Last week, I told myself I was going to turn off my phone notifications. Until today, I wasn’t on Instagram for that whole week. Little did I know, on my social media there was a complete resurgence of the BLM Movement following the death of George Floyd. I come back to see these video reposts of George Floyd pinned to the ground, petitions my friends want me to sign, and a manhunt for the Minneapolis police department.
As I was watching the video of George Floyd pinned down on the ground by a police officer, Derek Chauvin while reciting the words, ‘Officer I can’t breathe, my neck hurts,’ I realized that I’ve already seen this video before. Yes, but this video was not of Derek Chauvin, it was Daniel Pantaleo. Instead of George Floyd on the ground, it was Eric Garner pinned down. It didn’t take place in the streets of Minneapolis, but outside a corner store in New York. Eric Garner’s ‘I Can’t Breathe’ movement was when I first became aware of the forming cracks in our justice system. Justice was no longer blind; Justice took account of your background, job, race, and income before serving you in a court of law.
When I was a kid seeing the Eric Garner news unfold, I was in disbelief. How had the same country that I’ve pledged allegiance to everyday damaged us so badly? It’s hard watching a country that your immigrant parents pride themselves with has so many flaws. The stories they tell you when you’re younger about escaping a war-torn country to reach their American dreams leave you proud of a nation.
There are very powerful people behind these cases of police brutality. These were our future leaders and politicians that controlled aspects such as the media outreach, placing charges, and leveraging our court system and we must be aware of who these people are. The nation will forever mourn for these victims and their families affected by this injustice. As Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey addressed in his speech, the video of George Floyd is not just “5 minutes of horror, but 400 years” of it. Time and time again, the judicial system has proven to us that without educating ourselves about the issues today, history will repeat itself and George Floyd will not be the last case of police brutality against black America.
In 2014, Eric Garner was killed by NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo with a chokehold while pleading ‘I can’t breathe’ 11 times. The similarities between Eric Garner and George Floyd are upsetting right down to their final words.
George Floyd was caught purchasing from a corner store with a counterfeit 20 dollar bill and Eric Garner was suspected of selling illegal cigarettes.
Although the news is entitled to report the motives of why these officers approach these men, some will choose to highlight these ‘petty crimes’ as reasons for their deaths. They use it as a way to desensitize their deaths to the world as if they deserved the treatment of these police officers. No one is perfect in the world, yet they find anything in these victims’ lives to use against them; this is how countermovement groups like blue lives matter or all lives matter are fueled.
Another example of desensitizing their deaths is Eric Garner’s weight and George Floyd’s ‘pre-existing conditions.’ Those blame Eric Garner’s weight for his ability not to breathe while watching a police officer put him into a chokehold. Those blame George Floyd with having ‘pre-existing conditions’ with no medical records to support.
We seem to forget the third party when reading about these cases, who was filming these deaths? Ramsey Orta is in jail for possessing a handgun and selling heroin to an officer. He has been put in solitary confinement multiple times in the Collins Correctional Facility in Collins, N.Y. In 2016 -two years after filming Garner’s death- he had been arrested eight times in two years.
In my opinion, a handgun and drugs should not be enough to send someone to jail eight times with solitary confinement. Those two are his only charges, and he states that “sometimes I regret just not minding my business. Because it just put me in a messed-up predicament.”
in TIME. This viral video opened so many up to the BLM movement, and Orta regrets his role in educating others of Eric Garner’s death. Orta believes that the Staten Island jury system was out to get him the second he uploaded footage of Eric Garner.
Daniel Pantaleo received no charges and was only fired from the NYPD. With the video proof of Pantaleo putting Garner into a chokehold, the death was ruled a homicide which means one person intentionally did something that led to the death of someone else. Therefore, while the grand jury of Staten Island watched this video, they didn’t believe that Pantaleo intentionally meant to kill Garner, only meant to put him in a chokehold which led to his death.
The use of the chokehold was banned from the NYPD, so how did Daniel Pantaleo walk away without charges?
Only a slap on the wrist and a goodbye to the police department, Daniel Pantaleo walks free while Ramsey Orta is put into high surveillance from the same system.
Darnella Frazier, a 17 year old local from Minneapolis, recorded the now reposted video on everyone’s timeline. Frazier was scrutinized by viewers about how helpless she was in saving George Floyd and filming his death. In a Facebook post, she writes, “I don’t expect anyone who wasn’t placed in my position to understand why and how I feel the way that I do.”
Frazier is much younger than Ramsey but still faces the same harassment as he did 6 years ago. How can the media turn their backs on the girl whose video has now created a new spark to the BLM movement? These videos are the most damning pieces of evidence that can easily be spread through social media platforms, how can Ramsey Orta and Darnella Frazier suffer a backlash from them?
