The Politicisation of the Justice System, and the Derek Chauvin Case

It’s an interesting time in the world right now, where racial politics are being weaponised by a select group of people or even individuals towards the fulfilment of their agenda. We can talk about Democrat Representative Ayanna Pressley, who in February this year announced the introduction of a bill which would establish a commission to study and consider reparations for descendants of slaves. We can talk about Ernst Roets, the former deputy CEO of AfriForum, who appeared on The Tucker Carlson Show in the US recently, to spotlighting what he claims to be a dire plight of Afrikaners, with a looming genocide on caucasians. We can even talk about the great replacement agenda in Europe, which is not a conspiracy theory.
All of these issues have a common denominator, which is that they are divisive issues that often try to corrupt or tilt the scales of justice. This was especially apparent in the George Floyd case, which is why there are now resurfacing calls for the pardoning of Derek Chauvin, and we ought to address why there is legitimacy behind these resurfacing calls.
WAS THERE A CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FLOYD’S DEATH AND DEREK CHAUVIN’S CONDUCT?
To say that George Floyd died is to take a position. The received belief is that he was murdered – and this position was seemingly necessary for those who needed to capitalise on George Floyd’s murder, through exploiting its consequences. This is not to say that the death of George Floyd was supposed to be treated as an insignificant event – emphatically no; life is inherently valuable, we know this because God sent His only begotten Son in His love for the world of men, even while we were still sinners; we also know this because the right ot life in inalienable. However, following the murder of George Floyd, the streets of the world hosted men and women passionate in their denunciation of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, whose detention in May 2020 of Floyd by, apparently, kneeling on his neck for around ten minutes, had killed him.
However, in light of revisiting the Derek Chauvin case, I think we ought to also revisit the details of the crime scene ourselves. What we are about to see are the events that transpired when George Floyd was being apprehended by officers Tou Thao and Derek Chauvin, and these were captured through body cam footage, the body cam being the camera that officers have on them to record public interactions and gather video evidence at crime scenes. And I’d like to kindly ask that you please pay attention to how George Floyd is handled by the police officers, and precisely what he is saying.
So, what we saw in the initial part of the video is a man who police are speaking to as he stands by the door of the police car, asking to speak to the police officer. He proceeds to say he is not a bad guy, and that he is claustrophobic (meaning that he is afraid to be confined in small spaces) and he says when the police ask him to get into the back of the police car, during his arrest. This interaction involves Geroge Floyd being pushed into the back seat of the police car as he behaves erratically and screaming at time, he even says sentences that aren’t coherent, such as when he said (quote)  “When I start breathing, it’s gonna go off on me”, and “I can’t choke; I can’t breathe.” Meanwhile, no one is kneeling on his neck or choking him.
Thereafter, while pushing at police who are trying to keep him in the backseat of the police car, George Gloyd asks to lay on the ground. Meanwhile a bystander shouts (very audibly) (quote) “You are going to die of a heart attack, man; get in the car.”  During this time, George Floyd is still screaming and behaving erratically and resisting police who are trying to keep him in the police car.
Then George Floyd suddenly says, (quote) “I just had covid; I can’t breathe.” Again, at this point, no one is kneeling on his neck or choking him. Then you hear an officer announce that he is under arrest for forgery; which means there was a cause for his apprehension. But eventually, one of the officers says get him out, and Floyd kneels next to the police car’s backseat, and says “thank you”.
This footage is incredibly important. First, it shows that George Floyd could not breathe multiple times before there was ever a knee on his neck. Secondly, it shows that George floyd was not a mere man pinned down by a racist police officer, he was apprehended following his committing a crime; in fact, someone called it in after George Floyd had used counterfeit bills. Then finally, this footage shows that George Floyd was behaving erraatically, speaking in a manner that was not coherent, suggesting that there was something he was on. In fact, this became more apparent when a bystander shouted (quote) “You are going to die of a heart attack, man; get in the car.” This is crucial context, before we then see the next video, which is the video that made the rounds on social media, where officer Derek Chauvin had his knee on George Floyd’s neck.
