Still, I would hope that as police are investigated they are held to a high standard of behavior. They do after all have a near monopoly on the lawful use of violence.
I absolutely agree that cops should be held to a higher standard, but that is a very different discussion. Imagine trying to steer the conversation similarly for any other class of crime: "You can't blame the school shooters... they naturally strike out at what is within their reach, they should be given space to express their outrage. We need to talk about bullying."
The topic of the week is an extrajudicial murder committed by a team of four cops; where was our restraint in deciding the fate of George Floyd? Do these officers deserve nicer treatment than this system gave Floyd? Did Floyd deserve this treatment, too? If so, why didn't he get it?
George Floyd absolutely deserved the right treatment. He didn’t get it, and the perps should be brought to justice. Getting revenge for George’s injustice is not justice. It’s not what civilized society is built on. In the end, we were a society that protects even the murders and rapists and the worst of the worst offenders from extra-judicial revenge for their actions.
In this pattern of cases, the system is the perpetrator of extra-judicial violence. We've had plenty of time for the system to correct itself, and it hasn't. Now a precinct gets burned down, a cop gets charges the next day, and I'm like, okay ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that seemed to work. It's not about revenge, it's about fixing the system by any means necessary. Fire works, protest signs haven't been.
6 paragraphs, 0 answers as to whether George Floyd deserved the form of justice you would extend to his murders or why he got an extrajudicial execution instead.
If there weren't riots, the topic would be whether to charge the direct murderer. Because of the riots, the discussion has shifted to charging his accomplices. This is progress, but not enough progress.
And yes, I definitely want to see them convicted. If there was a video of me preventing an EMT from checking a man's pulse while my co-worker choked him to death for 8 minutes, the last 3 of which the victim was unresponsive for, I wholeheartedly believe I would be convicted of being an accessory to murder. I want the same for these cops. This isn't a grey area where the person could reasonably be innocent, we have the video of an unresponsive man being executed in broad daylight.
Uhm... when the 3rd precinct got burned down and George Floyd's murderer faced charges the next day? Cops don't normally face charges for murdering black men in broad daylight, so I don't take the timing of arson and charges as coincidence.
Have you got an actual example? I don't even need to get into the race statistics with regard to police brutality, because the charges aren't even close to settling the matter - and you know it, you've already declared them murderers.
Of a cop murdering a black man in broad daylight and not getting charged for it? Hell, here's an example I just pulled up for someone else of a 12 year old black kid being murdered while he played airsoft in the park[0], the cop faced no charges and was subsequently hired by another police department in the same state. It's like paedophile priests getting shuffled around by the Catholics, absolutely absurd.
I had named an example, the one which just happened. Reading that question sandwiched between my last sentence and your next one I was legitimately unsure what you were asking. Therefore I made it clear which question I erred on the side of you asking, and proceeded to answer. Please consider considering your own lack of clarity in communication before insulting others in the future.
You want another example of riots leading to change? The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was signed into law during a storm of riots that had broken out following the assassination of MLK.
