Photos: YouTube
The character assassination of murder victim George Floyd started in earnest Tuesday with the beginning of the defense of killer-cop Derek Chauvin.
This criminalization character assassination of Floyd is happening as Minneapolis is reeling from the unjustified police killing of Daunte Wright, on Sunday, and the released footage of the police abuse of Army Lt. Caron Nazario by police in Virginia.
The killing of Wright, and the past few nights of protests against police in Minneapolis, have given Chauvin’s defense attorney, Eric Nelson, a ready-made appeal issue (regarding jury sequestration) if Chauvin is convicted.
However, in the meantime, Nelson was busy Tuesday defaming and blaming Floyd.
Nelson paraded several witnesses mostly in quick succession with one purpose: to smear George Floyd—and impugn him for dying under Chauvin’s knee. We can expect more of the same for the rest of the defense’s presentation.
The defense’s intent is to criminalize Floyd to justify this murder perpetrated by Chauvin.
Of course, there is nothing novel about this line of defense when it comes to police killing Black people. In many instances, the police, and their parrot-mouthed apologists, introduce irrelevant information to excuse criminal conduct by cops.
For example, in the aftermath following Sunday’s police killing of Daunte Wright we are now hearing about a “gross misdemeanor” warrant for carrying a gun without a permit. But since Wright had no gun—or, more importantly, for you Second Amendment nuts, wasn’t pointing a gun at police—when he was, supposedly, mistakenly shot by officer Kim Potter this information is irrelevant to her lethal actions.
On Tuesday, Nelson pushed the George Floyd is a drug user, who had health problems, who got in trouble with the law before, ruse. He continues to infer it was the drugs and Floyd’s health problems that killed him, not the oxygen deprivation, brought about by Chauvin’s knee, that the world witnessed.
Nelson is clearly trying to distract the jury away from the 9 minutes and 29 seconds lynching by knee that his client is guilt of. The tactic is to push the fear of the big beastly Black man on drugs stereotype to get one white juror on Chauvin’s side and secure a hung jury.
One of the implied messages of this defense is: if you a Black person, who has a record, and gets killed by police, regardless of the circumstances, the police should not be blamed.
The testimonies elicited Tuesday were meant to say George Floyd was a unhealthy criminal drug user who had previous arrests. This is done to defame him and imply he deserves no justice and to justify Chauvin’s criminality.
Although most of the witnesses testified in quick succession, the defense’s star witness of the day was particularly objectionable with his often-illogical excusing of the criminal conduct of Chauvin.
If we want an illustration of why policing is horrific and detrimental to the lives of Black Americans examine the ridiculous statements Tuesday of police trainer Barry Brodd.
Mr. Brodd, with a straight white face, said this regarding Derek Chauvin “I felt that Derek Chauvin was justified, was acting with objective reasonableness, following Minneapolis Police Department policy and current standards of law enforcement in his interactions with Mr. Floyd.”
Let Brodd’s bullshit sink in for a minute.
Then keep this in mind, Brodd has been training police for 30 years. Is there any wonder then why Black people are killed with such frequency because of institutional white supremacy?
How can any honest person really believe Chauvin acted with “objectively reasonableness” as this police apologist claims? Does Brodd think we’re buying his garbage “testimony?”
Police trainer Brodd says Chauvin acted justifiably when he kept his knee in Floyd’s neck—for 9 minutes and 29 seconds—while two other officers were holding his body down, while he was handcuffed, behind his back. Anything done to Blacks by police is always justifiable to these folk.
Mr. Brodd is one example of why police officials and professionals have little credibility with Black America. With people like him teaching police cadets we should not be surprised Blacks continue to be killed and murdered by police taught by morons like him.
At one point, Brodd conjectured the racist idea, several times, of the possible “superhuman strength” of Floyd.
If all of that wasn’t bad enough, he suggested Chauvin would’ve been justified in using even more excessive force that he used to murder Floyd. Think about that.
George Floyd was killed, in slow-motion, in broad daylight, and Brodd is trying to tell us exactly what? That Chauvin would have been justified in using more force than he did? What exactly would that look like? Shooting Floyd while handcuffed?
If this man is allowed to continue to teach officers in police academies that would be another tragedy in of itself. Brodd’s prominent position in policing does much to explain why policing is so bad.
This important fact about the history of police trainer Barry Brodd should be emphasized here as well: Brodd testified, in the trial of Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke, that he was justified in shooting Laquan McDonald down dead in a hail of 16 bullets—as McDonald was walking away from police, in 2014.
The only good thing to note is Brodd’s testimony didn’t save Van Dyke from being convicted for his cold-blooded murder. Van Dyke is one of the few killer-cops who is sitting in prison now for killing a Black person.
We should all expect a similar outcome for Chauvin.
At the end of the day, regardless of whatever character assassination and false representation the Chauvin defense engages in, the whole world knows Derek Chauvin unjustly murdered George Floyd.
And all the legal lies and manipulative misrepresentations won’t change that factual reality.
