It is a terrible thing to be caught in no-man’s land during the ongoing racial and drug-related turmoil in our large cities.

Derek Chauvin was a long-term police officer. He served almost twenty years in the Minneapolis police department before being dismissed in 2020 following his arrest for the murder of George Floyd.

Inner-city police officers have an extremely stressful job, and over the years Chauvin faced a number of difficult situations. Three times he was involved in shooting incidents, one fatal. During his time of employment 18 complaints were filed against him resulting in two letters of reprimand, but there were also several letters of commendation. In addition to his police work, Chauvin took on after- hours security jobs at local establishments. Perhaps his record indicates a tendency toward over-aggressiveness, but that’s not certain. Neither was there evidence of o overt racism.

Derek married Kellie, a Vietnamese refugee, in 2010.

The death of George Floyd changed Derek Chauvin’s life forever.

George Floyd had been born in poverty, suffered from a difficult environment, was seriously addicted to heavy drugs, and had been charged and convicted of many offenses. However, there was no indication that he was a violent criminal, and he had tried very hard to put his life together. Drug use and the covid epidemic had leds to his recent loss of a job.

On May 25, 2020, two relatively inexperienced Minneapolis police officers arrested Floyd after he was accused of passing a counterfeit bill. Floyd was obviously under the influence of drugs. He was a big man, had recently worked as a bouncer, and was agitated and resisted arrest, though without offering any real physical threat to the officers. (Despite initial police department lies to the contrary, Floyd was known to them and had undergone a similar confrontation and arrest the previous year.)

Almost immediately, Floyd began complaining of a difficulty in breathing. Eventually, senior officer Derek Chauvin arrived on the scene. Shortly thereafter Floyd ended up handcuffed and lying down on the street with his face down. Chauvin kept his knee on the back of Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes. For the first five or six minuts Floyd repeatedly complained that he could not breathe. After that he was silent, but Chauvin did not remove the knee. Chauvin had called for medical assistance sometime earlier, but the ambulance was slow to arrive. When they got there George Floyd was already dead. The entire event had been captured on video, and the appearance of shocking police brutality set off a firestorm. There were protests in Minnesota, the United States, and around the world. Everyone in authority, the state governor, the mayor, the chief of police, turned on the officers involved, and, guilty or not, a sacrifice was required.

Chauvin was convicted of murder and now serving his sentence in a federal prison in Arizona. The other officers present at the scene are serving lesser sentences, though no one can say what they might have done to prevent Floyd’s death. Chauvin’s wife Kellie received death threats and began divorce proceeding against him shortly after Derek was charged. She has expressed her belief that her former husband’s trial was unjust.

YESTERDAY, November 24, Derek Chauvin was stabbed by a fellow inmate. It was a serous attack, and Derek’s present condition remains unknown.

The entire affair is a stain on American justice.

I offer the following points:

0 – George Floyds life was a sad series of lost hopes and failures. Drug use along with the advent of Covid and the loss of employment led to the final tragic chapter

0 – Police need to be much better trained. The initial confrontation with Floyd was by inexperienced officers, and the arrest of a person for a non-violent offense should not have progressed to the point of physical confrontation and restraint. Of course, Floyd’s agitated behavior contributed heavily to how the situation developed .

0 – Derek Chauvin was guilty of stupidity, not murder. Despite denials by the police chief, Chauvin and the other officers had all been trained to use this particular restraint technique. Chauvin knew he was being watched and videotaped by the crowd. Why would he wish to kill Floyd?

0 – Floyd was intoxicated with a potentially lethal combination of drugs. Some medical experts are of the opinion that he was dying even before Chauvin put his knee on his neck.

0 – No one in a position of authority had the honesty and fortitude to insist on a truly free examination of all the facts and ensure a fair trial. They were terrorized by fear of the mob and sacrificed the officers to calm the beast.

0 – Chauvin, Floyd and the other police officers are all victims of our sad racial heritage.