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WhiskeyGrinder

(26,279 posts)
Sun May 25, 2025, 10:04 AM May 2025

Since George Floyd's Murder, Police Killings Keep Rising, Not Falling

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/24/us/police-killings-george-floyd.html

archive link: https://archive.ph/0WHQT

After a police officer killed George Floyd on a Minneapolis street corner in 2020, millions of people flooded the streets of American cities demanding an end to brutal police tactics that too often proved fatal to those in custody.

Yet five years later, despite the largest racial justice protests since the civil rights era of the 1960s and a wave of measures to improve training and hold officers more accountable, the number of people killed by the police continues to rise each year, and Black Americans still die in disproportionate numbers.

Last year, the police killed at least 1,226 people, an 18 percent increase over 2019, the year before Mr. Floyd was killed, according to an analysis by The New York Times drawing on data compiled by The Washington Post and the nonprofit Mapping Police Violence. The vast majority of such cases have been shootings, and the vast majority of the people killed were reported to be armed. But police officers, as in the past, also killed people who had no weapon at all, some in the same manner as Mr. Floyd: pinned down by an officer and yelling, “I can’t breathe.”

Among them was Frank Tyson, an unarmed Black man in Canton, Ohio, who uttered Mr. Floyd’s famous words last year before dying when he was wrestled to the ground in a bar by police officers. This happened even though police departments around the country, especially in the aftermath of Mr. Floyd’s murder, have known about the dangers of asphyxiation when keeping a suspect in the prone position. (Two officers were charged with homicide in Mr. Tyson’s death.)


The purpose of a system is what it does, and this system cannot be reformed.
8 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Since George Floyd's Murder, Police Killings Keep Rising, Not Falling (Original Post) WhiskeyGrinder May 2025 OP
Link to full article, no paywall: Ocelot II May 2025 #1
K&R Solly Mack May 2025 #2
vast majority of the people killed were reported to be armed .. stopdiggin May 2025 #3
"reported to be" WhiskeyGrinder May 2025 #4
Yeah - I am well aware of your position here stopdiggin May 2025 #5
The system is very oppressive AZProgressive May 2025 #8
kick WhiskeyGrinder May 2025 #6
afternoon kick. WhiskeyGrinder May 2025 #7

Ocelot II

(129,042 posts)
1. Link to full article, no paywall:
Sun May 25, 2025, 10:14 AM
May 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/24/us/police-killings-george-floyd.html?unlocked_article_code=1.J08.XoUO.KHosiECYOVJs&smid=url-share

The rise in police killings in red states since Floyd was killed suggests that MAGA has become more comfortable than ever with cops killing people - reinforced by Trump's recent rescinding of federal consent decrees.

stopdiggin

(15,021 posts)
3. vast majority of the people killed were reported to be armed ..
Sun May 25, 2025, 11:23 AM
May 2025

"The vast majority of such cases have been shootings, and the vast majority of the people killed were reported to be armed." (highlighting mine)

Our society is undeniably becoming increasingly confrontational and violent - AND, we have far, far too many people packing heat. It's a prescription that almost assures an increased level of misery ... For lots of people.

Gun violence is a long standing plague on this country. My concern continues to be centered around real victims ...

stopdiggin

(15,021 posts)
5. Yeah - I am well aware of your position here
Sun May 25, 2025, 11:53 AM
May 2025

" The purpose of a system is what it does, and this system cannot be reformed. " (again, highlighting mine)

And we hold substantively (varying ?) points of view on the topic.

AZProgressive

(29,849 posts)
8. The system is very oppressive
Sun May 25, 2025, 07:26 PM
May 2025

The NY Times article also points out that black people make up a disproportionate amount of the victims including in cases where there is no weapon found.

I think in other countries you don't see this many killed by police except in violent dictatorships which we are heading toward. Did you know Trump ended the DOJ investigation of the Phoenix police department into civil rights violations? A lot of police departments are going to be a lot worse now that they don't have the DOJ or FBI looking over their shoulder. Also Mesa had Park Rangers beating up black people and homeless people even though they aren't cops but my point is that the system is very oppressive.

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