Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 395 ｜ Seeking Truth & Justice： The Derek Chauvin Trial

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so

00:00:15.320 far. Today we're going to talk about that uncomfortable topic that seems to kind of

00:00:21.320 dominate our news cycle, our social media feeds, and that is the topic of race and racism.

00:00:26.440 But we're specifically talking about these subjects in regards to the Derek Chauvin trial,

00:00:32.240 which is now underway. You guys probably know Derek Chauvin was the Minneapolis police officer

00:00:37.860 who was shown on camera last year with his knee on the back of George Floyd's neck before George

00:00:44.060 Floyd died. So we are going to talk about the charges against Derek, what the media are saying,

00:00:49.400 what's likely to happen, what we should want to happen is people who both love truth and justice

00:00:56.280 we will talk about what the truth is in regards to not just this case, but also in regards to

00:01:02.060 claims of systemic racism in the police force in the United States and why clarity on all of that

00:01:09.360 matters. So there are a lot of details about this case and well about this trial that's going on

00:01:14.860 right now that we're not going to be able to get into. This is ongoing and so details are always

00:01:19.920 emerging, different testimonies, the arguments from both sides are being aired. And so there's a lot

00:01:26.700 of commentary on that. But because there's no possible way for us to be following along and have

00:01:35.960 the most up-to-date details for you while we are recording this, and it takes a couple hours for this

00:01:44.520 to come out, we're not going to get into everything that's happening moment by moment. I just want to

00:01:49.780 give you kind of an overview and analysis of what's going on and try to try to get a good understanding

00:01:57.020 to of the context in which this is happening, at least as much as we can. This is something that

00:02:02.900 we've been talking about a lot for the past year, and it's going to continue to be talked about no matter

00:02:09.500 how the trial ends up. And so we want to make sure that we are as informed as possible. So let us

00:02:16.780 talk about what led to this. Just remind us what happened and what's going on in this trial. So

00:02:23.460 according to an article by Fox News, Derek Chauvin trial, what to know about George Floyd autopsies,

00:02:30.480 criminal complaint jurors, and more. So as you know, George Floyd died 10 months ago in Minneapolis.

00:02:36.060 The article says a video recorded by a bystander showing the white officer with his knee pressed to

00:02:41.820 the back of the black man's neck for nearly nine minutes, ignoring his pleas that he couldn't breathe

00:02:47.220 will likely serve as a focal point for prosecutors. In this case, Chauvin 45, I think that's how you

00:02:54.220 pronounce his last name, by the way, I'm not sure. 45 is charged with second degree murder, third degree

00:02:59.260 murder and manslaughter in connection to 46 year old Floyd's death on May 25th, 2020. And the

00:03:05.900 video recorded in front of Cup Foods, Floyd could be heard pleading for his mother and saying he

00:03:11.260 couldn't breathe. This Chauvin pressed his knee into the back of his neck. Onlookers repeatedly

00:03:15.560 shouted at Chauvin to get off, asked him to check for a pulse and warned that Floyd no longer seemed to

00:03:21.660 be breathing. Three other officers involved, Thomas Lane, J.A. Kung and Tao Thao, were each charged

00:03:31.720 with two counts of aiding and abetting and second degree murder. They are expected to stand trial

00:03:36.540 together later this year in August. So to give us a little bit more context about what went on,

00:03:44.020 and maybe these are some details that you didn't know. Sometimes it takes several weeks or several

00:03:49.060 months for us to really understand what happened in an incident like this. Here are some details from

00:03:55.680 the criminal complaints. So two officers, the two officers of the three that I listed in addition

00:04:01.900 to Chauvin, responded to a 911 call around 8.08 p.m. about a man who allegedly bought merchandise

00:04:09.760 from a corner market with a counterfeit $20 bill. Court paper show Floyd was in the driver's seat of a

00:04:15.280 vehicle parked around the corner. When the officers arrived, body camera footage shows Lane, that's one

00:04:20.380 of the officers pointing his gun at the open driver's side window and ordering Floyd to put his hands on

00:04:25.460 the steering wheel before holstering his gun. Lane then orders Floyd out of the vehicle and ends up

00:04:32.140 pulling him out of the car. The officer handcuffs Floyd, who actively resisted, according to the

00:04:36.860 criminal complaint filed in the case. Once handcuffed, Floyd became compliant. He walked with the officer

00:04:46.600 laying to the sidewalk, sat on the ground. And then they did the, you know, the normal police stuff,

00:04:52.940 asking for his name and asking for his identification and information. And then they stood Floyd up. They

00:05:01.040 attempted to walk him to their squad car, but at 8.14 p.m., Floyd stiffened. He fell to the ground. He

00:05:06.740 told the officers he was claustrophobic. Chauvin and Tao arrived in a separate police car. So I guess

00:05:15.040 they called for help. They felt like, okay, we can't get this guy. He's over six feet tall. He

00:05:20.120 weighs more than 200 pounds. This report says we can't get him to get into the squad car.

00:05:24.700 Reports say that they also said, Hey, we'll, you know, we'll lower the windows for you, but you got

00:05:29.800 to get in the squad car. And apparently George Floyd was saying, I'm claustrophobic. I don't want

00:05:35.000 to get in the squad car. And so they called for backup. They continued to make attempts to get him

00:05:40.740 in the backseat of the squad car, tried to get him to comply. Chauvin went to the passenger side,

00:05:49.200 tried to get Floyd into the car from that side. And then when Floyd went to the ground face down

00:05:54.540 while still handcuffed, that is when Floyd, or that is when Chauvin apparently put his knee

00:05:59.620 on the back of Floyd's neck. And that is when Floyd was saying, I can't breathe and saying mama

00:06:04.720 and saying, please. And that's when the onlookers were saying, Hey, like get your knee off of his neck.

00:06:09.560 He, he obviously can't breathe. Stop, you know, treating him in this way. You're going to

00:06:14.920 kill him. Um, an ambulance arrives and medics place Floyd on a gurney and take him to Hennepin 0.97

00:06:20.580 County medical center where he was pronounced dead. Now an EMT did testify in court. I think it was

00:06:27.000 either this morning or it was yesterday. And she alleges that she wasn't able to get to Floyd as

00:06:33.820 quickly as she wanted to, and was able to, she says that the police officers actually inhibited her

00:06:41.020 from giving Floyd the immediate help that he needed. So the full footage of the incident shows

00:06:48.140 and congruence with the criminal complaint that there was a lot that went down before that viral

00:06:53.820 video of Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck. He was allegedly resisting arrest. And from what we can

00:07:00.140 see, the police officers were trying to convince him for a very long time to get in the car. He

00:07:05.620 didn't want to, he dropped to the ground. And then that's where we have the viral footage. And that is

00:07:10.300 not me justifying anything or trying to explain away anything. That's just what the context of the clip

00:07:16.640 of the full clip shows us. Um, now I saw this clip on Twitter last year before this became a national

00:07:24.180 moment before it became a conversation, certainly before it became a movement. And I have the same

00:07:29.360 reaction that most people did that. Oh my gosh, what is happening? This is not okay to see a guy

00:07:35.480 with handcuffs behind his back and a police officer kneeling on his neck. It's just, it's unsettling.

