Opinion: Change needs to begin with police

The outrage is growing, and for good reason.

It was a week straight out of hell. When the national death toll from the coronavirus topped 100,000, you’d think that would have captured our undivided attention. Instead, one death in Minneapolis took the headlines.

It happened on Memorial Day, when yet another black man was killed by police — only this time it was a brutally slow death, caught on video by a bystander and leading to outrage all across the nation.

The video of George Floyd’s death shows the world how he was killed: Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin has his knee firmly on Floyd’s neck, keeping his head pressed against the pavement as Floyd repeatedly cries out that he can’t breathe. Chauvin’s knee remains on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, and Floyd becomes unresponsive after about six minutes.

Before he dies, Floyd even calls out for his deceased mother, but it’s the too-familiar last words we’ll all remember: “I can’t breathe!”

It all happened in broad daylight and yet it’s easy to believe that if it wasn’t for the video, Chauvin would not have been charged. For three days the officer was free, but as the demand for action increased so did pressure for his arrest, and he was finally charged with third-degree murder.

What’s more, other officers were also holding Floyd to the ground as he was being choked to death — but they were off-camera and, as of this writing, have yet to be charged.

It’s a sickening video, one that cannot be erased, and the protests have understandably escalated. It started in Minneapolis, of course, and continued into about 75 U.S. cities by the end of the week.

The fact that only a handful of people have died in the midst of these demonstrations is indicative of the fact that, overwhelmingly, the protests have been nonviolent. Here in New Mexico, gunfire and at least one injury was reported at an Albuquerque demonstration, but no serious injuries were reported, and protesters marched through the plaza in Santa Fe expressing their outrage verbally — and nonviolently.

Nationally, there have been graffiti tags, property break-ins and store lootings, and even a couple of drive-by shootings — but that’s clearly being done by people looking to capitalize off the chaos. Most of the protesters are following Martin Luther King’s example of nonviolent resistance.

If there’s a way out of these tensions, I’d say it’s through the police departments themselves. I was encouraged to read about how some police chiefs in New Mexico are speaking out in condemnation of the officers’ actions — and that is indeed where it needs to begin.

America’s police departments have a longstanding record of brutalities against black men in particular, and countless killings by cops in this 21st century alone show how deeply embedded the racism is. But it’s not just among our police, it’s inside our collective psyche.

It’s time to purge ourselves of such brutalities, from the inside out.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

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