Op-Ed: Community Safety Belongs to All of Us
Written April 15, 2021 Community Safety Belongs to All of Us As I write, the trial of Derek Chauvin unfolds. This Minnesota police officer murdered George Floyd, a Black man whose only crime was paying for some items at a convenience store with a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. For this nonviolent offense, Mr. Floyd was pinned to the ground with Officer Chauvin’s knee on his neck. Video footage of the nine minutes and thirty seconds that proved to be Mr. Floyd’s final moments captured him struggling for air and gasping the words, “I can’t breathe.” Even so, this officer of the law remained unmoved and Mr. Floyd died (Chappell, 2021). The video itself became a tragic viral phenomenon capturing the cruel final moments of Mr. Floyd’s life. The harsh and heartbreaking reality is that stories like this are only too common in the United States. As “Policing in America,” a recent episode of the NPR podcast Throughline , thoroughly expl...