00:07:42.480 It's disturbing. There's just something about that image that sticks with you, that sears you,

00:07:48.620 that breaks your heart and just disregarding everything else for just a second. All the

00:07:55.100 politics, everything that happened after all the details that came out before and after this incident,

00:08:00.980 I think it is good for us to pause and to just like, let ourselves feel that rather than resisting

00:08:09.460 feelings of sadness. We may have felt when seeing that video, because maybe we didn't want to, uh,

00:08:17.460 be too quick to criticize the police officer, or we don't want to perpetuate a narrative about police

00:08:24.880 brutality. Uh, I would say that it's okay. And even preferable to just let ourselves feel sadness.

00:08:32.320 When we see a person seemingly desperate and obviously very uncomfortable being pinned to the

00:08:39.200 cement. Now the left and the right, both do this. People will immediately harden their hearts when it

00:08:45.740 comes to, for example, the brutality of abortion, or when it comes to victims of crimes, not committed

00:08:51.280 by police officers and white people, or for conservatives, we'll see conservatives kind of,

00:08:57.240 um, harden their hearts about the plight of migrants or the victims of unjustified, uh, police force,

00:09:04.340 because we're afraid that feelings of sympathy may validate the argument of our opponent. And in this

00:09:10.780 polarized world, that is the last thing that we want. And I understand, I'm not justifying,

00:09:17.920 but I understand that propensity toward callousness. And I see how and why it happens on the right in

00:09:24.200 particular, because I'm on the right. So I'm watching these kinds of stories unfold from that

00:09:29.000 vantage point. What happens is something like the George Floyd incident occurs and pretty much

00:09:35.480 everyone agrees immediately. Wow. That's bad. Like that doesn't look good. I don't think people

00:09:40.480 should be treated like that. Hard to understand how there may be a justification for that kind of

00:09:45.200 behavior. So everyone's kind of on the same page. Everyone's kind of on board. And then immediately

00:09:51.600 we see the media and left-wing activists go beyond yet. Wow. That's, that's bad. And human beings

00:09:58.560 should be treated better too. In a matter of seconds, it seems, see, this is evidence of

00:10:04.220 systemic racism, uh, and white supremacy and the police force and in society. And George Floyd was

00:10:09.840 a saint who we should dedicate murals and streets and protests and riots to, as we seek to dismantle

00:10:15.320 the unjust systems and defund the police that allow something like this to happen every single day.

00:10:22.120 And then people on the right are like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We don't even have a chance. It seems like

00:10:28.020 to keep up. We feel like we've got to defend the nature of progressivism as a general rule. And I'm

00:10:34.800 not saying all progressives, but as an ideology is that every tragedy is an opportunity. So many times

00:10:42.280 leftist activists and journalists will immediately go from centering the humanity of victims to centering

00:10:48.340 their, uh, political cause or their political narrative. And the only people who will push

00:10:54.120 back against that narrative is conservatives. Now I'm not saying that conservatives don't do the same

00:10:58.320 thing when a crime is committed by an illegal immigrant or something like that, but because 0.75

00:11:04.500 all of the cultural and political megaphones are, uh, dominated by the leftist ideology. We see this

00:11:12.680 in particular when it comes to progressivism, the decentering of what actually happened, the decentering

00:11:19.940 of the truth, the decentering of the victims and of the people involved in the recentering, or I guess

00:11:26.520 just the centering of some sort of political narrative. Um, the tragedies are used in a very

00:11:34.160 exploitative way, I would say in order to try to push a particular point. And that is when people on the

00:11:41.100 right, get extremely defensive and say, hang on just a second. Like we agree with you. This doesn't

00:11:46.080 look good. We agree with you. This looks like injustice. This looks like abuse. This looks like

00:11:53.240 murder, but we're jumping to all these other conclusions and we're just not ready to go there

00:11:57.660 yet because we don't have the facts. And then when conservatives do push back, we're accused of not

00:12:03.480 being compassionate. Like we're accused of the one of, of being the ones who are not empathetic or nuanced

00:12:08.200 or being too political. When in these cases, it's actually not conservatives who first politicized

00:12:13.400 and racialized what happened to George Floyd, or for another example, their horrific shooting in

00:12:19.500 Atlanta a couple of weeks ago. So apparently like the message that we get is that we just have to agree

00:12:26.080 with whatever the progressive mainstream says is the cause of something in order to be regarded as

00:12:33.920 sympathetic. And so speaking for the conservative side, what so often happens is that we feel like

00:12:41.060 we have to skip the compassion and go straight into the defense or else there is nothing and no one to

00:12:47.380 stop sometimes, uh, the sometimes false narratives that surround these tragic events because our media

00:12:54.500 and our social media are dominated by one political and ideological side. And a narrative just takes off

00:13:00.620 like wildfire. And if conservatives don't slow it down, we feel like it's just going to wreck the

00:13:08.480 conversation about the incident or about the event that happens. Now, all that to say, I think

00:13:15.060 conservatives, while absolutely speaking truth and speaking against false narratives, must not neglect

00:13:22.440 compassion and look past humanity for the sake of anxiously tearing down left-wing arguments and

00:13:29.460 assertions. If the other side wants to do that, like if they want to immediately decenter humanity,

00:13:35.760 if they want to forget about the victims, if they just want to push a political agenda immediately,

00:13:41.180 they can do that. But I think we need to need to have, especially as Christians, a little patience 0.97

00:13:46.900 when it comes to our reaction. So we can kind of sit in the sadness and let ourselves feel what should

00:13:55.160 be felt and pray what needs to be prayed before jumping into the arena. I don't think that we have

00:14:02.740 to avoid jumping into the arena because the truth absolutely matters, but I think we need a little

00:14:07.960 bit more hesitance before forgetting about the bodies who aren't even cold yet when it comes to

00:14:13.860 situations like this. The immediacy, uh, that it seems social media demands of us to make these

00:14:21.320 statements, to offer hot takes, to give analysis, has a way of hardening our hearts to the reality

00:14:28.620 that what we're talking about in these situations are people, like real people made in God's image

00:14:35.820 with value, who had plans and families and friends. Their lives matter beyond what we want them to

00:14:43.140 represent or debunk when it comes to our political causes. Now, I am absolutely guilty of this.

