George Floyd, a Black American, was murdered on 25 May 2020. His killing sparked global fury against police brutality and catalysed international protests in support of the Black Lives Matter campaign. A bystander caught Floyd’s final minutes on camera, showing police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on his windpipe for nearly nine minutes, while Floyd can be seen gasping “I can’t breathe,” and “don’t kill me”. Three other officers were present and did nothing to prevent Floyd’s death. Protests initially grew in Minneapolis, the city where Floyd was killed, and with online dissemination of the video of his murder, reactions of horror and anger have spread like wildfire across the globe.
ONE OF MANY POLICE KILLINGS IN THE US
George Floyd’s case is one amongst multitudes. In 2016, Philando Castile was shot dead by a police officer in Minnesota when reaching for identification during a traffic stop, which the officer claims to have mistaken for a firearm. 2015 saw unarmed Sandra Bland assaulted during yet another traffic stop. Three days later she was found dead by purported suicide in her prison cell, and the charges of perjury against the officer who arrested her were dropped. Breonna Taylor. Tamir Rice. Michael Brown. George Floyd. These are only a few names of Black Americans murdered by police in the United States.
Race plays a central role in police brutality cases. Despite white people making up 60 percent of the United States’ population in comparison to the Black demographic’s 13.4 percent, Black people are far more likely to be fatally shot or killed by the police. The Washington Post affirmed in a census that an unarmed Black man is about four times more likely to be killed by police than an unarmed white man. These figures illustrate that police officers across the United States are violating essential policing standards—derived from human rights—such as carrying out duties impartially and without discrimination.
Some reports ascribe police racial profiling and discrimination to a lack of training to remove implicit bias present in individual behaviour. Others call attention to an overall lack of legal accountability for police misconduct. Regardless, the unlawful discrimination of civilians by the authorities escalates a mere traffic stop to an innocent person’s loss of life. This must come to an end.
LEGAL IMMUNITY GIVEN TO POLICE OFFICERS
A topic often met with extreme controversy is the qualified immunity legally granted to police officers that often enables them to escape the consequences of misconduct. Created by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1982, qualified immunity requires victims to show that the police violated “clearly established rights” by identifying previous court decisions that show the same conduct was found illegal or unconstitutional. Under this doctrine, even George Floyd’s case could theoretically be dismissed, because there are no previous cases holding that it is unlawful specifically for a police officer to kneel on a man's neck for nine minutes resulting in his death.
The impact of this legal doctrine is fatal. In 2019, a federal appeals court dismissed a lawsuit filed against a deputy who mistakenly shot a 10-year-old boy in the child’s own backyard in Georgia. If this had been a citizen shooting, multiple charges would almost-certainly have been filed against the individual, so this begs the question as to why the same standards are not applied to the police. Justice Sonia Sotomayor stated that the legal doctrine acts as "an absolute shield for law enforcement officers". Under qualified immunity, officers face no serious repercussions for their unlawful actions, making justice for the victims of police brutality and misconduct even more inaccessible.
INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
As protests have expanded throughout the United States, while most protesters remain peaceful, some have devolved into rioting and looting. At the same time, police are returning brutal force to protesters—including the peaceful activists—across the country. Among the chants by protesters are “I can’t breathe,” and “please don’t kill me”. In video footage by CNN, a Black protestor pronounces, “Black America is grieving”.
On Sunday 31 May, the sixth day of nationwide protests since Floyd’s death, Donald Trump sought refuge in the bunker normally reserved for presidents under threat of military or terrorist attack, as protests drew increasingly close to the White House. His response to the crisis has been widely criticised, this latest incident spawning mocking on Twitter via the hashtag “#bunkerboy.”
In Berlin, thousands of peaceful protesters gathered outside the US embassy with signs reading “stop killing us”. In Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, two Syrian artists painted a mural of George Floyd among the rubble of the Syrian civil war. Floyd’s murder, only the latest among so many victims of police force in the United States, is widely proclaimed to highlight the decline of any moral authority from the US in the eyes of the world. More than anything, this profound artistic protest from a war-torn city highlights the extent to which the international perception of the United States has fallen.
The international response overall Is not kind to the current US adminIstration. Political enemies of the United States, including China and Iran, have not hesitated to point out the hypocrisy of the US in response to criticism of their own human rights abuses. Meanwhile, the French newspaper Le Monde headlined an article titled “President Trump, Year 4: An American Carnage”.
Many international protests have merged fury at the killing of Floyd with strikingly similar local incidents. In London, protesters congregated at the sight of a fire which killed many African, Arab, and Muslim residents. In Toronto, protesters also marched for Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a Black woman killed at her apartment during a police response. In Paris, demonstrators have spoken of Adama Traoré, a Black man who died during an arrest. In New Zealand, thousands marched in solidarity, many also demanding the government end local armed police trials, which are feared to cause similarly-skewed death rates among the indigenous Maori community as well as other minorities.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has spoken out in firm reprimand to the US authorities, who she implores to "take serious action to stop such killings, and to ensure justice is done when they do occur”. In her statement, Bachelet also highlighted the lack of proper punishment that has characterised similar cases in the past, saying, “Procedures must change, prevention systems must be put in place, and above all police officers who resort to excessive use of force should be charged and convicted for the crimes committed."
The United States—for so long an international advocate for the universality of human rights, at least by its words—is failing to implement such fundamental rights in its own backyard. In the midst of profound domestic and international grief and fury, will the current administration display the empathy and determination to shift the narrative and seek justice for its people, or will fundamental human rights violations be left unchecked?
Miya is a Law student at the University of Leeds. She is particularly interested in critically evaluating the likes of Criminal and International Human Rights Law to see the extent in which they actually help to combat social injustices in society. Social justice is at the heart of her philosophy.
Brontë will graduate in May 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Otago. Born and raised in New Zealand and now living in Paris, she is an environmentalist passionate about mitigation of climate change and protection of biodiversity. She is also an ardent human rights advocate, currently handling public relations for FFIPP New Zealand, an educational network for human rights.