Posted on 05/28/2020 9:34:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
By all accounts, the death of George Floyd looks like murder by a police officer. Attempting to burn down one of the Midwest’s most beloved cities won’t ensure justice.
In downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota — Rep. Ilhan Omar’s district, to be specific — rioters descended upon the police station and even nearby businesses Wednesday evening, breaking windows, setting fires, and looting. The mob gathered in response to the horrifying death of George Floyd. This video shows multiple officers pinning unarmed Floyd to the ground, one with his knee on Floyd’s neck, cutting off his airway. For nearly five excruciating minutes, Floyd begs for mercy, saying explicitly, “I can’t breathe,” before he dies.
Floyd is someone’s beloved son. His death is horrendous and disgusting. The four police officers involved were put on leave and then supposedly fired, but Minneapolis residents want more. They want justice, as they should.
Forming a mob and descending on private businesses, however, will not do this. In fact, it may only incite more systemic racism, violence, and civic unrest.
A local journalist and others captured videos of the mobs looting private businesses, including a Target, Cub Foods, Auto Zone, and Wendy’s. They also tried to attack the 3rd Precinct police station.
I’m arriving to the Lake Street Target and surrounding stores. alarms are blaring. Tear gas deployed near 3rd precinct. It’s mayhem here pic.twitter.com/5xhReWp4Ga
— Ricardo Lopez (@rljourno) May 28, 2020
The inside of the Target is smoky; people are trying to break into the cash registers. Alarm is blaring pic.twitter.com/qfd97sfNTr
— Ricardo Lopez (@rljourno) May 28, 2020
The Auto Zone is on Fire pic.twitter.com/2IJHx4AKdt
— Ricardo Lopez (@rljourno) May 28, 2020
Target is getting cleaned out pic.twitter.com/0OGSHY132k
— Karen Scullin FOX9 (@kscullinfox9) May 27, 2020
The mob took on police officers trying to quell the looting.
Minneapolis police repeatedly being hit with large fireworks hurled from crowds. pic.twitter.com/zSGoP7L55t
— Mark Vancleave 🎥+📰=🎉 (@MDVancleave) May 28, 2020
Minneapolis is burning. pic.twitter.com/TbwbPIbkC9
— Mark Vancleave 🎥+📰=🎉 (@MDVancleave) May 28, 2020
Not only have the riots damaged private property. Some of the mob descended on a woman in a wheelchair.
Video captured earlier of the elderly wheelchair-bound woman who was attacked at the Minneapolis Target during the BLM riot. In a later interview, she said she was trying to do her part in stopping the looting. She was beat on the head & sprayed in the face w/a fire extinguisher. pic.twitter.com/EpcAAF0HLY
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) May 28, 2020
The looting may have even led to another death, although this has not yet been confirmed.
Police are investigating a homicide. They say the owner of a nearby pawn shop shot and killed a person suspected of looting his building.
— Libor Jany (@StribJany) May 28, 2020
Some Minnesotans are stepping up. These self-proclaimed rednecks were grieved by Floyd’s murder. They didn’t agree with the looting, however, so they showed up at the riots to help protect local businesses vulnerable to the mob.
These two men say they support the protests but not the riots and are helping protect a tobacco store owner from looting
pic.twitter.com/PDn2Jd8iEB— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 28, 2020
As a white woman who grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, I can’t understand the pain Floyd’s family and friends are going through, nor the outrage African-American people experience regarding systemic racism. If you read the replies to the Tweet below, you’ll see even Bradley Moss, a self-proclaimed Democrat, get accused of being out of touch, ostensibly “whitesplaining,” or failing to understand the frustration of African-Americans. But that doesn’t make his point any less valid: “Looting isn’t going to bring justice.”
Stop looting. I will stand with you to protest. Without hesitation.
But looting isn’t going to bring justice. Stop. #GeorgeFloyd
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) May 28, 2020
George Floyd's murder was awful, and justice must be served and people are tired of the excuses.
But… This. AINT. IT.
Looting and tearing up your own neighborhood only makes your neighborhood worse off. https://t.co/N2w9k72JF7— George Wrighster III (@georgewrighster) May 28, 2020
Something is undoubtedly very wrong with Minneapolis law enforcement. This is not the first time we’ve seen a police officer act callously, with total disregard for training, common sense, or human life. Offending officers need not just be fired but tried in a court of law, and remaining officers must go through intense, additional training. Without proactive change, this will continue to happen.
