You are correct. I realized that a little while after the post. My point was that complying may have saved his life in George Floyd's case. Just like the woman that got killed going into the capital, if she had stayed outside, she wouldn't have been shot. Gemima brought up the point that people need to take some personal responsibility for their own actions. Regardelss of how you feel about the situation, if he had stayed in the police car and not resisted, he would still be alive. Just like if the woman had stayed outside of the capital, she would still be alive. Why is she responsible for her actions but not George Floyd? Neither should be dead.
It was my mistake, confusing Martin with Floyd. Unfortunately there are so many names.
Let me bring over two concepts: draconian and double standard.
Draco was a legislator in ancient Greece who started writing the constitution for Athens. There was basically only one type of punishment: death. You murder somebody and the punishment is death, you steal an apple and the punishment is also death. Draconian entered the English language as the definition for excessive punishment. It is specifically prohibited by the 8th amendment to the U.S. constitution that calls it “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Why do we need to ban cruel and unusual punishments? If everybody abides by the law then nobody gets punished, it’s personal responsibility, right? Death for stealing an apple is only relevant if you steal an apple, right?
The answer to a religious person is that we are all sinners, and a secular person would say “to err is human.” We will run afoul of one law or another at least once in a lifetime. Somebody calculated that the average American breaks 3 federal criminal laws per day, so we’ll run out of people if death is the only punishment for each offense.
Death as punishment for resisting an arrest is cruel and unusual.
I’m going to save you the long winded discussion about justification for use of deadly force, I have done it too many times. Police in USA is allowed to use deadly force (a.k.a. shooting) if they feel a serious threat to their safety and others’. The problem is the standard is very lenient for cops. If I as a civilian licensed firearms carrier shoots a guy who approaches me menacingly and suddenly draws a black object from his pocket, I would surely be criminally prosecuted and civilly sued for all I have. Police officers routinely get away with it. They are also protected by “qualified immunity”, which means they can’t be sued for doing something wrong, unless the court has previously found that the exact action falls outside qualified immunity.
In short, a law for thee but not for me, also known as a double standard.
We live in the age of smartphone video, and also police bodycams. There are so many videos of U.S. police interactions out there. There’s no shortage of police officers being extra patient and bending over backward for clearly unreasonable and potentially dangerous persons on camera, the glaring problem is that the vast majority of the captured interactions are with white people. American police by and large are capable of exercising discretion and smart judgment, and they often give you the benefit of the doubt before drawing their service pistol, if you’re white. If you’re not white, a seemingly small mistake can turn deadly.
I’ve had several interactions with the police, and sadly I have to report that most were unpleasant, despite me being nothing but polite and compliant.
Again, double standard.