00:14:49.900 Lord, help me. It's something that I certainly see on the conservative side. I also see it on the

00:14:57.540 other side of the aisle all the time as they turn a blind eye to the kinds of crime that don't fit

00:15:02.740 into their narrative or the brutality of, of killing and dismembering babies in the womb. And I just pray

00:15:08.820 that God would make all of our hearts, those of us who identify as Christians, make all of our hearts

00:15:14.700 soft to the things that demand our gentleness and care right away. And let us, uh, allow ourselves

00:15:21.420 to sit in it before the news and social media hashtags and viral posts make us callous and

00:15:27.500 uncaring. And also may that love and sympathy and sadness that we feel for victims, for these people,

00:15:34.960 these image bearers involved for the people at the center of our political controversies,

00:15:39.860 motivate us to seek out and understand that which is actually true. Not what the popular narrative is,

00:15:46.740 not what the headlines say, not what we want to be true, but what is actually true. Because one thing

00:15:54.100 I know for sure is that empathy plus deceit does not equal love. Uh, it is not loving to lie. It is not

00:16:04.720 loving or wise to latch on to political narratives because it's popular and comfortable to do so.

00:16:11.600 And when it comes to something as disturbing as the George Floyd incident, the heartache that we feel,

00:16:16.600 and I believe we should feel when we watch that video should not motivate us to respond publicly with

00:16:23.260 sheer emotion and without truth, but rather should give us the desire to really know what happened.

00:16:29.980 Why did this happen? Is this a pattern? What's the context of this, both there in that situation and

00:16:37.620 in a larger sense in the, in the country, we're seeing claims of white supremacy, anti-black racism

00:16:44.000 in the police force. Is that true based on the information and the data that we have? And that's

00:16:49.760 the question that we're always dealing with and should be dealing with. Is this true? And what is true?

00:16:55.640 And it's that question that must be dealt with when it comes to this Derek Chauvin trial. Justice

00:17:02.280 being done in this case does not mean that black lives matter activists get what they want.

00:17:08.040 Necessarily. It's not about making a statement about systemic racism. It's not about writing historic

00:17:14.500 wrongs. It's not about what we feel should happen or what we strongly believe the outcome should be.

00:17:20.300 That's not justice. It's not about anything except what is true as far as what can be proven in a

00:17:27.580 court of law beyond a reasonable doubt. So the questions that will be asked and explored that

00:17:34.240 have already been asked and explored in, in this trial will continue to be, uh, or was it actually

00:17:40.900 the weight of Chauvin's knee that killed George Floyd or do the autopsy reports point to something else?

00:17:46.440 That's not to say whether or not what he did was right. I'm just saying that's the question that's

00:17:50.760 going to have to be asked when you're talking about convicting a person of murder. Did Chauvin

00:17:55.380 show intent or blatant disregard for Floyd's life? Was this a hold that the Minneapolis, uh,

00:18:00.960 police department had been trained, uh, or had been training their police officers to use,

00:18:05.620 or was he using excessive force in order to inflict serious bodily harm or even kill him?

00:18:12.200 And I understand if you're on the left, maybe even hearing me asking those questions makes you angry,

00:18:19.180 but these are the questions that will be explored in court and they should be like, just because we

00:18:26.000 believe something is wrong or just because something may be objectively wrong doesn't mean that the

00:18:31.260 person is guilty of the crime that he's being charged with. Chelsea Handler, the comedian tweeted that

00:18:37.520 we shouldn't even have a trial for him because we have a video. Oh my gosh. This is what happens when

00:18:46.020 someone has become successful in one area. And for that reason, they erroneously think that that gives

00:18:52.160 them the authority to speak into other areas. It's like, uh, uh, an appeal to authority fallacy that they

00:18:59.320 embody, uh, themselves. And it just goes to show how little education or critical thought is required

00:19:05.260 to make it as comedian. I'm not saying that all comedians are dumb. I'm not even saying that 0.98

00:19:10.060 Chelsea Handler is dumb. This is just a very dumb, short-sighted statement. We want non-politicized 1.00

00:19:18.780 due process for every single person that commits a crime in this country. If we allow politics or

00:19:25.980 popular opinion, or even video footage, gosh, in the, in the day of deep fakes to take away someone's

00:19:32.880 right to a fair trial, you are looking at fascism and or communism at complete and total dictatorial

00:19:41.840 control of the populace by those in charge. And you think that's not also going to negatively affect

00:19:47.760 people of color, many of whom have ancestors, uh, who just a few generations back experienced the partial

00:19:55.720 biased application of the law because of their skin color. What a terrible take due process is

00:20:03.120 good. We do not have anything close to a perfect justice system in this country, but our bill of

00:20:09.160 rights as specifically the due process clauses in the fifth and the 14th amendment afford us as

00:20:14.540 Americans so much more than most of the world could ever dream of. Here's what the fifth amendment

00:20:19.760 says no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a

00:20:26.460 presentment of indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces or in

00:20:32.280 the militia, when an actual service in time of war, public danger, nor shall any person be subject for

00:20:37.900 the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal

00:20:43.760 case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without

00:20:51.300 due process of law. Now, well, I won't even get into that. There's, there's a lot that people say,

00:20:59.960 and I think rightly and critique that that's actually not being applied truly and completely

00:21:05.260 and fairly in this country, but that is a right that we are supposed to have recognized that is in

00:21:11.000 the bill of rights, nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

00:21:16.840 So we have a right as Americans. And while these rights are not always, like I said, recognized as

00:21:23.260 thoroughly and fairly as they should be, we have to be able to recognize that even those that we see

00:21:29.660 as guilty, maybe even especially those that we in the public at large sees as guilty, even people we

00:21:35.480 don't like are entitled to these rights. And that is a good thing. Listen to how much God

00:21:40.980 cares about the truth, impartiality, and the fair process of justice as he gives his commands

00:21:46.760 to his people in Israel in Leviticus 19 quote, you shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be

00:21:54.900 partial to the poor nor defer to the great. So he says, and this flies in the face of what so many

00:22:00.960 social justice advocates say that they want. He said that we're not supposed to show preferential

00:22:05.280 treatment in court to the poor, and we're not supposed to show preferential treatment in court

00:22:10.260 to the great. Those that society sees these as the oppressed or the oppressor. He says in court,

00:22:16.740 you do not show partiality to either of these parties based on that or at all, but specifically

00:22:23.940 based on their poverty or their wealth or their prominence or their insignificance. He says,

00:22:29.460 you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge

00:22:35.680 your neighbor. A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong

00:22:42.300 in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three

00:22:47.960 witnesses shall a charge be established. If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing,

00:22:54.180 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges

00:22:59.680 who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently. And if the witness is a false

00:23:05.500 witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his

00:23:12.600 brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. So God hates slander. He hates a false witness.

00:23:18.980 He hates false narratives. He hates false accusations. And he hates partiality. Exodus 23, 1 through 3.

