If George Floyd had raped someone before he was arrested would you still be upset about the way he died?

No. I don’t even wish death on my own rapist.

Police are not judge, jury, and executioner. That’s not how the system works. Police should keep the peace, assist the public, arrest when necessary, and shoot in self defense or in defense of others. Period.

Crushing somebody’s throat, regardless of what they may or may not have done, is WAY out of bounds.

I’d be just as upset as I was when Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald.

Of course I would be. It was a brutal, unnecessary death.

That tyrant, copsucker doesn’t get to decide the fate of anyone under his arrest.
The guy could’ve buttfucked Shirley Temple, not his duty to dish out some warped sense of justice.

@chinchin31: “If George Floyd had raped someone before he was arrested would you still be upset about the way he died?”

I’m not sure what you’re asking? Are you asking if people would think differently if the crime he was accused of that led to his murder was rape rather than passing fake $20? Or are you asking if people would think differently about the murder of George Floyd if he had been convicted of rape years earlier?

What are you asking?

@chinchin31: “but his case was not specifically race related when you examine it. It seems like more a case of police brutality in general as they could have just handcuffed him.”

What in the shit are you are asserting here? How is this not race-related?

Can I assume he had been convicted of the rape before he died? Then no.
If he hadn’t been tried or convicted, then yes. Because everyone is assumed to be innocent before trial.

Uh did you not notice HE WAS IN HANDCUFFS when the cop kneed his neck.

Agree 150% with @SQUEEKY2

George Floyd was in handcuffs and was not resisting.

The techniques used that resulted in his death were not only unnecessary, but were illegal,
Even if the cop was ignorant of a better way to subdue someone, you can’t tell me he didn’t know what he was doing.

Agree with above
Whatever the transgression, if it existed or not, he was handcuffed and under control.
After that it was just a matter of processing through the justice system.
What happened to him was a departure from that process and thus it was wrong.

“If George Floyd had raped someone before he was arrested would you still be upset about the way he died?”

Abso-goddamn-lutely. Police are not the judge, they are not the jury and they are not the executioner. And even if a man had been convicted of rape in the past that does not mean that he is guilty of the crime he is currently accused of. Too many people seem to not care about that.

There’s sometimes this attitude of he was a criminal, so he deserved to die that rears its ugly head whenever one of these killings happens. Being a criminal doesn’t make you deserving of death or excuse the methods of the police. My issue is with what the police did: it was wrong. That wouldn’t change if Floyd were a worse person. How the police act has only to do with the arrest/crime at hand. And nothing Floyd did made what Chauvin did necessary or excusable.

Even if Floyd did something that was worthy of the death penalty, the methods we use to put criminals to death are usually relatively humane (lethal injection) compared to knee on the neck until you pass out and die.

Your answer is in your question: “Police kill criminals everyday” Breaking the law is no justification for murder. The police are not gods. They are not lords of life. They are paid to protect life not to take it. The reason the world is rising up is because “Police kill criminals everyday” Criminals are human beings, first. They have rights in the U.S. that as you state, are violated daily by murderers. By your statement, police in the U.S. are daily murders. They are the true criminals. The reason this is race related is because the “criminals” the police are murdering daily are overwhelmingly Black. Disproportionately Black. Almost always Black. And this is a 400 year old practice.

Great. I like to see the different perspectives..thanks!!. Especially as I am not American. So please forgive me if I sound ignorant about anything related to the US.
Why were some comments deleted?.

@SQUEEKY2 You wouldn’t be slightly offended if it weren’t true.

I would personally, yes. I hope many others would as well.
I do think the conversation around it would be different. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? That black men in America are considerably more likely to be killed by police brutality for minor crimes or absolutely no reason at all (zero of which are justified because it’s both a heinous abuse of power and outright murder to do this.)

The only justification for deadly force would be if the if the perpetrator is trying to kill you, threatening to kill you (e.g. has a gun on you), or trying to steal your weapon.

George Floyd was killed while in handcuffs and was not even trying to resist.

@chinchin31 They were deleted for being too off subject, flame bait, personal attack or writing standards.

I agree @Yellowdog, or if a perp was trying to kill someone else.

If George Floyd was your son, would you be looking at things differently?

Black man is killed. They tell us all the bad things he used to be.

White man rapes. They tell us all the great things he could become.

- Omari Akil

I never heard anyone speak ill of the dead.

Did you read the details of the question?

Considering that he was a criminal, why should we care? Police kill criminals everyday and we never hear about it.

@Yellowdog

You must have selective hearing then.

