At Least He Didn’t Use A Black Seeking Missile

Well, The Daily Mail has officially leaked the George Floyd bodycam footage. This footage was previously hidden from the public under the orders of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. Many on the right are saying this makes it better, because it proves George Floyd died of a drug overdose and not the man kneeling on his neck for nine minutes.

Will Chamberlain even went as far as to say:

Keith Ellison is responsible for more coronavirus deaths and economic damage than any other sitting officeholder

The decision to withhold George Floyd’s body cam footage led to nationwide riots and looting in the middle of a pandemic

Moreover, Ellison’s decision to overcharge Derek Chauvin and the other officers will likely lead to further rioting and looting IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC when those charges are dismissed

Disgraceful, he should be impeached

Of course, Chamberlain took no issue with the anti-lockdown protests, even releasing a thread on the same day calling every activity under the sun a “peaceful protest.” However, expecting consistency from a hack like Will Chamberlain is missing the point of why people like Chamberlain exist.

But still, the idea that the footage of someone makes the case against Derek Chauvin somehow less strong is quite common. Patrick Courrielche tweeted the following on how the media would react:

So I guess we’re all going to pretend that we didn’t see the George Floyd body cam videos.

Matt Walsh, in an article now behind a paywall, said that it complicates the situation, but it at least proves the officers in question were not racists — for whatever that’s worth.

For the record, after seeing the video, I think the idea that the officers were racist would actually be preferable to the vast majority of Americans. Think about it, you could tell them that this officer acts like this to either 13% of people, or 100% of people. Which one do you think is more comforting to the average American?

What I’m getting at is “he wasn’t racist” should not be the only thing we judge a police officer by. That is the bare minimum standard for the vast majority of society, and not therefore something we should celebrate. No matter how you look at it, George Floyd was treated in an unfair light by that police officer, and arguing rather or not that was due to his skin color is missing the forest for the trees.

In the video, the first thing the officer does when he walks up to George Floyd pulls a gun on him. What was Floyd being arrested for? Minor acts of counterfeiting, which is a non-violent crime. They also ignore the fact that Floyd was clearly having some kind of panic attack — while I do not expect them to roll out the red carpet for them, I expect them to do more than they did, which was nothing.

And again, even if getting knelled on for nine minutes didn’t kill Floyd, he still was knelled on for nine minutes. Even if that wasn’t what killed him, it’s still easy to say that was someone at least trying to kill him. Attempted murder is still a crime remember, and the officer had no way of knowing that considering he had no way of knowing Floyd was on drugs in the first place.

But hey, at least he didn’t specifically kill Floyd because he was black — maybe.