In this footage, George Floyd is less frantic; he is kept on the ground and Derek Chauvin is the officer with his knee on his neck. Floyd is still complaining that he can’t breathe, except this time around he seems to attribute it to the knee on his neck. Aware of the irregularities in his behaviour, Derek Chauvin asks George Floyd what he is on, as in what drugs or alcoholic substance is he on, to which he receives no answer. George Floyd also makes other complaints like saying that his stomach hurts, and that everything hurts. Meanwhile a bystander is shouting that he has been telling Floyd to get in the car, and that he couldn’t win.
This footage became the basis upon which the guilt of Derek Chauvin was decided (first) by members of the public, and then by the media that echoed these sentiments, and even those who participated in the Derek Chauvin trial. Which means that Derek Chauvin’s guilt was decided before a causal relationship between his actions and Geroge Floyd’s death could be established through forensic investigation. But, then a medical report had to be provided to ascertain Geroge Floyd’s death. So, what then did cause George Floyd’s death, and is there a causal relationship between Derek Chauvin’s conduct and Floyd’s death?
GEORGE FLOYD DIED OF FENTANYL OVERDOSE
It turns out that Derek Chauvin Did not cause George Floyd’s death. Instead, George Floyd died of Fentanyl Poisoning AFTER he was admitted to the hospital. The medical examiner determined the cause of death as a DRUG OVERDOSE… but then met with Attorney Mike Freeman and the Attorney General, and then SUDDENLY the medical report somehow changed. Furthermore, the medical autopsy on George Floyd showed he had 11.0 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) of Fentanyl in his system, where the standard overdose is 3.0ng/ml. The autopsy also showed Floyd had cardiomegaly, which is an enlarged heart, that sudden cardiac arrest raises by a factor of 150 times. In addition, George Floyd’s lungs were filled with fluid, which is the sign of a fentanyl overdose.
Here’s where it became even more obvious that the facts were being distorted. Dr David Fowler, the retired former chief medical examiner of Maryland, told the jury in the trial that he would have classified Mr Floyd’s death as “undetermined” rather than homicide. He was called as a defence witness by Chauvin’s legal team and testified that Floyd died of a sudden heart rhythm disturbance as a result of heart disease. HOWEVER, following his testimony, the medical examiner who testified that Derek Chauvin did not kill George Floyd faced an investigation into his past cases. Which means there was a specific outcome in the medical report that was being demanded.
Now, this is not to say that people who overdose on fentanyl must be treated poorly or even die without much probe or consequences – emphatically no. Rather this is to bring to attention the fact that the George Floyd case largely became about out-of court social justice that was engineered by the BLM movement; and not about genuine justice. The facts on that case were distorted and less considered in many discussions; in fact, what many people know is simply that a white police officer put his knee on a black man’s neck and suffocated him to death while another officer restrained the black man (which is obviously not accurate, but expected when racial politics hijack the systems of justice).
WHY WAS DEREK CHAUVIN ARRESTED FOR THE DEATH OF GEORGE FLOYD?
So, why then was Derek Chauvin arrested for the death of George Floyd, when there clearly was no causal relationship between his conduct and the death of George Floyd? Well, first, (and if we are being completely frank) it is because he was a caucasian police officer who was implicated in the death of a black man at a time where racial politics were so heightened, that attorney generals were fabricating evidence or murder and even police departments would perjure themselves in court to escape any association with Derek Chauvin. Essentially, his own bosses would not touch him with a 10 foot pole, despite the fact that what he did is what every police officer (irrespective of race) was trained to do.