A mob filled with righteous indignation is understandable, even good. An organized, peaceful protest aimed at the Minneapolis mayor and law enforcement officials, jamming the phone lines and exercising their right to “peaceful assembly” and to approach the government for “a redress of grievances” are all law-abiding, effective ways toward change. Are they slower than a riot? Absolutely. But they are ultimately more effective. One encourages good law, while the other incurs the law’s consequences.
Surely the civil rights era saw a racism far worse than today. Yet the strongest ally and tool of change was an African-American pastor who supported and demonstrated peaceful protest. This Time article asserts Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “lessons about peaceful protests are still relevant”:
“The strong man is the man who will not hit back, who can stand up for his rights and yet not hit back,” King told thousands of Montgomery Improvement Association supporters at the city’s Holt Street Baptist Church on Nov. 14, 1956. The black citizens of Montgomery would demonstrate their humanity while victims of a broken society. Nonviolence was the “testing point” of the burgeoning civil rights movement, King explained. “If we as Negroes succumb to the temptation of using violence in our struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and bitter night of — a long and desolate night of bitterness. And our only legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.”
Let justice be served following George Floyd’s death. Let law enforcement sever all forms of racism and oppression, power-grabs and hubris. Minneapolis must rest, and its citizens prepare to make way for justice quietly, peacefully, and effectively.
I wonder if the cops made many arrests. They seemed ill-prepared. The police will be out in force from now on though because the downtown business establishment is no doubt demanding it. Even leftist city governments like that of Minneapolis cannot permit their downtowns to be burned out or to be so menaced that property values and tax revenues collapse.
That individual’s unfortunate death gave those inclined to riot the excuse they needed.
THE WRATH OF THE AWAKENED SAXON
by Rudyard Kipling
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late,
With long arrears to make good,
When the Saxon began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy — willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the Saxon began to hate.
Their voices were even and low.
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show
When the Saxon began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd.
It was not taught by the state.
No man spoke it aloud
When the Saxon began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred.
It will not swiftly abate.
Through the chilled years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the Saxon began to hate.
This is a total failure of what is supposed to be city leadership. The girlie man mayor has no clue, and should resign. His police chief is apparently, an affirmative action hire, in over his head.
Over 50 years of inept, democrat management is coming to fruition. The results are disastrous.
Much the same as in the 1960s. Liberal Democrats proved incapable of protecting lives and property in the cities they ran. Republican-run cities experienced far less in the way of riots because they were determined to preserve law and order.
Goes to show there is one animal that will crap where it sleeps and eats.
Two. The cops and the looters.
IGAF?
Something to keep in mind. The Mayor of Minneapolis is a raging liberal from Northern Virginia. He is also Jewish and attends services.
Enter Louis Farrakhan and the NOI. Will the Minister be able to resist pinning this on the Jooooos? Will Al Sharpton resurrect the Anti-Semitic NYC riots? Stay tuned.
400 years?
Gimme a break
What a loser...
400 years goes to the “1619” propaganda campaign currently underway to convince young skulls o’ mush that our founding was RAAAAAAAAACIST.
Minneapolis used to be the gem of the mid-west up to mid-70’s. My family used to take special weekend trips there from Fargo as mini-vacations. Safe with lots of things to do.
It has gone downhill fast since then. Sections got ghettoized and neglected. The Somali invasion was catastrophic. Homeless population and needle junkies got totally out of hand. Many of the old locals moved out to surrounding towns to escape.
Very sad to see such a once proud magnificent city hit the garbage bin so badly. Doubt it will ever crawl back out.
It is the nature of big cities. It will be another Baltimore with the mayor just letting the city burn out
MORE PEOPLE ALREADY HAVE A FLAT SCREEN TV now than they did during the RK riots.
I don’t give a f**K should’ve been... IDGAF!
If the cops that killed George Floyd had been immediately arrested, there would not have been nearly as much rioting. They could have been indicted the next day.
If the DA had announced on the day of the murder that he would be convening a grand jury the next morning, maybe there wouldn’t have been rioting.
If the Mayor had condemned the murder in no uncertain terms on the day of the murder, maybe there wouldn’t have been the rioting.
None of them did took any of the obvious actions against these officers when they should have. They must bear much of the blame for the rioting.
There was one rational black man that was interviewed by a FNC reporter. He calmly stated that the cops should have been arrested, yet were still free. He has a huge point.
I think I have seen that report
They can’t be taken seriously when they become looters.
I agree 100 percent
[This is a total failure of what is supposed to be city leadership. The girlie man mayor has no clue, and should resign. His police chief is apparently, an affirmative action hire, in over his head.
Over 50 years of inept, democrat management is coming to fruition. The results are disastrous.]
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