The Minneapolis police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd had 18 complaints over many years including a lawsuit stemming from a 2014 arrest. Several other officers watched and did nothing to prevent the death.
The mayor and city council are liberal Democrats, and they are directly responsible for the police. The governor of Minnesota and the local district attorney responsible for prosecution of police officers are also Democrats. What responsibility does Trump have for their actions?
Critics of President Trump have blamed him for the killing. For example here are comments from Maxine Waters:
âMy first thought was: âNot again, not one more killing,ââ said the California congresswoman. âAnd Iâm reflecting on all of the killings of young black men, in particular, but of course black women, too â at the hands of the police and at the hands of these white supremacists.â âAnd Iâm thinking about the way that the president conducts himself,â she declared. âIn a way heâs dog-whistling, and I think that theyâre feeling that they can get away with this kind of treatment.â
Legally the federal government has little direct control over local police. One of the few exceptions is enforcement of federal civil rights laws, which are handled by the US Justice Department and rarely used except in the most extreme cases.
What could President Trump had done to prevent the killing of George Floyd?
Or are local officials really responsible for the problems in the Minneapolis Police Department?
Should the Justice Department charge the police officer and/or local officials with federal civil rights crimes?
Maxine Waters is saying Trump is at least partially responsible.
Joan Behar said something similar:
"You know, it doesnât help â I mean, I hate to bring Trump into this, but it doesnât help that the president of the United States says things like, donât be so nice,â she told viewers. âRemember when he said that?â
Sixty secret service agents were injured protecting the President from violent protestors:
Protesters threw bricks, rocks, bottles, fireworks and other items at officers and some Secret Service personnel were also âdirectly physically assaulted as they were kicked, punched and exposed to bodily fluids,â the statement added.
Is rhetoric from the media partially responsible for that?
The same media are claiming Trumpâs words are at least partially to blame for Floydâs death.
A problem is that innocent people are dying as a result of the screw-ups in Minneapolis.
For example a federal security guard was shot to death during violent protests in Oakland:
Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Secretary Chad Wolf said Saturday that an âassassin cowardlyâ shot the officers while they âstood watch over a protest.â
The departmentâs deputy acting secretary, Ken Cuccinelli, added that targeting federal buildings and police officers with an âintention to do harm and intimidateâŚis an act of domestic terrorism.â
The mediaâs focus is not the local officials actually responsible for the problems with the Minneapolis Police but on blaming President Trump. Why is that?
Trump has requested that the Justice Department looking into the killing:
That is a step in the right direction in my opinion.
Let us look then at the barrel itself.
I donât think the barrel is just the police department in any given city.
How lazy, and corrupt are the prosecutors there?
The more corrupt, and lazy a state attorney office is, the more the police department can get away with.
How about the coroners office, letting their cop killings slip through by not assinging proper cause of death?
Then that barrel really isnât the cops exclusively is it?
Good or bad the cops culture is linked, and defined by the local prosecutor, who influences court appointed counsel; and it does happen. Who together can influence the judges, who in turn rather than a flow of culture up the the judges, it can as well flow down from them.
It is the Judicial branch run amok.
The barrel is pretty big.
Maybe, different fruits, in different, barrels, but all on the same cart?
I donât know, itâs complicated, is all I know.
In this specific case, I think you can narrow your focus to the Mayor Jacob Frey, the Police Union President, Bob Kroll for some background information. Then take a look at the Trump rally in Minneapolis where Bob Kroll spoke.
The local officials have allowed a malignant disregard for police abuse to fester in my opinion. That may be a combination of politics related to police unions or simple incompetence.
Floydâs murder by a police officer while others watched and did nothing is just the latest example. An unarmed woman was shot and killed by police after calling for assistance back in 2017. The prosecutor took eight months to charge the police officer, who was eventually convicted on third degree murder in 2019. The case may never have gone to trial at all except for pressure from the Australian government since the victim had dual citizenship with Australia.
Here is a description of the results of that trial, which got virtually zero attention from the national media:
The prosecutionâs sprawling case against Noor raised alarming questions about Minneapolis police conduct and the BCA. Assistant Hennepin County attorneys Amy Sweasy and Patrick Lofton crafted a picture of police secrecy from the shootingâs immediate aftermath to trial, showing that several officers turned off their body cameras at the scene, accusing a key supervisor of inventing the story that Noor and Harrity heard a loud noise on their squad before the shooting, and calling out dozens of officers for refusing to speak with investigators until compelled by a grand jury.
Are you referring to the race baiting playbook of the Obama administration?
I put todayâs racial division solely at his feet. In his campaign for president, Obama promised to bring us together as a country. During his administration he did exactly the opposite. Any disagreement with him or his policies was labeled racist.
