It’s Been A Year
One year ago today:
Biden wanted to sign the George Floyd Police Reform bill by today.
Congress is out on their Memorial Day recess….
Since the beginning of the trial of Chauvin, on every day that followed, all the way through the close of testimony, another person was killed by the police somewhere in the United States.
Since testimony began on March 29, at least 64 people have died at the hands of law enforcement nationwide, with Black and Latino people representing more than half of the dead. The average was more than three killings a day.
At least 1,068 people have been killed by police since the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin.
According to an analysis by Mapping Police Violence, despite only making up 13 percent of the US population, Black Americans are nearly three times as likely as white Americans to be killed by the police. The group also found that “levels of violent crime in US cities do not determine rates of police violence”.
A further analysis performed by policeviolencereport.org found that Black people were more likely to be killed by police (27 percent), more likely to be unarmed (35 percent) and less likely to be threatening someone when killed (36 percent).
There’s a high probability that yet another unarmed black person will be killed by police during the congressional Memorial Day break.
Take a good look at the expression on Chauvin’s face. He has the visage of a man who has no fear or concern for the possibility of negative consequences or personal accountability for the atrocity he is committing.
“In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known”.[1] It is a form of sovereign immunity less strict than absolute immunity that is intended to protect officials who “make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions”,[2] extending to “all [officials] but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law”.[3] Qualified immunity applies only to government officials in civil litigation, and does not protect the government itself from suits arising from officials’ actions.[4]
The U.S. Supreme Court first introduced the qualified immunity doctrine in Pierson v. Ray (1967), a case litigated during the height of the civil rights movement, it is stated to have been originally introduced with the rationale of protecting law enforcement officials from frivolous lawsuits and financial liability in cases where they acted in good faith in unclear legal situations.[5][6″
——Wikipedia
The concept and legal principle of Qualified Immunity is the apparent sticking point in getting “bipartisan” legislative action on the reform bill that has been touted as the law that would change the expression on Chauvin’s face.
It is my belief that if the George Floyd Justice in Policing Bill passes and is signed into law, some form of immunity from liability and accountability will remain as an element of the necessary “compromise” in getting the bill to the President’s desk.
If you don’t believe me just watch…
And the hits just keep on coming!
05/26/2021 @ 9:26 am
clearly established statutory or Constitutional rights or which a reasonable person would have known
like the right not to be choked to death by a cop for the Hell of it
This may end up depending on juries. I’m more concerned with its depending on prosecutors.