I was responding to @raum ‘s quote of the Muslim couplet.

Black man is killed. They tell us all the bad things he used to be.
White man rapes. They tell us all the great things he could become.
– Omari Akil

I worked in a funeral home in 2005–2008. We had a black funeral every couple of days that was linked to crime or gang violence. I don’t ever recall anyone there who was beyond potential, was loved, and had supportive family somewhere. And I never heard a bad word spoken of any of them. Many killed in crime were eulogized on the news.

The ‘white man rapes and they tell us all the things he could have become’ is probably just intended as an insult, but probably meant to teach other cultures how bad we supposedly are.

@Yellowdog

The “Muslim couplet”? Your prejudices ring out loud and clear here. Beyond the fact that he has a vaguely Muslim sounding name do you know anything, anything at all, about the author of that quote to make such a pronouncement? I do. The quote’s author, Omar Akil, is a game designer. He is not any kind of religious speaker.

And are you really going to fall back on the “I haven’t seen it, therefore it never happens” logic? However, I’ll guarantee you that you’ve seen it plenty. You simply choose to ignore it or to conveniently forget about it.

Just about everything I’ve read by the author suggests that black men are targets of violence, and white people are of privilege. This coming from a game designer?

And the white men being rapists, or white men (assumed white Christian men) as being “sons of rape” might explain my ‘prejudices’, Even at face value, the lines are offensive.

Yes. It wasn’t only that he was murdered in broad daylight but I saw the look in that cops eyes. There was nothing in his expression but pure hate. Now if he was a child murder and it was his kid, I would understand. But it was none of that. He was murdered by that cop because he felt he could take his life and get away with it. He thought he could play God and decide if that man gets to live. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a soulless person. That cop is pure evil. And to make matters worse other soul-less people helped pay for his bail. He reminded me of the evil guard in The Green Mile.

@Yellowdog

And yet none of that had anything to do with “Muslim”, “Christian” or anything else.

And to the overall point – “Black man is killed. They tell us all the bad things he used to be.”

We’ve all seen it. “George Floyd was no innocent”, “George Floyd use to sell drugs”, “George Floyd once held up a pregnant woman”. And so on. We hear this kind of shit in damn near every case where a black man is unjustly killed by a police officer.

We saw it in the case of Botham Jean – a black man watching TV in his underwear in his own apartment, when an intoxicated off-duty police officer, who lived on the floor above him, broke into his apartment (claiming that she believed it was hers, despite being on the wrong floor) and fatally shot Jean.

We saw it in the case of Breonna Taylor – a black woman sleeping in her own house when police executed a “no knock” warrant (where police, without any notification or indication of who they are, basically kick the door in and storm inside) in the middle of the night. Taylor’s boyfriend, a legally licensed and registered firearm owner, understandably believing that they were being broken into, fired at the intruders, who then opened fire, killing Taylor. The reason for the warrant – police were looking for two suspects who, as it turns out, were already in police custody. They went to search Taylor’s house simply on the basis that she had allegedly been in a relationship with one of the men in the past.

Now – “White man rapes. They tell us all the great things he could become.”

Case in point: Brock Turner. In January, 2015, Turner, a white student at Stamford University, was caught in the act of raping an unconcious woman behind a dumpster, smirking the whole time he was being held down while waiting for police to arrive. In contrast what we heard about Turner was “he’s got a bright future ahead of him”, “he’s going to swim for the US team at the Olympics”, “we shouldn’t ruin his life over a few minutes of action”. His fate? Sentenced to six months in jail, released after three. Although Stamford did expel him and barred him from ever setting foot on campus again, and USA Swimming did ban him for life from competing at events sanctioned by USA Swimming.

And you think these have to do with the race of the individuals?

Are you willfully being obtuse here?

You know what? I plugged in “Black man is killed. They tell us all the bad things he used to be. White man rapes. They tell us all the great things he could become” in to Google and can’t find nary a word one of who, if anyone, coined it, much less whether it was a Muslim or a Christian or a Satan worshiper.

And you don’t think it has to do with the race of the individuals @Yellowdog ??

I’ll just drop the name “Brett Kavanaugh” in here for some reason.

“Kobe Bryant”

Bill Cosby

“Dennis Hastert”

What’s going on?

Evidently we’re dropping in random names in an attempt to one-up the other.

^^ I thought my naming of Brett Kavanaugh as a white rapist who got rewarded an example in support of @raum ‘s quote but it sure looks like ti went South from there.

Except that an accusation 30 years later for political reasons does not equate to rape.