Floyd clearly shows that he can no longer breathe. “I can’t breathe”, he calls out. “My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Everything hurts.” Floyd loses consciousness, but the cop keeps his knee on his neck for four more minutes. Not long after, he is pronounced dead in the hospital.
Death immediately reminded of Eric Garner, a black New Yorker who died in 2014 after a forbidden strangulation by an agent. Garner also called just before he died “I can’t breathe”. That phrase became the battle cry of Black Lives Matter in the many protests that would follow against police brutality.
Escalation of violence
Excessive violence from the authorities against African Americans is as old as the US itself. Minor offenses and apparently innocent acts can lead to a rapid escalation of police brutality. The 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot while playing outside with a toy gun. Walter Scott was arrested because his car’s brake light was broken. The officer later shot Scott running away in the back. Philando Castile was riddled with police bullets at a regular traffic check. Eric Garner was arrested for selling loose cigarettes on the street.
The distrust of black residents of the US towards the police is therefore high. They know that confrontation with the police can lead to death, a deep-seated fear foreign to white Americans. The advent of cameras on mobile phones has made the problem more visible to the rest of society.
Police culture contaminated with racism
But has this led to far-reaching reforms in the US police? The short answer to that important question: largely not. Police culture in the U.S. is tainted with racism. In 2014, Michael Brown was shot dead by a white cop in Ferguson, Missouri. Three-quarters of Ferguson’s population is black, but the local police force is largely made up of white officers.
The Justice Department did one thorough investigation to the corps. In harsh words, the ministry concluded that there was widespread racism among officers. There was a culture of imposing as many fines as possible on black residents for no reason whatsoever in order to fill the police force.
Another well-known example is Rodney King, a black man who was beaten by four Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers in 1991. It was one of the first examples of police brutality captured by bystanders on video. The acquittal of the four agents led to one of the violent race riots from American history.
CNN made this video about Rodney King’s violent arrest:
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