The alleged murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a former police officer has brought into sharp focus the issue of when, and the extent to which, law enforcement can use extreme measures when apprehending a person wanted by the law.
In the case of George Floyd, the outrage was swift and is continuing. However, a few days after the murder verdict was issued, a Hispanic man in Northern California was reported to have been pinned to the ground by officers until he was deceased, notwithstanding the efforts by those officers to revive him when they recognized what was happening.
To my knowledge, the same outrage has not resulted from the second deadly confrontation as it did in the murder of George Floyd. The fallacy here is not that one victim was Black and the other Hispanic; the fallacy is how the protests are being organized and reported. If there is to be any change in the policies on how the police are required to handle situations like these two cases, the public outcry needs to be consistent and ongoing. Both victims apparently were treated beyond what should have been appropriate but only one received 24/7 press coverage.
Unless the citizens of this country apply the law and the public reactions evenly across the country, the problem will not be taken seriously for a long enough period of time to change the policies uniformly.
If the laws governing the reactions of the police to the forceful escape attempts of the presumed criminals are not uniformly demanded to be rewritten, our country will have different rules in various parts of the land. That should not be, but it is destined to be, the case until someone takes the mantle and makes certain that all policies on these matters are substantially uniform in all jurisdictions across the country.
This cannot be accomplished by having the liberal press fan the flames of discontent in our country by only focusing on those instances where the result is heinous and can be carried on the evening news for several days. This only divides our country further, and does not solve the problem, which is rewriting the policies governing the conduct of law
enforcement in these matters.
The police are doing a good job but need logical, consistent laws to guide their reactions.