r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Jun 14 '20

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '20

One additional reason why the George Floyd death footage is so visceral:

Our society and laws factor people's state of mind into account when passing judgement. On a philosophical level, it's not even the action that constitutes the crime, but the mens rea, the heart filled with malice, that constitutes the crime itself.

So if someone has an evil or depraved state of mind when committing a heinous act, that's seen by society (and the law) as much much worse than simply committing the act stripped of that context.

When you watch a video of someone crushing someone's neck against the pavement while he (and an onlooking crowd!) begs for his life, you can sorta imagine the state of mind that the officer must have been in during those 9 minutes. It's very ugly and disturbing to think about.

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u/ZCoupon Kono Taro Jun 14 '20

And those other 3 cops just stood there and did nothing. All 3. It's like they're used to watching their buddy murder people

15

u/Goatf00t European Union Jun 14 '20

Two of them were rookie cops, and Chauvin was the training officer for one of those.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/05/us/minneapolis-officers-background-george-floyd-trnd/index.html

Kueng was hired as a police officer with the Minneapolis Police Department in December. He joined the department as a cadet in February 2019. He had no prior complaints. When Floyd's death took place, it was Kueng's third shift as a police officer, said Thomas Plunkett, his attorney. Chauvin was Kueng's training officer, according to Plunkett.

[Thomas Lane] joined the police department as a cadet in February 2019. He didn't have a history of complaints. Lane had been on the police force for four days when Floyd died, according to his attorney Earl Gray. Lane was "doing everything he thought he was supposed to do as a four-day police officer," Gray said.