The second reason Derek Chauvin was arrested for the death (and not murder) of George Floyd is because there would have been months of the already seen violent riots if Derek Chauvin was acquitted. And so, the American justice system sacrificed his entitlement to a fair trial in order to appease the violent woke mob. Evidence had nothing to do with it. Which is why there is an irrefutable danger that comes with the infiltration of woke politics in the justice system. This infiltration corrupts the processes of justice and even socio-political discourse to become about the narrative of claimed victims, as opposed to an objective evaluation of the facts and evidence. Meanwhile, we do not only see this problem with racial politics. We see this even with gender ideology; where gender ideology corrupted medical literature and practices to justify publications of pseudoscience that claim the existence of gender dysphoria or benefits of child mutilation. It is always bad when the subjective or collective politics of a group are used to distort the focus of disciplines or laws that are supposed to be of general application.
WHAT DOES BLACK LIVES MATTER ACTUAL STAND FOR?
This brings us to a discussion on Black Lives MAtter. This is because Black Lives Matter, founded after several shootings of African Americans at the hands of police officers in the early 2010s, took the lead in the vast responses to Floyd’s death. The movement had a cause, a hero and an emotional watchword – being ‘I can’t breathe’, which were Floyd’s last words as he lay on the street, Chauvin’s knee upon him. So widespread was the belief that the police in the US were semi-fascist, trigger-happy murder squads, that the spark in Minneapolis became a blaze everywhere. And so, we ought to address this organisation that saw an opportunity when a man died.
And I’d like to begin by stating that activism is a generally plausible experience in our lives. It is important for people to have a good cause that they rally behind and educate themselves on in order to be effective advocates of it to others. In Christianity, we see this even in the Scriptures with the Lord Jesus’ teachings, with the Prophets and Apostles of old, and with the Apostle Paul, who defined himself as an advocate for Christ, despite being at times subjected to apologetic circumstances, like we see in the book of Acts). We see this also with the progressive shift from Christian Apologetics to Christian Activism today. In fact, I’d like to encourage you to visit the Pastor Chris Digital Library, and listen to the message titled “Apologetics vs Activism” to appreciate this subject from a Christian perspective further. But, all of this is to say that activism is not at all inherently bad; in fact it has a plausible role in society.
However, what we see is that a number of activist causes are progressively hijacked by people who have an often misguided perception of what society ought to look like, or people who are able to garner enough of a following by capitalising on a contentious event – which is exemplified by the origin story of the BLM movement. In essence, BLM was co-founded in 2013 as an online movement (using the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media) by three Black community organisers—namely: Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi. They formed BLM after George Zimmerman was acquitted on charges stemming from his fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin. But, while on the surface this might appear as though BLM formed as a response to discontent with jury verdicts in criminal cases where African Americans died, that is far from the message that the group has promulgated and condomed throughout the years.
In fact, a lot comes to the surface when we look at some of the beliefs of the co-founders, and the proposed ideal society that is envisioned by BLM; and of course their works. On some of the beliefs of the founders, in a recently surfaced 2015 interview, one of the three Black Lives Matter co-founders declared that she and another co-founder “are trained Marxists.” And while these are individual beliefs, it certainly has broad implications because this ideology has been co-opted into the founding beliefs of BLM. In particular, included on its list of beliefs is one that is seen as being consistent with Marxism: BLM stated that (and I quote directly here) “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”
So, while some have tried to say that BLM founders being trained Marxists is not a problem, it certainly does show that they support ideas of centralised control or governance, where even the nuclear family is not regarded, and children can be regarded as belonging to a broader village”, which is euphemistic language that is exemplified by laws in california where teachers can hide information about the gender transition status of their children; while parents are harassed for protesting the teaching of sexual education to minors in public schools. In fact, in 2020 during his RNC speech, Jack Brewer exposed this consequential threat from BLM’s ideology, emphasising that, families need each other; and that there is a need for fathers in the homes with their wives and children.”
