RantWoman's first entre into the outcome of the #DerekChauvinTrial was an ambiguous tweet. RantWoman was on the outbound bus leg of a regular errand and found herself thinking "just finish the errand. If there is trouble Metro is good at ..."
RantWoman was VERY relieved, sadly jubilant to learn that the verdict was guilty on all counts and that "civic event" disturbances were much less likely than RantWoman's initial frets..
RantWoman's next sort of sarcastic comment, after contrasting Mr. Chauvin's dignified blue suit in court with his jail booking photo: the only photographic genre worse than drivers licenses for making subject look terrible, definitely felonious, is mug / booking shots. RantWoman expects there may be appeals. RantWoman will be curious to see what fashion statements are involved.
Back up a few steps.
RantWoman did not know until this week that the murder of George Floyd started with an attempt to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. RantWoman would tartly note: crimes of poverty should not warrant the death penalty. Crimes of poverty warrant social workers, not police. Front line retail and service workers need tools other than calling the police to hole people accountable for this kind of really petty crime. Yes, RantWoman knows, once in a great while the person passing the fake bill is on some wanted list somewhere. RantWoman has no opinion about how to address that issue.
RantWoman has clearly been living under a rock. RantWoman did not know until this week about the outrageous lies about "health incident" that was the official police department position until someone who already had the ear of the police chief alerted him to the bystander video already spreading all over the internet.
This story has so many horrifying angles that RantWoman can understand people just wanting to look away as fast as possible. RantWoman hopes people will not do that, especially after a week of other deadly police shootings of young people of color.
DerekChauvin's case is different from other police killings in that no gun was involved. In the many cases where guns have been involved, RantWoman has been struck repeatedly by the observation that the officers fired very quickly, often only a few seconds into the encounter. The day the verdict was announced, RantWoman happened to be reading My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem. Menakem has consulting with the Minneapolis police department about use of force and de-escalation and awareness of what is going on in officers' own bodies.
In just a few pages, Menakem cites at least three police killings that occurred in close succession to firearms training. RantWoman's sense is that the training seeks to build muscle-based response that bypasses key brain circuits. But what if officers where trained differently. RantWoman is a little bit riffing oh her Taser First idea. What if officers did some target practice, preferably not using human forms as targets. But what if they also trained with tasers instead of guns. What if there were virtual reality simulations that rewarded officers for de-escalating without using their firearms? This probably sounds like a harebrained idea. RantWoman has no capacity to try to realize this kind of training shift. RantWoman would just really like to cut down on the number of police killings where officers cite their training and fear for their lives. They are the ones with guns.They are not lying when they refer to their training. Their training needs to change.
Finally, galling information the jury did not get to hear. Derek Chauvin had wracked up 22 excessive use of force complaints over his career, and that while serving as a trainer of other officers. If it were up to RantWoman police officer licensing would work something like drivers licensing. People who wrack up too many points on their driving record face license suspension. Going forward no officer should rack up 22 complaints of excessive use of force. If they rack up more than say 3 in a 5-year period, they should face suspension, demotion, additional training requirements and a psychological evaluation before returning to work. Would this, could this stick? RantWoman is, for now, just a blogger.
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