00:23:27.280 You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious

00:23:32.700 witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit,

00:23:38.420 siding with the many so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit. So

00:23:44.960 God repeats again, you can't be partial even to the poor man, even to the weak man, even to the man

00:23:52.820 that doesn't seem to have as much backing or significance as maybe the guy on the other side.

00:23:59.520 You can't show partiality to him. God says this has to be an honest and a fair and a thorough

00:24:04.540 impartial process to meet what his standard of justice actually is. The idea of due process was

00:24:10.940 God's idea, who is the creator of justice. God gives rights to both the accused and the accuser.

00:24:17.040 That's what we see in his law giving to Israel. And while we are not ancient Israel, I'm not saying

00:24:23.480 that we are, I'm not trying to argue that we are or should pretend that we are. It is important for us

00:24:29.800 to understand where due process comes from and why it is so important. So when Micah 6, 8, as Christians

00:24:37.860 tells us to seek justice, to love mercy, that word justice is not translated to mean fighting for

00:24:44.760 whatever social justice causes we want, however we want, and showing partiality in some groups in

00:24:52.420 exchange for a different kind of partiality against another group. It's about taking, or it's about

00:25:02.320 God's righteous justice, which is always rooted, scripture tells us, in impartiality and in truth.

00:25:10.760 There is a priest, I guess he's a priest, his name is David Inksowskis on Twitter. He tweeted,

00:25:21.900 Jesus Christ and Derek Chauvin are on trial this week. If the justice system lets Derek Chauvin walk free,

00:25:28.460 then we will have chosen Barabbas over Christ once again. Now I'm not even sure what the heck he means

00:25:36.860 by this, but what he is saying is, you know, who cares about the presumption of innocence, which

00:25:42.320 Americans are supposed to be able to enjoy according to our bill of rights, who cares about due process,

00:25:49.900 who cares about what the arguments are, what the evidence is, who cares about the actual impartial

00:25:55.940 justice that people should be entitled to, and that God actually desires, as we see in scripture.

00:26:05.860 And let us say that if Derek Chauvin walks free, we are once again, I guess, crucifying Jesus. Like,

00:26:14.020 there's just no theological or logical backing to a tweet like this. Like, that is not the definition

00:26:20.020 of God's impartial and righteous justice. The fact that Derek Chauvin has the right to a defense,

00:26:28.480 just like everyone else, is good. That is a system that we very much want to keep in place in the

00:26:35.900 United States if we don't want to be like every other brutal dictatorship that's ever existed. This

00:26:42.440 is important for people of every color, for every socioeconomic status, for every kind of background,

00:26:49.680 for every place of prominence. It is important that everyone is entitled to this fair process.

00:26:57.220 According to NBC, here are the charges, the prosecution led by State Attorney General Keith

00:27:05.100 Ellison, who, by the way, is every bit a left-wing political activist, are bringing forth. This is

00:27:12.900 NBC. Quote, Chauvin faces second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder,

00:27:18.440 and second-degree manslaughter charges in Floyd's death. Second-degree murder carries the haptiest

00:27:23.320 potential penalty. If convicted on that charge, he could face up to 40 years in prison. That requires

00:27:29.400 the highest burden of proof, though. They're going to have to prove that Chauvin caused Floyd's death

00:27:35.440 while committing or attempting to commit a felony offense. The lesser charge of third-degree murder

00:27:40.480 carries a penalty of up to 25 years. The judge, who is overseeing the trial, granted prosecutor's

00:27:47.400 request to reinstate the charge this month. He originally said that the circumstances just don't

00:27:54.500 merit it, that this is not going to hold up because it requires proof that the person charged

00:27:59.720 committed an act imminently dangerous to others, meaning more than one person, but he actually allowed

00:28:04.800 it to be reinstated. The final charge Chauvin faces second-degree manslaughter, has the lowest burden

00:28:10.980 of proof, carries a maximum penalty of 10 years. Prosecutors would have to prove that Floyd's death

00:28:17.720 was caused by Chauvin's negligence and created an unreasonable risk in consciously taking chances of

00:28:24.840 causing death or great bodily harm to another. My amateur opinion is that this third one holds up the

00:28:31.560 best second-degree manslaughter, but of course, like I said at the beginning, there's a lot that's

00:28:35.980 going into this, so it's hard to say what's going to happen, and no one can truly predict the outcome

00:28:40.860 of it. According to Fox, the defense is expected to argue that Floyd was not killed on Memorial Day

00:28:48.320 by Chauvin's knee, but rather by the drugs he ingested while resisting arrest and underlying health

00:28:53.920 conditions, including high blood pressure and heart disease. According to KARE 11 News,

00:28:59.840 handwritten note of a law enforcement interview with Dr. Andrew Baker, the Hennepin County Medical

00:29:05.360 Examiner, say Floyd had a lot of fentanyl in his system. If we were, he said, if he were found dead

00:29:14.500 at home alone and no other apparent causes, this could be acceptable to call an OD. Deaths have been

00:29:21.040 certified with levels of a lot less than this. That is the level of fentanyl that he had in his body,

00:29:27.960 this medical examiner said, is a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances, but he does go

00:29:35.440 on to say, I am not saying that this killed him. So he's stating the facts of what was in his body,

00:29:41.000 but he can't say that that's actually what killed him, but that's what the defense attorneys are

00:29:46.800 probably going to say. They've signaled that, that they're going to argue that Floyd died from

00:29:52.600 the drugs and preexisting health conditions. Also, according to Fox, the autopsy conducted by the

00:29:57.280 Hennepin County Medical Examiner actually did determine that Floyd's cause of death was a

00:30:02.100 cardiopulmonary arrest, complicating law enforcement, subdual restraint and neck compression.

00:30:09.280 It was ruled a homicide. Floyd's family later hired private doctors to conduct an independent autopsy,

00:30:17.000 which listed the cause of death as mechanical asphyxia and the manner of death as homicide.

00:30:23.380 So the defense is going to say, look, there's no way to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the

00:30:30.300 neck compression is what killed him. He had fatal levels of fentanyl in his system. People have

00:30:34.700 reportedly been killed by less. He also apparently, according to the medical examiner, has a very

00:30:39.740 serious heart condition. Beyond that, the defense is probably going to say that there was no intent

00:30:46.860 there. They're going to point to the fact that apparently, reportedly, this was a hold that the

00:30:52.540 Minneapolis police force had been trained to use, and there's no way that he can actually be justly

00:30:59.420 convicted of murder. According to Insider, the Minneapolis police department trained its officers

00:31:06.420 to use the neck restraint that led to George Floyd's killing, according to court documents. And so that

00:31:13.400 might look bad for the police force, but that actually helps Derek Chauvin's case. He could just say, I was

00:31:19.080 doing what I was trained to do. There was obviously no intent to murder. There was no malice behind it,

00:31:25.780 whatever. So that is probably what the defense is expected to say. I am not saying that. Some people are

00:31:31.960 going to listen to this and think that I am, you know, saying that the defense is my argument, too. I'm just

00:31:37.960 saying that's probably what his defense is going to say. They've got a case. Wherever you land on this,

00:31:44.780 both sides have their case to make. Here's what NBC tells us about the jury. The jury is made up of

00:31:51.340 nine women and six men. Nine of the jurors identify as white, four is black, and two of mixed race.

