Next month will mark one year since George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer. Although it will be almost a whole year since Floyd’s death, the trials have barely begun.
Now more than ever, it is important that everyone stays informed during the trial. The world is watching and George Floyd deserves justice for what was done to him.
From the moment that Floyd’s death became known, everyone had their own opinion on the situation. I often heard people saying that Floyd had probably done something to deserve what happened to him.
I also heard many say that Floyd must have had drugs in his system that resulted in his death. It makes me so disgusted when I hear people say these things. Even if someone has drugs in their system, it does not mean that they deserve to lose their life.
On April 8, 2021, there were three medical experts that testified during the trial. Dr. Martin Tobin and Dr. William Smock both said that the ultimate cause of Floyd’s death was a low level of oxygen, or asphyxia.
Dr. Daniel Isenschmid testified that fentanyl and methamphetamine were found in the blood taken from Floyd at the hospital, according to CNN. Although there were substances found in Floyd’s system, many medical experts have said that they had nothing to do with his death.
There are many people that are trying to turn Floyd into a villain, and are trying to justify and defend Derek Chauvin’s actions. I do not care if Floyd had drugs in his system, there is no justification for Derek Chauvin to have had his knee on Floyd’s neck for over 9 minutes.
It doesn’t matter what Floyd did or did not have in his system. Police officers need to be properly trained for situations like this so that they do not take a person’s life away.
Now more than ever it is so important that everyone pays attention to what happens during this trial. Even though it has almost been a year since everything happened, do not forget that Black lives still matter.
Throughout the past year, I have heard less and less people speaking about the BLM movement. I think it is so important that the movement remains strong and that it is a constant conversation everyone is having.
If justice is not achieved for Floyd’s death, let it be no surprise when people start protesting again. It happens too often where a police officer uses unnecessary force to take the life of a Black person, and gets away with it.
George Floyd deserves justice and I sincerely hope he gets it.