Why was the cop fired then?
A sacrifice to prevent the whole country from descending into mayhem, anarchy, riots and looting.
Worked really well.
None of that has any bearing on reality.
Most of these chiefs of police, mayors, governors, bureaucrats... do whatever is politically expedient for them in that moment. They act like hyenas may it be for self preservation or benefit, but you should lay no stock in such actions (not indicative of anything). Does Chelsea Manning’s sentence being commuted by Obama mean he didn’t take terabytes of sensitive information and hand it over to Julian Assange who posted it all over the web?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/obama-commutes-bulk-of-chelsea-mannings-sentence.html
unwitting patsy
easy scapegoat
he’s the Goldstein (1984)
that’s why
However, if there are instructions in the MPD take down procedures that state 'keep knee of the neck of perp,' he is going to jail.
If there are no such instructions, I would say he is still going to jail because of the commies and bleeding hearts demand it. How's that for justice.
The powers to be at the higher echelons will sacrifice a meaningless pawn in a second. Especially if that makes them look good (taking action in crisis = leadership), and diffuses some of the pressure on the police department itself (i.e. blame the cop not the department).
That does not mean that later when all the facts are looked at, that this cop actually did wrong. There are several things in play here, IMHO:
1. Did the officer follow the guidelines on how to restrain someone?
2. Was Floyd resisting arrest?
3. Finally there are additional factors, i.e. possible health conditions with Floyd which the officer could not have reasonably known about. The size of the guy he’s trying to restrain, was the guy being arrested acting like he’s on drugs (this matters because you’re worried about him being unpredictable)...
From a personal perspective, and I struggle with this a lot, I had to attend the court marshal of a peer of mine. He euthanized an Iraqi in 2004. At the time justice took its course and he was found guilty of manslaughter and was crushed. Today, I tend to believe that he was unfairly treated because we forget: (1) we get to see the consequences of what happens next and have perfect 20/20 hindsight, (2) we have months to think about it and get to hear every pundit/expert and in my peers case even neurosurgeons testifying as to whether that person truly was about to expire or not (based on UAV footage). (3) we are operating in a perfect world where we are not tired nor worried about our own safety. That cop didn’t have the luxury of time, expert advice, the medical history of Floyd (heart disease apparently), and his pucker factor is at 100%.
Given the situation of a big dude that is resisting arrest and possibly on drugs, is applying what appears to be a pretty brutal restraint albeit authorized by his department, reasonable?
The cop also deserves to be treated fairly.