00:31:57.140 They range in ages from 20s to the 60s. Having an impartial jury whose anonymity is protected is crucial.

00:32:07.960 To the fairness of these trials. And there was a push by some on the left to release the

00:32:13.900 information, for example, of jurors in the Breonna Taylor case after that did not go the

00:32:17.700 direction that they wanted, including her family. They were pushing for this information, and they

00:32:23.580 actually did, I think, get the transcripts, but they didn't get, thankfully, the names and the

00:32:28.900 information of the people on the jury. If that is the new precedent that we set, then again, we will no

00:32:34.820 longer have fair trials for anyone of any race on either side of the aisle of any socioeconomic

00:32:41.020 background. That spells trouble for everyone. That is not something that we want. So when we say that

00:32:47.600 we want justice to be served here, which I think that we all should, that means that we want a fair

00:32:53.060 trial with an objective judge, an impartial jury, where both sides bring their best arguments forward,

00:33:00.080 the evidence is weighed, and a decision is reached that is not influenced by the media, by public

00:33:06.400 opinion, or politics. That's what it will mean for justice to be served. The fact is, we're in a tough

00:33:12.820 situation with all of this. If Chauvin is not convicted of the highest charge, then we will be

00:33:18.440 hearing endlessly that it's because the system is racist, there will be riots, there will be looting,

00:33:23.360 there will probably be murder, there will be property destruction. It will not matter how objective,

00:33:30.080 or fair the process is. If BLM and Democrats and left-wing activists do not get what they want

00:33:35.480 here, which I believe is the highest possible murder charge, no matter what can actually be

00:33:40.180 proven in court, they will use this as a way to relaunch the anarchy that many of them have been

00:33:46.560 waging for nearly a year now and redouble their efforts to convince the country that America

00:33:50.840 is pervasively and systemically racist and that we need to defund the police. First of all,

00:33:57.620 I know this is controversial to say, but it's just true. It needs to be said that we still have no

00:34:03.120 evidence whatsoever that what Derek Chauvin did, as awful as it may be, was motivated by race or had

00:34:11.140 anything to do with race whatsoever. A black Minneapolis police officer a few years ago shot and killed a

00:34:17.720 white woman who had just called 911. And as she was walking up to his car, totally unarmed,

00:34:23.680 just this blonde lady in pink pajamas, he shot her point blank and killed her. He only got 12 and a 0.99

00:34:31.100 half years in prison. And no one talks about systemic injustice or race when it comes to that

00:34:39.080 case or in the case of Tony Tempa or Daniel Shaver, if you even know who their names, who they are,

00:34:45.360 and if you even know those names, or any of the white people who are killed by the police,

00:34:49.600 because it's called narrative. It's called what the media use, or it's what the media use to

00:34:58.240 determine whether or not a victim is worth talking about and a crime is worth discussing. That's called

00:35:04.800 partiality. And God is very clear that he hates it. So we as Christians should too. Now we need to look

00:35:12.680 at the facts around police brutality, because this is going to be a conversation, like I said, that is

00:35:19.500 going to be had once again in the next few weeks. And it's a good conversation to have, but we need to

00:35:26.180 know what the facts actually are. Now. So let's refresh our memories on some of these statistics when it

00:35:38.360 comes to police, uh, when it comes to police shootings and police brutality, this is not to

00:35:44.100 take away what, uh, from what happened to George Floyd, because obviously that's important, but I

00:35:48.900 want us to be prepared. And I want us to know what the truth is. Um, when this trial really goes one

00:35:54.500 way or another, we have to make sure that we are knowledgeable about the facts. According to the

00:35:59.260 Washington post database on police shootings, uh, 1021 people were shot and killed by the police last

00:36:07.380 year. Now that doesn't include other types of killing of civilians. And we'll talk about that

00:36:11.960 too. The Washington post database is only about, um, police shootings in particular. So 1021 fatal

00:36:20.440 police shootings of civilians, only a few more than 2019 actually, which is just interesting because

00:36:27.540 there was a big uptick in violent crime in 2020. Um, 457 of these were whites, uh, 241 were black. So

00:36:35.680 about 45% white, about 27% black. Now of those, most were armed, most were armed. Uh, there were a

00:36:43.480 total of only about 50 or not about, there were only 55 unarmed people shot and killed by the police

00:36:50.240 last year. So 95% of fatal police shootings last year involved civilians who were armed. That doesn't

00:36:57.640 mean that the cases in which people were unarmed don't matter, that their lives don't matter. We

00:37:03.340 shouldn't look into those because we absolutely should, but these are just the facts. These are

00:37:07.940 just the, the, the statistics, um, about police shootings. Um, but by the way, unarmed doesn't

00:37:14.040 actually necessarily mean not dangerous. They could have been reaching for the officer's weapon and

00:37:19.400 still be considered unarmed. They could have been a threat in some way to someone else on arms.

00:37:24.520 Doesn't always mean that the officer is not justified and using fatal force though. Of course,

00:37:29.500 sometimes it does mean exactly that all of these cases have to be looked into. It depends entirely

00:37:35.280 on the circumstance and what actually happened. So 55 unarmed people shot and killed by the police

00:37:40.880 last year. We don't know all the circumstances and whether or not the action by the police was in

00:37:45.800 any way justified. Of those who were unarmed, 24 were white, 18 were black. So 1.7% of fatal police

00:37:54.000 shootings last year were of unarmed black men. If you look at the database, which starts in 2015 year

00:38:01.360 over year, these numbers are comparable. They're about the same. Now it is true that white people 1.00

00:38:07.820 make up about 70% of the population. Black Americans make up about 12 to 13% of the population. So the

00:38:14.920 fact that 27% of fatal police shootings involve a black person unarmed or not, uh, is disproportionate. 0.84

00:38:22.600 So you will hear, uh, that black people are much more likely to be killed by the police than white

00:38:29.760 people because there is a higher percentage of total black people, um, killed, or there's a higher 0.84

00:38:36.640 percentage of black people killed by the police and the percentage of total white people killed by the

00:38:43.180 police based on population size. The website mapping police violence says this 36% of unarmed people

00:38:49.680 killed by the police, uh, were black in 2015, despite black people making up only 13% of the

00:38:56.500 population. That is true. But the reality is according to FBI data, and I know this is a 0.95

00:39:03.100 controversial thing to say, I'm not justifying again, anything, but this is the context that we

00:39:09.180 have to know when we're having these conversations. The reality is according to FBI data that black 0.98

