Photo via ArtisticOperations/Pixabay
February 15, 2021, 2:09 pm
Yet another example of police engaging in extremely inappropriate and offensive mockery of victims of police brutality has emerged in the Los Angeles department where cops were passing around a George Floyd-themed Valentine’s Day card via email. The caption on the virtual card featuring Floyd’s face read: “You take my breath away.”
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Floyd died of cardiopulmonary arrest after former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin knelt with his knee on the Black man’s neck for nearly 10 minutes as the victim pleaded for his life.
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He repeated the words “I can’t breathe” as he was dying, a statement that became a rallying cry during the mass nation-wide protests that resulted from the horrific viral video of the incident.
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The LAPD has reportedly launched an “internal investigation” after people found out that the email was being shared among their officers, though many feel that the police investigating the police is unlikely to end with the police being found guilty. The only encouraging news is that the image was leaked by one of their own officers.
L.A. police Chief Michel Moore has promised a thorough investigation, adding that “people will find my wrath” for emailing this image throughout the department.
“Our investigation is to determine the accuracy of the allegations while also reinforcing our zero tolerance for anything with racist views,” he said.
It has not yet been determined whether the “valentine” was created by one of the LAPD officers or just found and shared, but to Black Lives Matter activists everywhere, this detail hardly matters. It still stands as an example of exactly why Black folks in the U.S. feel that the country doesn’t think their lives matter.
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“This is why I say bad apples come from rotten trees in policing,” wrote sociology Professor Dr. Rashawn Ray on the news. “There is no way they can objectively protect & serve Black people. Why are they still working?”
“This is beyond insult on top of injury – it’s injury on top of death,” said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Floyd’s family. “The type of callousness and cruelty within a person’s soul needed to do something like this evades comprehension—and is indicative of a much larger problem within the culture of the LAPD. We demand that everyone who was involved is held accountable for their revolting behavior and that an apology be issued to the family immediately.”
The trial for Derek Chauvin, who is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death, will begin on March 8 after an appeals court rejected a request from the prosecution to have it delayed. The other officers involved, who stood by and did not intervene, will be tried in August.
*First Published: February 15, 2021, 2:09 pm
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