> Sure, clearly the cops handled this wrong, but what got Floyd there in the 1st place?

What? Seriously, what? Are you suggesting that the police should be free to pick and choose who they kill based on whether they are a "model citizen/saint" or not?

"Do not kill a person unnecessarily" should be a universal rule the police work to. It doesn't matter one bit who they are interacting with.

Between this attack and the flamebait in your other comments, you're crossing into bannable territory. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.

An Attack? Pointing out the truth is an attack and flame bait? I see - only the hive mind is allowed.

"Do you have a reading comprehension disability" is plainly an attack.

"Pointing out the truth" can certainly be an attack or flamebait. It depends on which truth and how it's used. One middle schooler "pointing out" the acne on another's face can be quite an attack. The hardest substance (truth) makes the sharpest weapon. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23381247 on the "it's a fact" defense, the most beloved of trolls.

For example, let's assume that your comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23396054 was factual and that George Floyd was intoxicated when he was killed. Bringing that up in this context, as if it somehow mitigates anything about his killing, is certainly flamebait, true or not.

Re "I see - only the hive mind is allowed" - that's also a common response. Everyone always feels like the mods are against them, secretly siding with the opposition: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... We oppose your favorite sports team too, and conspire with the highway patrol to make sure it's always you who gets the speeding ticket.

I can’t respond to your earlier comment: but people aren’t saying he’s a saint; they’re making him a martyr of sorts. He died from police brutality, and instead of trying to fix that (over the past few decades), the police and President have waged civil war.

Black leadership has been bombed, assassinated, and jailed. Their neighborhoods are targeted for predatory financial extraction and are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards like waste processing plants, dumps, etc.

The Black Panther party had significant leadership and unification, social programs like food, educational programs, etc. They were killed. Bombed in fact. Prominent leaders were shot in their beds by the government.

Black Wall Street existed, utterly peacefully in fact, and they were utterly destroyed by white riots.

The black community has tried repeatedly to address things and in every turn they were beaten back down.

What do you recommend?

It will take a long time, generations, to fix this. I remember the 1981 race riots in London.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Brixton_riot

There was a public inquiry afterwards that led to the creation of a Police Complaints Commission. But that was largely ineffective for at least 20 years afterwards.

Ultimately I think integration and education are the only solution. My parents didn't meet a non-white person until they were in their late 20s. At my school there were a few black families. At my kids school there was a lot of diversity; and differences in race, sexuality and religion seem to be "old people's problems" to them now.

Integration has been resisted with violence- see busing.

Maybe they could try respectfully taking a knee at football games? Surely that'd work? /s

Deflections are not really a productive discussion tool.

That aside, why do you think that is? Could hundreds of years of systemic economic repression have any causual effect on that? Do you have any suggestions how we as society could bring those numbers down?

Lastly, how in bleeps name does that justify police violence?

Then why does it matter whether he is a "saint" or not? I could see your argument if he was angrily brandishing a gun and they had to make a quick decision to act, but that's very obviously not the case.

Exactly. He could have done whatever criminal things prior, but it has nothing to do with the specific scenario. He wasn't resisting arrest and was unjustly killed. Whatever he has done in the past has no bearing on it.

People tend to forget that others are just mere humans, and no one is a saint. Ffs, even MLK, for all the great progress he brought about, was cheating on his wife, which is imo pretty immoral and universally condemned. But it doesn't diminish his accomplishments in any way.

He plagiarized part of his thesis too, but this kind of begs the question what constitutes plagiarism in theology.

Even if he was DUI, no one has canceled due process. And even with due process, I don't think we give people death sentences for DUI.

Please don't attack another user or post in the flamewar style like this to HN, regardless of how wrong or provocative another comment is. It only makes this place even worse.

Note this guideline: "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." That's our indirect version of please don't feed the trolls. Other users flagged the comment, and it was rightly flagkilled. That would have happened sooner if you had followed the guidelines also.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I don't always agree with you, but damnit, do I respect you. Thanks for the work you do, esp. if you aren't getting compensated.

I'm compensated, which I mention because it's relevant to the health of HN. When people aren't paid to do something, they extract compensation in other ways, and that would exercise a distorting influence if it happened here. Being paid is part of what allows us to be relatively neutral. Also, the job can be a little intense, so one needs to remind oneself that one is choosing to do it, and being paid makes that relatively easy.