As if there was any doubt that the Black Lives Matter-fueled protests following the death of George Floyd were not aimed in any productive way at ending violence in the Black community, the site of Floyd’s death provides a poignant confirmation.
Floyd was killed on Memorial Day in a chilling incident captured on video that spread like wildfire around the internet, in which a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his kneck for a full 9 minutes, resulting in his death.
While he became a brief but powerful martyr for the resurrection of the Black Lives Matter movement, it seems he has long been mostly forgotten.
And the site at which his horrific death took place has turned into a chilling representation of what this “protest” movement seems to have brought about.
Lawlessness.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that police have been avoiding a four-block radius in South Minneapolis around where Floyd was killed and where murals and a raised fist statue stand in his memory.
“What people aren’t recognizing is that people who live there are having a very, very challenging time from the unlawfulness that is occurring after the sun goes down,” the Times quoted City Council Member Andrea Jenkins as saying. “There are constant gunshots every night.”
Teen gunned down near George Floyd memorial in Minneapolis https://t.co/Q5Vwl86tZj pic.twitter.com/dgxxyaUMJh
— New York Post (@nypost) July 24, 2020
“Emergency vehicles can’t get in,” she continued. “Disabled people are not able to access their medications, their appointments, their food deliveries, et cetera. It’s a very challenging situation.”
This is reminiscent of the situation in Seattle’s now-disabled CHOP/CHAZ, where two young black men were shot and killed amid constant violence in the six-block “police-free zone” that local Democrat politicians had originally glowingly supported before being forced to order the “autonomous zone” to be dismantled.
Ms. Dawkins, a mother of two who lives close to the site where Floyd was killed, said that while the environment is fine during the day, she doesn’t feel safe at night, the Times reported.
“But when the other crowd comes at night, I can’t call the police, and that scares the hell out of me,” Dawkins said, according to the Times. “We have kids in this home, so I do want police to protect families … It’s a hard balance. I’m happy this incident brought change, but I want to feel safe.”
Dr. Jackie Kawiecki, who created a medic station to administer first aid to injured protesters, gave a similar account of nights and days that are “very different.”
“My nighttime world, after sunset, I have taken care of double gunshot wounds, drug overdoses,” Kawiecki said, the Times reported. She eventually limited the hours of the medic station after she was forced to evade gunfire and after a pregnant woman was gunned down.
While Minneapolis did see hordes of genuinely peaceful protesters following Floyd’s death, whatever pacifist aim they may have had was certainly quickly undermined by rioting, looting, and violence. This spread to several major cities across the US, many of which, such as New York City, are also seeing record spikes in gun violence.
Floyd’s death was a horrific miscarriage of justice. But the many lives that have been lost since his death are injust as well.
You can not solve injustice with lawlessness.
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