00:39:14.200 Americans, despite only making up 12 to 13% of the population get a lot of police attention

00:39:20.880 because there's a disproportionate number of violent crimes committed in these inner city

00:39:26.220 communities. In 2018, black Americans committed about 40% of all homicides while again, making up 1.00

00:39:34.340 only 12 to 13% of the population. Uh, 2012 to 2015 report by the Bureau of labor statistics found that

00:39:41.600 white Americans commit about 44% of all violent crime black Americans about, uh, 23% of all violent 0.80

00:39:49.940 crimes, again, making up about 12 to 13% of the population. So the likely reason black Americans are 1.00

00:39:58.180 more likely to have these kinds of fatal encounters with the police is because they have more interactions

00:40:04.780 with the police, uh, than other races than other kinds of demographics, because reportedly of the

00:40:12.840 crimes that are being committed in these communities. And I just want to say again, this is not a

00:40:18.500 justification of anything, but if we're looking at, if we're asking the questions, honestly, which we

00:40:24.620 should be, you know, why, why is this happening? Why is there this disproportionate number? Uh, why are we

00:40:31.920 hearing, uh, about these stories? We have to look at the entire picture. There are absolutely incidents

00:40:38.980 that we know of, like, uh, in my opinion, the one of Elijah McClain in which a young black man was

00:40:45.500 again, in my opinion, clearly abused and killed completely unjustifiably. So I'm not saying that

00:40:52.040 any of these statistics mean that there's never a case of a white police officer unjustly killing a

00:40:58.240 black man. Of course that happens. Of course that happens. Or, uh, another race of a police officer 0.97

00:41:03.780 killing another race of civilian of, of a civilian unjustifiably. Of course that happens again, just

00:41:10.220 looking at the entire picture. And, uh, that was a case in Elijah McClain that didn't involve, uh,

00:41:17.980 it didn't involve a gun mapping police violence looks at, uh, all deaths of civilians by the hands of the

00:41:25.200 police, not just using a gun, uh, according to that website in 2019, 1098 people killed, uh, were killed

00:41:35.060 in all ways. According to this site by the police, 114 were unarmed of those. According to the site,

00:41:42.320 48 were white, 28 were black. Again, we don't know anything about those killings, what the circumstance

00:41:48.020 was, but let's put those numbers, those numbers into context and not being police violence, by the

00:41:55.040 way, is an activist organization against what they call police, uh, police violence. Um, and I'm not

00:42:03.860 saying that their description of police violence is wrong, but that's just how they describe it.

00:42:07.300 So according to the Bureau of justice statistics, there were over 50 million interactions between the

00:42:12.040 public and the police in 2015, the most recent year that there is data for that I could find that number

00:42:17.620 has ranged over the years, but every year, tens of millions of people interact with the police. So if we

00:42:23.540 take the estimate of 50 million police interactions in 2020, and according to the Washington Post,

00:42:29.180 1,021 fatal police shootings in 2020, you're looking at about 0.002% of all interactions between the

00:42:36.060 police and the public ended a fatal shooting by a police officer. Um, and if we're talking about

00:42:42.260 killed by any fatal force and we go to mapping police violence data, that's 28 unarmed black people

00:42:48.920 killed by the police in 2019, either justifiably or not, either by a white officer or not. That's 0.54

00:42:55.020 0.00056% of all police interactions. And every single one of those instances should be looked into.

00:43:04.280 We can talk about every single one of them to see whether or not it was justified to see whether

00:43:08.740 or not there was a racial bias there or racial motivation there, but we have to be able to look

00:43:14.900 at the details of this and to look at what is actually going on before we simply believe what

00:43:21.320 the media tells us that this is happening on a daily basis or that this characterizes all police

00:43:26.520 officers or that, um, this justifies defunding the police or getting rid of the police.

00:43:33.880 As we see fit, I don't think the numbers support that kind of argument. The fact of the matter is

00:43:39.220 when we're looking at what is victimizing black communities, um, it doesn't seem to be according

00:43:45.600 to the data, predominantly police officers, the homicide rate among black people is completely

00:43:50.640 disproportionate to their population size. There are murders, mass murders nearly every weekend in 0.96

00:43:56.740 cities like Chicago that are never reported on because it doesn't perpetuate a narrative.

00:44:00.480 These are conveniently categorized as local crime stories, but the tragedies that have what

00:44:06.840 progressives consider a politically useful racial makeup, even though they're more rare have to

00:44:11.880 become national news. Roland Fryer, he is an economic professor at Harvard university. He conducted a

00:44:18.980 thorough study in July, 2016, uh, looking at the existence of racial bias in the police force,

00:44:24.940 specifically racial shootings. According to the New York times, Mr. Fryer is the youngest African

00:44:30.360 American to receive tenure at Harvard and the first to join a John to win a John Bates Clark medal,

00:44:36.780 um, that is given to economists under the age of 40. He conducted this study thinking that he was going to

00:44:45.460 find racism, proven racism in the police force when it comes to who police officers decide to, uh,

00:44:53.620 decide to shoot. But he actually, he, that's not what he found. Um, he actually found that in such

00:45:02.080 situations, officers in Houston in particular is one city that he looked at where about 20% less 0.69

00:45:07.680 likely to shoot if suspects were black. The estimate was not precise and firmer conclusions would require

00:45:11.980 more data, but in various models controlling for different factors and using different situations

00:45:16.560 of different definitions of 10 situations, Mr. Fryer found that blacks were either less likely to be

00:45:21.760 shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites. The New York times says a 2019 peer

00:45:27.980 review study titled officer characteristics and racial disparities and fatal officer involved shootings 0.89

00:45:33.380 published a scientific journal aimed to examine racial bias and police shootings found that black cops are

00:45:38.840 more likely to shoot black civilians and Hispanic cops are more likely to shoot Hispanic civilians 0.92

00:45:43.780 and so on. Here's what the study found as the proportion of violent crime committed by black civilians 0.99

00:45:49.120 increased. A person fatally shot was more likely to be black as a proportion of violent crime committed 0.87

00:45:54.120 by Hispanic civilians increased. A person fatally shot was more likely to be Hispanic. Conversely, 0.92

00:45:59.500 as white crime rates increased, a person fatally shot was less likely to be black or Hispanic.

00:46:05.000 We did not find evidence for anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparity in police use of force across all shootings and, if anything, found anti-white disparities when controlling for race-specific crime.

00:46:18.080 Now, Roland Fryer did find, according to a study, that he believes that the evidence shows that when it comes to non-fatal confrontations, like police officers just roughing up suspects or perpetrators, that the victims of that kind of brutality and abuse and harassment are more likely to be Black and brown than they are white.

00:46:37.880 And I think that's important for us to know that brutality, where it does exist, is not always going to end in a fatal confrontation.

