{"id":41457,"date":"2025-05-26T12:42:57","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T19:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=41457"},"modified":"2025-05-26T12:42:58","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T19:42:58","slug":"the-murder-of-george-floyd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/05\/26\/the-murder-of-george-floyd\/","title":{"rendered":"The murder of George Floyd"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis five years ago today, on May 25, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American people rose up in protest \u2014 to an inspiring and unprecedented degree. We demanded reforms to policing. We examined questions of race in our communities, in our businesses and organizations, in our civic structures. We talked seriously about systemic racism and undertook genuine efforts to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then came the (seemingly inevitable) backlash.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

People who knew better went back to denying the obvious reality that law enforcement gets too much of our tax dollars to do too many things that it is ill-suited to do, if not downright hostile to doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump won reelection largely on a campaign against \u201cwoke\u201d and \u201cDEI\u201d \u2014 concepts he could not accurately define even if you offered to give him a superyacht (to go with the used jumbo jet the Qatari royal family is trying to unload on him) if he got them right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, where are we now? Here are just a few indicators:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. The number of people killed by police in America has gone up \u2014 yes, up<\/em> \u2014 every year since Derek Chauvin took George Floyd\u2019s life in broad daylight on that Minneapolis street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. In 2024, police killed Black people at three times the rate they killed white people \u2014 a telling statistic essentially unchanged from before George Floyd was murdered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. In 2015, just 18 police officers were charged with murder or manslaughter after shooting someone while on duty. In 2024 \u2014 despite the supposed reckoning in the wake of George Floyd\u2019s killing \u2014 that number went down<\/em>, to 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Violence directed at Black and Brown people, women, immigrants, LGBTQ people, Muslims, Jews \u2014 anyone perceived as \u201cother\u201d in a culture forged through centuries of white male Christian dominance \u2014 makes the news day in and day out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just this past week, the United States Department of Justice \u2014 which has been weaponized under the direction of MAGA extremist and Trump sycophant Pam Bondi \u2014 abandoned federal investigations or oversight of nearly two dozen police departments with records of egregious misconduct.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s part of an overall pattern at the DOJ and throughout the Trump regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n