Amy Klobuchar, one of Joe Biden’s presumed picks for his vice presidency and former Hennepin county attorney, has been under controversy revolving the George Floyd case.
In 2002, 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards was shot in her home while doing her homework at her kitchen table. Myron Burrell was charged to killing Edwards and sentenced for life at the age of 16. In Detroit News, it is said that “Klobuchar denied his request to attend the funeral, saying he was a threat to society.
But 17 years later, Myron Burrell -34 now- still admits his innocence. People started to finally investigate further into the case and realized the inconsistencies and flaws in the police reports. The security footage of Burrell in the corner store -the time when the shooting took place- was never played in court. None of Burrell’s friends were called to the stand. The justice system that promised Burrell a chance at his freedom had wronged him. There were no fingerprints, no gun, no evidence. All they had was testimony from a teenage rival who was inconsistent with his story multiple times to the police officer. The cherry on top of this frustrating case was that Isaiah Dwane Tyson confessed to killing young Tyesha Edwards in 2008. Burrell had already been in jail for 6 years.
This is the case that has been following Klobuchar ever since. Klobuchar has now stepped forth into working along “fellow Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith and 26 other senators” to have an “investigation into the patterns and practices of racially discriminatory and violent policing in the Minneapolis Police Department.” But can we trust this representative to fight for the rights of black Americans even with her past? Although she claims that she wasn’t in the position to make the final decision and it was the grand jury, she was in charge of the case being the county attorney. What happens when Joe Biden does pick Klobuchar to become his vice president? The case of George Floyd and possibly future cases can rest in the hands of politicians such as Klobuchar. But it doesn’t just take politicians to corrupt the system, it also takes the power of the people enforcing the laws.
Derek Chauvin, the police officer seen in the video with his knee on George Floyd, had 18 prior violent conduct complaints against him before killing George Floyd. These complaints weren’t followed by any disciplinary action from the Minneapolis Police Department’s Internal Affairs, probably because of his 19 years of being a ‘veteran’ in the department. However Chauvin is not the only monster that is guilty of George Floyd’s murder, he was one of four officers present at the scene. Amongst those police officers was Tou Thao, a police officer with 6 complaints against him. He can be seen in Frazier’s video standing between the crowd and Chauvin. One of those complaints turned into a lawsuit filed by Ferguson, a black man, which was settled to Ferguson for $25,000. Tour Thao was extremely aggressive towards Ferguson by beating him to the ground which ended up with Ferguson in the hospital. Derek Chauvin is not the only one that should face repercussions and backlash from the media, the bystanding officers are just as guilty for the murder of Floyd.
[So this is me coming back 2 hours later to write about this movie. I just finished The Hate You Give and I was surprised. The movie stars Amanda Sternberg who plays a girl named Star who witnesses her friend get shot by a police officer. Throughout the movie, Star is a girl clinging to two cultures that are a part of her life, privileged Williamson prep school, and the poor neighborhood of Garden Heights. Now I was first aware of Amanda Sternberg when she played Rue in the Hunger Games and being a tween at the time, I cried when she died. Then I didn’t hear much about her until I watched Everything, Everything, I thought that her acting talent probably stopped with the little girl in District 11. But watching Sternberg in this movie, I completely believed that she was Star Carter and her movie family was her real one. It was hard watching Archie with a black wig try to convince us of his charisma, but I also found out that Kian Lawley was originally supposed to play Star’s boyfriend so I didn’t complain much after that.
There was a particular scene in the movie where they show Star’s Tumblr account. After the death of her friend, she posts pictures of black victims shot by police on her Tumblr and one of those pictures is of Emmett Till. It was a picture of his face bruised that I had never seen before. I couldn’t stop thinking about the image as the movie played, and it reminded me of when I visited the Emmett Till exhibit in the NMAAHC. I avoided looking at the picture back then, but it was the disturbing image of seeing it on my TV screen which left me taken aback. After I finished the movie, I realized that my being uncomfortable looking at that photo only made the present day even scarier. Although it wasn’t a little boy this time, there were teenagers and young adults not too long ago. Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. When you match a face to these names, the stories only get sadder which is why I think this film hit me hard when I saw Khalil die.
I don’t remember the last time I cried this hard while watching a film. I can only remember three movies that I’ve cried at and this is the third one. I was expecting a cheesy movie starring Hunger Games girl with good intentions but bad delivery, this movie left me in tears and scared of leaving my house.]
What would I do in this situation? How would I have reacted to watching the very men who were supposed to be protecting us from such violence be the ones inducing it on George Floyd? Watching the footage of people shouting at the police officers right there, I couldn’t help but feel I was as helpless watching it through a screen 5 days later. What other help could they have called for? We can never get George Floyd back, so we must protest, sign, and speak up while the media is still interested to end the murder of black Americans.