00:46:44.780 It can also mean a police officer using his power in a way that is unjust, that doesn't end in some kind of fatal conclusion.

00:46:52.460 And we should absolutely care about that, especially if we see some kind of racial bias behind it.

00:46:58.560 But the fact of the matter is, is that most people do not know these facts.

00:47:02.300 Like, most people don't know these studies.

00:47:04.160 Most people don't know these percentages.

00:47:05.720 Most people just don't know the data.

00:47:08.780 And there was a really interesting report by Skeptic Research asking how informed are Americans when it comes to race and policing.

00:47:17.120 It was conducted among 980 adult Americans.

00:47:20.160 That's a pretty small sample size.

00:47:22.180 First asked them to identify their political orientation.

00:47:24.820 Then asked them how many unarmed Black men were killed by police in 2019 and what percentage of people killed by police in 2019 were Black.

00:47:34.520 And so that first question, asking how many unarmed Black men were killed by the police in 2019, if you were very liberal, the highest percent, I have to hold my computer up close because I can't see, 31 percent.

00:47:51.480 But if you were very liberal, that's the highest percentage believe that it's over, that it's about 1,000, that it's about 1,000 unarmed Black men killed by the police in 2019.

00:48:02.480 If you identify as liberal, you believed, about 40 percent believed that it's about 100 unarmed Black men that were killed by the police.

00:48:11.200 If you're moderate, about 40 percent believe that if you identify as conservative, you are most likely to say that it was about 10 unarmed Black men killed by the police.

00:48:24.280 And if you're very conservative, you are also most likely to say that it was 10 unarmed Black men killed by the police.

00:48:33.600 The reality is, is that it was 13 unarmed Black men who were fatally shot by the police in 2019.

00:48:41.980 And according to mapping police of violence, 27 unarmed Black men were killed by police by any means in 2019.

00:48:49.360 So when it comes to that, a large portion of conservatives are actually more informed on what the data actually is, whereas if you're a liberal, you are much more likely to overestimate the number.

00:49:01.360 And that is a direct product of what they're watching in the news.

00:49:06.120 And it's interesting because we are constantly hearing that conservatives are the ones who are misinformed on this subject, when in reality, at least according to this study, a lot of conservatives have a better handle on what the facts actually are when it comes to police brutality, in particular against Black people than liberals do.

00:49:24.500 Now, the second question that was asked was, what percentage of people killed by police in 2019 were Black?

00:49:36.360 If you're very liberal, you are likely to say about 60%.

00:49:40.520 If you were liberal or just, yeah, if you identified as just liberal, about 56%.

00:49:45.800 If you were moderate, you believed that it was about 45%.

00:49:50.180 If you're conservative, you believe that it was about 37%.

00:49:53.300 If you're very conservative, interestingly, you actually believe that it was about 44%.

00:49:58.480 The real number is about 26.7% of victims of police shootings between 2015 and 2020 were Black.

00:50:09.160 And so actually everyone overestimated in this study what the percentage was.

00:50:15.760 But if you're very liberal or liberal, you're getting that wrong by 30 plus percentage points,

00:50:22.060 probably based on what you are hearing and what you are reading, it's very unlikely for a liberal who wants to confirm the narrative that they already have to actually go in and look at the details of this.

00:50:33.660 And I'm sure that happens in other issues on the other side as well.

00:50:36.520 But when it comes to this, it seems, at least according to the study, that conservatives have a little better grasp on what's going on.

00:50:45.340 Jason Reilly, who happens to also be Black, he talks about these issues a lot, of the Wall Street Journal, talks, he writes about this in the Wall Street Journal.

00:50:56.460 He says, and this is going to sound going to sound harsh. 0.92

00:51:00.480 He says, so as long as Black Americans are committing more than half of all murders and robberies while making up only 13% of the population, 0.97

00:51:07.260 and so long as almost all of their victims are their neighbors, these communities will draw the lion's share of police attention. 0.89

00:51:14.500 Defunding the police or making it easier to prosecute officers will only result in more lives lost in those neighborhoods that need protecting.

00:51:22.760 He talks about how the narrative is being pushed without the facts, without context.

00:51:27.460 It's actually going to hurt these minority communities.

00:51:30.400 And we have examples of that.

00:51:31.880 In Minneapolis, where George Floyd died, the city shifted $8 million away from the police force last year.

00:51:38.700 According to Fox News, the police department says it only has 638 officers available to work, roughly 200 fewer than usual.

00:51:47.560 Three city council members have actually proposed replacing the entire police department with the public safety department.

00:51:52.760 That would include law enforcement and other services.

00:51:56.260 Yes, for Minneapolis, a coalition of local community groups is collecting signatures to try to push the replacement of the police department in Minneapolis.

00:52:06.180 And listen to this.

00:52:08.060 The Star Tribune reported the Yes for Minneapolis committee is being fueled by a half million dollar grant from the Washington, D.C.-based group Open Society Policy Center linked to billionaire George Soros.

00:52:21.740 Of course, he is also behind all of the pro-crime so-called social justice district attorneys or many of them in the country.

00:52:30.000 That's not a conspiracy theory.

00:52:31.200 That's just true.

00:52:32.360 You link it back to see like who funded their campaigns.

00:52:35.820 Open Society in many cases.

00:52:37.480 The article goes on to say Minneapolis on Friday backtracked on its original push to defund the city's police department in the wake of George Floyd's police custody death after residents begged the city to hire more officers, citing longer response times and increased violent crime.

00:52:53.920 81 people have been killed year to date as of December 30th, 2020, an increase of 72 percent from the same time in 2019, police department statistics show the city council on Friday voted unanimously to approve.

00:53:09.780 So this is a more recent change to approve six point four million dollars in additional funding that police had requested.

00:53:17.860 And part of these complaints are happening in Minneapolis because there is or there has been an autonomous zone, apparently in honor of George Floyd in Minneapolis, where people are being assaulted and murdered.

00:53:33.060 People are saying the situation at the memorial, from what I understand, is that it's kind of volatile.

00:53:40.120 This is Kim Griffin, a Minneapolis resident, people that want to go and support don't don't feel a sense of inclusion.

00:53:47.760 There is more like a militant type atmosphere over there in a sense of fear.

00:53:52.260 Her nephew, I'm as right, was gunned down within the zone over the weekend.

00:53:57.220 An activist actually blocked the cops from responding. 0.82

00:54:02.220 Interesting. The people who are guarding the zone have refused to reopen the area unless the city meets their list of 24 demands.

00:54:09.640 Last year alone, there were 19 nonfatal shootings in this George Floyd autonomous zone where police are apparently not allowed, 14 of which occurred between May 1st and August 31st.

00:54:22.480 And so this is really not being reported on quite as much.

00:54:26.980 This is supposed to be a part of the revolution pushing back against the police.

