The riots and looting in the US included vandalism directed at Jewish synagogues and grocery stores, and the Kosciuszko monument in DC. Those fomenting the riots engaged in class-based contempt for poor whites. I include this essay for that reason.
On May 25, 2020, white
police officer Derek Chauvin was video-recorded while arresting African
American man George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mahmod Abumayaleh, owner
of the Cup Foods delicatessen, reported that Floyd had paid his delicatessen
bill with a counterfeit twenty. "It was an obvious fake. The ink was still
running," reported
one observer.
In a video, Floyd is
handcuffed and face down on the road. Chauvin kneels on Floyd's neck for
several minutes, including almost three minutes after Floyd apparently lost
consciousness. The three other arresting officers were Thomas K. Lane, Tou
Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng. Kueng held Floyd's back. Lane held his legs. Thao
looked on. Kueng and Thao appear to be Asian-American. The police summoned an
ambulance, and an unresponsive Floyd was taken to a hospital, where he was
pronounced dead.
The four officers were
fired the next day. Chauvin was charged with third degree manslaughter and
murder on May 29. The other officers will probably be charged as well. Once
protests broke out, police
officers in many locations participated in protests against excessive use
of force by police.
American call-in shows,
comment sites, and politicians' comments, on the left and the right, rang with
condemnation. David Donovan's
Facebook page was typical. Donovan, and many of his Facebook friends, are
former Marines and law enforcement officers. He posted, "As a United
States Marine and former sheriff's deputy, it has given me great hope to see so
many of my friends from both the military and LEO communities stand firm in
their condemnation of the murder of George Floyd. Our job is to protect folks. Once
a suspect is in custody, his safety and well-being become our job. We have
voiced rapid, unanimous condemnation of this terrible act."
Many
conservatives, including Senator Ted Cruz, Jeanine Pirro, and Rush Limbaugh
condemned Chauvin's actions. Mark Levin, a Reagan-administration veteran,
bestselling author and talk show host, called the killing "murder." On
May 28, 2020, notoriously tough-on-crime former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former
Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik condemned Chauvin's actions on WABC, a
right-wing radio talk station, one of the nation's oldest and largest.
That Americans across
the board condemned Chauvin, wanted to see him tried, and called for change
meant nothing to thousands of agitators. Floyd's death was followed by days of
violent, deadly rioting and looting, in the US and abroad.