And so, it is quite notable that the founders of BLM are self-proclaimed trained Marxists, and that they promulgate these ideas without adequate scrutiny. In fact, people who supported the movement paid the price for these ideas. Because the self-proclaimed Marxists had their ideas on how the funds generated by BLM would be spent, and they were spent on luxury homes that are not clearly serving any African American.
BLACK LIVES MATTER AND THE GEORGE FLOYD RIOTS
With this context established, we need to zoom in on the works that BLM has committed itself to, which became especially notable with the George Floyd riots. There were a lot of critical facts that were omitted in the narrative that BLM promulgated to justify and sensationalise the George Floyd riots. As we established at the beginning of our discussion: George Floyd was being apprehended for using counterfeit bills, and at the time this was happening, he had 4 times the lethal amount of fentanyl in his system – this is why he could not breathe (hypoxia). The police weren’t apprehending him in a “violent and fatal manner” (in fact, he asked to be put on the ground) – instead, they were dealing with an erratic person (while they did not know what he was on).
Now, the portrayal of George Floyd by BLM as being a victim of being the wrong race, in the wrong place at the wrong time has created a harmful narrative of assuming that every African American who dies in an encounter with police must be a martyr or victim – and if not careful, this narrative will come back to harm the African American community. People need to learn that it does not take away from genuine instances of racism to acknowledge when an incident is not racist. In this case, George Floyd was a previous violent offender, who was being apprehended at the time for another crime. He also had 4 times the lethal amount of fentanyl in his body, while behaving erratically. It’s acceptable to admit this, while advocating for a less racist society. It is also acceptable to say that George Floyd was not and never was killed by racist police officers; instead George Floyd was killed by a drug overdose. But, most importantly, it is important to recognise that George Floyd is also not a symbol of resistance to systematised racism. His unfortunate death was weaponised by BLM to manipulate African Americans into thinking that there was justice in destroying their neighbourhoods and local businesses as an expression of frustration. But, that was not justice – in fact, it was far from it.
WHY DID BLM GET AWAY WITH PEDDLING A FALSE NARRATIVE ABOUT GEROGE FLOYD?
And, now we also have to establish why BLM got away with lying to the public, and co-opting the government to corroborate its deceitful narrative. Well to answer this, we would have to contrast the events surrounding the Geroge Floyd death with those in the Sydney Wilson case. Sydney Wilson was fatally shot by police officer Peter Liu during a welfare check on September 16. Body camera footage shows Wilson attacking officer Liu with a knife after he knocked on his apartment door. Liu, a 14-year veteran trained in crisis intervention, retreated down a hallway before firing 3 shots at Wilson. Here’s the body cam footage in question, and viewers discretion is advised.
There are three things I’d like to highlight from this case. First, (and once again) the value of life is absolute; we know this because God, in His love for the world of men, sent His only begotten Son for the salvation of all; and so this discussion is certainly not aimed at diluting this fact. This said, the second point I would like to highlight is that this case importantly shows what happens when people are given adequate access to the events that transpired and are allowed to make an informed judgement. More specifically, in the case of Sydney Wilson, BLM has not been very vocal about this case, in so far as using it to justify calls for riots. The reason is that people saw him wielding a knife and injuring a police officer before he shot him to defend himself. In the absence of this information, like how people were not told that George Floyd had three times the lethal amount of fentanyl in his system, or that he had a history of violent crimes, people can be misled and used by organisations like BLM.
The final point I’d like to highlight is that this case exposes the ramification of the trans agenda, when it intersects with policing (because this also exposes the dangers of the infiltration of woke ideology, like the gender agenda). Sydney Wilson is a biological 6’6 male, who identifies as a trangender woman. There is not enough discussion about what this encounter could have been like if the responding officer was a biological woman, seeing that officer Liu himself was injured in the process, despite having a gun and being a biological male himself. Society needs to consider not only the subjective feelings of transgender people and realise that the trans agenda has far reaching ramifications. In fact, we see this concern when judges send offenders guilty of sexual-abuse crimes to female prisons because they identify as women.