Trial And Tribulation

The Ballad Of George Floyd

April 2, 2021

I have been watching the trial of D’rek Chauvin, the racist seen round the world, who is allegedly alleged to have creatively lynched George Floyd on May 25, 2020, in front of numerous bystanders, video cameras and one young woman who did more good with her cellphone in 10 minutes than most of us do in a lifetime. Much of what I have seen is incredibly painful.

Over the course of the first three days, one of the most difficult scenes for me was the testimony of Christopher Martin, the 19-year-old store clerk who, when asked what he felt as he stood by helplessly watching Mr. Floyd’s dignity and then his life being brutally stolen from him by a deranged-killer-in-peace-officer’s-clothing, said he felt “disbelief and guilt.” When asked why he felt guilty, he explained it was because he could have just ignored the counterfeit $20 handed him minutes earlier by Floyd and taken the hit out of his own paycheck – a paycheck that he could surely ill afford to diminish by $20.

One of the most sickening parts of this otherwise gut-wrenchingly horrible episode, was the officers repeatedly urging Mr. Floyd to get in the car while three of these thugs-with-badges are kneeling on him, literally crushing him to the pavement, one of them, D'rek Chauvin, as everyone in the world has seen with their own eyes, putting his full weight on Floyd's neck with his knee. It makes me sick to my stomach and pained in my heart every time I see the video.

So, ex-officer D'rek Chauvin has pleaded not guilty to murdering George Floyd. What I want to know then is exactly what the fuck it is that he thinks he did to Mr. Floyd when he was putting all of his weight on Floyd’s neck for nearly 10 minutes while everyone around him was begging Chauvin to stop murdering George Floyd.

Chauvin must have felt very threatened as he kneeled on Floyd’s neck with his hands in his pockets, looking very relaxed, as if he did not have a care in the world. Apparently, even in death, George Floyd was seen as a threat to Chauvin, who remained with his knee on Floyd’s neck for some time after Floyd’s final breath. The EMTs had to persuade Chauvin to remove his knee so that they could remove Floyd’s lifeless body from the street.

Donald Williams, 33, a wrestler and mixed-martial-arts fighter who happened to witness the scene in progress described Chauvin's position with his knee on Floyd's neck as a “blood choke.” Williams later testified, “I called the police on the police. I believed I witnessed a murder.”

George Floyd was initially detained that day for (likely unknowingly) passing a counterfeit $20 bill. But let’s face it, Floyd’s real crime that day, at least as far as D’rek Chauvin – George Floyd’s judge, jury and executioner (literally) – was concerned, was being black.

I. Mangrey as ever.