00:54:30.440 But the fact of the matter is, is that people are dying like people are dying because of this violence is flourishing there.

00:54:36.440 And that's exactly what Jason Riley talks about in the article that I just quoted from.

00:54:40.800 That actually, when you take away the police, what you see is very often an uptick of crime that disproportionately affects black and brown communities. 0.68

00:54:48.580 The Daily Wire reported on five different cities in the last year that have responded to the George Floyd incident by taking funding away from the police.

00:55:00.540 Portland, New York City, Austin, Seattle, Los Angeles, and what they saw and what was reported in each of those cities that after they shifted funds away from the police bureau, they saw upticks in crime.

00:55:16.040 For example, in Portland, though year-to-date shootings had risen 10.8% in May, the months of June, July, August, and September witnessed 96.8%, 186.1%, 195.1%, and 243.8% hikes, respectively, when you were talking about shootings in Portland.

00:55:38.320 The same kind of story in New York City, the same kind of story in Austin, in Seattle, in Los Angeles.

00:55:44.020 I've heard many other people from cities across the country where the police force has been weakened, either significantly or just in small ways, that has seen a rise in violent crime.

00:55:55.880 And there was already going to be a rise of violent crime because of the lockdowns and economic instability, so this only added insult to injury.

00:56:03.940 And according to Newsweek, there was a Gallup poll that actually shows that 81% of Black Americans do not want less police presence despite protests.

00:56:13.500 Some actually want more cops. 0.98

00:56:15.640 Now, the study does say, and quotes Black Americans, saying that, look, we want fairness.

00:56:22.100 We still feel like they're not treating us fairly.

00:56:24.820 We still feel like we're being overpoliced maybe in some cases, or we feel like this isn't really how we are being policed isn't right.

00:56:34.060 But we don't want less police because we don't want more crime.

00:56:37.420 And so the activists that are pushing for defunding the police don't seem to actually be representing most Black Americans who are not a part of this whole defund the police movement.

00:56:50.160 There's an article by Stephen Malenga in City Journal that also talks about this.

00:56:56.220 He talks about how when New York reformed their policing under Rudy Giuliani, and I understand that's still controversial, but crime went down and the quality of life in the city went way up.

00:57:09.340 And then over the past 10 years, we've kind of seen through social justice activism, a lot of cities start to take a different approach in the hopes that crime will stay down even as they weaken their police forces.

00:57:22.340 And that's unfortunately not what has happened.

00:57:26.340 So we have no indication at all that defunding the police and allocating those resources to quote community measures will do anything to decrease the crime.

00:57:38.300 Based on the data that we have, it doesn't seem like that's the answer.

00:57:42.060 No matter what happens with the Derek Chauvin trial, there are some reforms that absolutely can be put in place that we've talked about before.

00:57:49.940 No more public unions.

00:57:51.140 I think public unions being funded by our taxpayer dollars are totally unethical.

00:57:56.140 Teachers unions, police unions so often shield bad teachers and bad police officers from being fired.

00:58:02.420 That's a problem.

00:58:03.160 I think we can invest in better training, maybe higher qualifications in some cases for police officers.

00:58:09.440 Maybe we can supplement police officers with social workers, not replace them.

00:58:14.160 We can offer different kinds of trainings and programs to the youth in these areas that seem to be having a disproportionate number of interactions with the police.

00:58:24.480 But it does not seem, from what we know and from history, that defunding the police or shrinking the police is actually going to do anything except for cause and exacerbate current problems.

00:58:35.680 Now, as a conservative, I don't want the police to have too much power.

00:58:39.120 I don't want them to be above the law.

00:58:41.000 I don't want them to be abusing civilians in any way.

00:58:44.220 So I am all for reforms.

00:58:47.500 I am all for having these conversations.

00:58:49.540 But we have to have them rooted in truth.

00:58:51.960 And the problem is, is that we can't actually have these honest conversations if we are racializing that which we do not know is actually racialized.

00:59:04.560 That is the danger of viewing the world only through the lens of race.

00:59:08.100 Seeing every instance in which a black person is involved as racialized in some way and not just racialized, but ultimately about white supremacy. 0.67

00:59:16.020 It causes us to ignore problems and therefore look past solutions because we are focused on the wrong narrative.

00:59:24.300 So no one wants to talk about the problems with the teachers and the police unions.

00:59:27.380 No one wants to talk about how Planned Parenthood sets up shop in every predominantly black and brown community.

00:59:34.440 And that in New York City, year after year, according to the New York City Health Department, there are more black babies that are aborted than born. 0.53

00:59:42.540 No one wants to talk about those things because that is outside of the myopic and concrete narrative that whiteness and white supremacy and white police officers are always the main problem.

00:59:56.020 And the problem with that also is that there's never any concrete solution or viable solution given to that supposed problem.

01:00:03.500 So when we get down to the nitty gritty and we look at what's actually plaguing these communities and we look at a lot of the problems and what the data shows, no one wants to have those conversations because people are so much more loyal to their narrative than they are actually doing anything to help these people.

01:00:20.640 So no one wants to talk about the kinds of murders that happen in the black community that victimize black children every day. 1.00

01:00:25.940 No one wants to talk about black on Asian crime or black on Jewish crime that we know is prevalent and why unless someone can find a way to make it about whiteness and white supremacy, we just we don't we don't want to focus on it.

01:00:39.300 I'm not saying no one's talking about those things, but we're not having these big national conversations about them.

01:00:46.340 We're only having the national conversations about the instances in which police kill an unarmed, an unarmed black person, which we can have a conversation about that.

01:00:55.320 But we don't have a national conversation when it's an unarmed white woman who gets killed and the black police officer only gets 12 and a half years in prison because unless something is white, bad, black, brown, good, the media and many left wing activists throw it out because it's just not useful.

01:01:12.960 And therefore, we end up missing out on discussions that could actually help and we should want to help.

01:01:19.460 That is why the truth matters, because we want to help, because we care about people, because we want to talk about actual solutions.

01:01:26.760 But when we're so wedded to a narrative and we are so unwilling to actually examine any problems, any causes or any potential solutions that don't match that narrative, then we don't end up helping anyone but ourselves.

01:01:38.980 Because we're just latching on to that which is popular rather than looking into that which is true.

01:01:44.940 And I think that's a huge problem.

01:01:46.780 All right.

01:01:47.140 I think tomorrow we are going to take a break from the news unless something is absolutely pressing and we're going to talk about some theology.

01:01:54.960 But I hope this kind of gave you a refresher, some numbers that we've talked about before and also gave you a lot of context for what's happening in this Derek Chauvin trial.

01:02:05.120 I will keep you updated on that.

01:02:06.600 All right.

01:02:06.980 See you guys tomorrow.

01:02:08.980 Bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 31, 2021

Ep 395 ｜ Seeking Truth & Justice： The Derek Chauvin Trial

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