The Lynching of George Floyd

I never thought things could get so bad that a white police officer's knee could lean on a black man's neck for eight minutes while the handcuffed man lay motionless.

That is what happened on the evening of Monday, May 25, at about eight o'clock in Minneapolis.
"No weapons were recovered from the scene, police said," writes Libor Jany, who has worked for the last seven years as a crime reporter for the Star Tribune. 

George Floyd was yanked from his car, put on the ground, and rendered unable to breathe by officer Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis police department. Chauvin's knee remained on Floyd's neck while Floyd said, "I can't breathe. Please, Man." Bystanders begged the officer to stop, pointing out that Floyd's nose was bleeding, that Floyd wasn't moving, that Floyd was human. Floyd asked for his mother.

 George Floyd's hands were behind his back in handcuffs before the police officers put him on the ground. 

Somebody who "looked like" or "might have been" George Floyd paid with a fake twenty dollar bill, says one account, or a forged check, says another,  in a convenience store. George Floyd was forty-six, says one newspaper or forty-seven, says another.

Four officers were fired, including Derek Chauvin and Tou Thao, who remained standing and made no attempt to stop Chauvin or to check Floyd's pulse.

Another black man, Eric Garner, died on a sidewalk in Staten Island in July, 2014. It took until 2019 for Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who held him in a chokehold as Garner said, "I can't breathe," to be fired and lose his pension benefits. Pantaleo sued the police department, demanding to be reinstated. Eric Garner didn't have a gun and didn't threaten anyone. The poet Ross Gay memorialized Garner:

A Small Needful Fact

Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.

In May, 2018, the poet Sharon Olds memorialized Trayvon Martin, the unarmed African-American high school junior who was shot in Florida by George Zimmerman, who was acquitted.

For You

In the morning, when I’m pouring the hot milk
into the coffee, I put the side of my
face near the convex pitcher to watch
the last, round drop from the spout,
and it feels like being cheek to cheek
with a baby. Sometimes the orb pops back up,
a ball of cream balanced on a whale’s
watery exhale. Then I gather my tools,
the cherry sounding-board tray that will rest on my
lap, the phone, the bird book to look up
the purple martin. I repeat them as I seek them,
so as not to forget—tray, cell phone,
purple martin; tray, phone,
martin, Trayvon Martin, song was
invented for you, art was made
for you, painting, writing, was yours,
our youngest, our most precious, to remind us
to shield you—all was yours, all that is
left on earth, with your body, was for you.