time of crisis and there was much less a sense of comradery than in similar incidents in the past.

The US was already at a boiling point last summer, and it wasn't just on the left. If it hadn't been George Floyd, it was going to be something else.

[vitoNova]

It occured in the midst of the Corona.

[forza nocta]

The entire murder was caught on camera for everybody to see and there was no possible defense for the police that the right could come up with.

[Bootes Void]

This came after arbury death in Ga, and the central park incident in NY. There were a few things leading up to it for sure.

This might be cynical to say but Flyod death might have gotten Biden into the WH so thats also significant

[Kingpoleon]

It was impossible to defend. Impossible.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Straw that broke the camel's back. There was also the Ahmad Aubrey killing video at a similar time (personally, that affected me more) along with the shooting of Breonna Taylor, and also we had a major social and economic crisis that led to people having a lot of time and feeling a lot of stress, anger, fear, etc.

Really bad combination that simply needed a spark.

[dead0man]

It was impossible to defend. Impossible.

oh, but a certain type of person will try anyway.  I've heard it a few times.  He was on drugs you see.  Perhaps that would have been a good defense if the jerk cop hadn't leaned on the back of his neck for 8 minutes.

I still feel the Breonna Taylor murder was worse and would have made a much better "example" as she wasn't doing anything illegal at all and the cover up around it was 500% worse.

[MasterJedi]

It was impossible to defend. Impossible.

oh, but a certain type of person will try anyway.  I've heard it a few times.  He was on drugs you see.  Perhaps that would have been a good defense if the jerk cop hadn't leaned on the back of his neck for 8 minutes.

I still feel the Breonna Taylor murder was worse and would have made a much better "example" as she wasn't doing anything illegal at all and the cover up around it was 500% worse.

That's the exact line used. Just got back last weekend from visiting my parents in Florida. Dad golfed with a guy who is retired police, his friends told him that Floyd had drugs so they did nothing wrong. Also said that every other issue, Taylor, etc is the liberal media demonizing them and every shooting is justified, etc. Cop culture is the issue.

[dead0man]

It was impossible to defend. Impossible.

oh, but a certain type of person will try anyway.  I've heard it a few times.  He was on drugs you see.  Perhaps that would have been a good defense if the jerk cop hadn't leaned on the back of his neck for 8 minutes.

I still feel the Breonna Taylor murder was worse and would have made a much better "example" as she wasn't doing anything illegal at all and the cover up around it was 500% worse.

That's the exact line used. Just got back last weekend from visiting my parents in Florida. Dad golfed with a guy who is retired police, his friends told him that Floyd had drugs so they did nothing wrong. Also said that every other issue, Taylor, etc is the liberal media demonizing them and every shooting is justified, etc. Cop culture is the issue.

it's just a ridiculous thing to say "every shooting is justified", it proves the person has zero objectivity and shouldn't be listened to.  How could it possibly be that "every shooting is justified" unless they think every cop is 100% correct 100% of the time and that's an insane thing to think, especially for a cop.

Maybe Floyd would have died if the jerk cop hadn't leaned on his neck for 8 minutes, but we'll never know and it's certainly not a thing you can assume.  Certainly the public has been wrong on judging cops too harshly too quickly after a shooting, there are still dummies that just know Michael Brown was murdered by Darren Wilson and that's not the case.  On the other hand, for every case like that, there are a dozen times where the cops straight up murdered someone and got away with it.

[MasterJedi]

It was impossible to defend. Impossible.

oh, but a certain type of person will try anyway.  I've heard it a few times.  He was on drugs you see.  Perhaps that would have been a good defense if the jerk cop hadn't leaned on the back of his neck for 8 minutes.

I still feel the Breonna Taylor murder was worse and would have made a much better "example" as she wasn't doing anything illegal at all and the cover up around it was 500% worse.

That's the exact line used. Just got back last weekend from visiting my parents in Florida. Dad golfed with a guy who is retired police, his friends told him that Floyd had drugs so they did nothing wrong. Also said that every other issue, Taylor, etc is the liberal media demonizing them and every shooting is justified, etc. Cop culture is the issue.

it's just a ridiculous thing to say "every shooting is justified", it proves the person has zero objectivity and shouldn't be listened to.  How could it possibly be that "every shooting is justified" unless they think every cop is 100% correct 100% of the time and that's an insane thing to think, especially for a cop.

Maybe Floyd would have died if the jerk cop hadn't leaned on his neck for 8 minutes, but we'll never know and it's certainly not a thing you can assume.  Certainly the public has been wrong on judging cops too harshly too quickly after a shooting, there are still dummies that just know Michael Brown was murdered by Darren Wilson and that's not the case.  On the other hand, for every case like that, there are a dozen times where the cops straight up murdered someone and got away with it.

Well, my dad believed him 100% and then came and ranted to be after watching Fox/OANN every night about "the libs" and then people wonder why they still support Trump, I'm not surprised when the average senior citizen conservative gets spoon-fed crap and buys it all.

[dead0man]

Well, my dad believed him 100% and then came and ranted to be after watching Fox/OANN every night about "the libs" and then people wonder why they still support Trump, I'm not surprised when the average senior citizen conservative gets spoon-fed crap and buys it all.

my parents are the same way.  It's frustrating and sad.

[Crumpets]

In case anyone wonders where the "he was on drugs, the cops did nothing wrong" narrative is coming from:

https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1359676426736332800

[7,052,770]

It was impossible to defend. Impossible.

I read on the forum that Floyd actually died of a drug overdose and the cop is innocent.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

A combination of the previous points that have been made: American society was both overdue for and primed for a long hot summer already, and Floyd's murder was uniquely difficult to make excuses for due to how extensively and graphically the bystanders documented it. Take out either of those elements and you probably have something more akin to Ferguson 2.0 than to the latter-day Rodney King riots that we ended up getting.

[GP270watch]

 Depraved indifference. It's hard to argue that the actions of the police that day were protecting the public, themselves, or Mr. Floyd. You had the actual public on the sidewalk begging and pleading to help him and intervene because it was clear the actions of Derek Chauvin were excessive.

[Crumpets]

Also, just going back to my personal reaction to the first week of protests, it wasn't the initial violence at some of the protests that really made this a unique event compared to other anti-racism protests. It was the overwhelming police response to the protests combined with all sorts of other factors that brought a lot of us more slacktivist types out of the woodwork. Like I said in my first post, it wasn't just the left's reaction that was unique, but the reaction of the police to those initial protests played a huge part in the escalation. Once the videos started to proliferate of the force the police were using on even undisputably peaceful protesters, it became less a sense of "I don't really want to go to a protest in the middle of a pandemic" and more "it's my patriotic duty to fight back against this ongoing injustice, or else I'm siding with the oppressors."

And I think you can reasonably make the case (although we'll never know for certain) that the only thing stopping the anti-lockdown protests on the right from becoming the mirror image of the George Floyd protests was the fact that Trump was in the White House and they were confident he'd stay there, while there was much more uncertainty on the left about where America was headed. Once the tables were turned, it only took a matter of weeks before we got the storming of the Capitol.

[7,052,770]

It was impossible to defend. Impossible.

I read on the forum that Floyd actually died of a drug overdose and the cop is innocent.

And now that Tucker Carlson is saying the same thing, I expect this thought to become the Republican standard before long.

[Pollster]

Because it wasn't a "normal" police murder. There is something incredibly different about a relatively long and slow-paced video of a grown man shouting for his mother while being suffocated by another man's knee, compared to the typical one-or-so minute dashcam video with a few quick gunshots.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It was an Election year story, Hillary used the Tray on Martin case in 2016/ and as usual 30 and under didn't vote