Twenty Two and a Half

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Cori Bush, Democrat Missouri Rep.

The judge gave Derek Chauvin a former Minneapolis police officer, 22 and a half years for suffocating George Floyd to death, on 25 May 2020.

However, subsequent police murder of African Americans while Chauvin’s case was in progress, indicate that the tradition will never stop. These are just a few examples of reported cases.

1. August 22, 2020 Trayford Pellerin shot dead by police in Louisiana.

2. August 23, 2020 Jacob Blake, Kenosha police shot him in the back. He is paralyzed.

3. April 11, 2021, Daunte Wright shot dead by Kim Potter, Brooklyn Center Police officer.

Police training videos and mentors. Rookie officers are taught that a black face represents the possibility of a crime, therefore they should not apprehend suspects. They must accuse them, give them a trial and sentence them to death, the judicial system rolled in one.

Older police officers take rookies on the beat and teach them about what they call a black man’s criminal mind. We repeat the stereotypes every day. “They’re all into drugs.”

On 13 March 2020, police officers killed Breonna Taylor at home  because they believed Kenneth Walker, her boyfriend had drugs. With George Floyd, police got a call that he used a counterfeit $20 in a convenience store. Daunte Wright lost his life over an expired car registration.

Derek Chauvin got 22 and a half years, which gives him enough time to press the rewind button, to relive how police training and mentors led him to kill a man they way he did.

This is another ‘written podcast’ from Nonqaba waka Msimang.

 

 

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