Date: March 7, 2022
by Sean P. Keefe
MOVCAC Contributor
Coincidence is defined as a sequence of events that, although accidental, seem planned or arranged. I have no doubt that the very divisive impeachment of President Donald J. Trump ending and the worst virus since the Spanish flu emerging within thirty days of each other was purely coincidental.
Well, maybe some doubt.
Do you ever feel like maybe we peasants are controlled and steered using the snow globe effect? The Powers That Be shook our world with an impeachment based on zero evidence. As the debris from that shake was beginning to settle, the Powers That Be shook it all up again with virus fear-porn. We barely had time to analyze the Constitutional court room drama of impeachment when our Constitutionally-protected individual liberties came under attack from medical tyranny.
By early April 2020, many Americans had become concerned with lockdown measures and began holding peaceful demonstrations. Quarantining the healthy as a way of “stopping the spread” had never before been attempted, or allowed, in a free society. These protests were vilified in the press and by our political class as super-spreader events. The medical community collectively condemned everyday Americans peacefully demonstrating in support of individual freedoms – freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution.
Did Americans waking up to the growing tyranny necessitate the next shake of the peasant snow globe?
George Floyd Death
On May 25, 2020 video emerged of Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd during an arrest for passing a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. Mr. Floyd did not survive this arrest attempt. The video circled the earth. Derek Chauvin was immediately labeled a murderer, and the incident quickly escalated to become the glowing example of white supremacy’s continued hold on police activities. The video released to the public certainly showed an image of a white police officer kneeling on the neck of a helpless black man. It is said that a picture paints a thousand words. This image, now burned into the minds of billions of people across the planet, painted America with the broad brush of systemic racism. Streets in cities all over the world filled with those eager to denounce America as a place where people of color are treated as inferior and denied access to upper echelons of power structures throughout our society. It didn’t matter that a black President had been elected twice. It didn’t matter that Condolezzaa Rice had been National Security Advisor under George Bush. It didn’t matter that Clarence Thomas had spent the last thirty years as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. It didn’t matter that Colin Powell had been Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State. It didn’t matter that black culture in music, sports and Hollywood had become mainstream. These facts were ignored and America was branded as systemically racist.
When the shake comes and the debris is raining all over the place, there’s little time for the everyday American (or citizen of any other country for that matter) to analyze facts and research details of every incident of concern that occurs within society. Everyday people rely on the media to discover, analyze and disseminate the details in order for the citizenry to put events into proper context and understand society appropriately.
We could go over Mr. Floyd’s previous encounters with law enforcement to paint a pretty negative picture. That is exactly what the Powers That Be want. As long as we are arguing about race and police brutality, we won’t focus on the simple truths. No family should face the devastating effects of drug addiction. No family should live in a state of poverty that necessitates the need to sell drugs in order to provide a living. No section of town should be avoided because crime, poverty and human suffering are tolerated if not encouraged by the Powers That Be.
George Floyd’s whole life is an American Tragedy. One that none of us would wish on another human being. But George Floyd’s life is not unlike many poverty-stricken urban residents. We have allowed opioids and fentanyl to completely destroy many urban areas. Look at the homeless encampments that have become ubiquitous in cities throughout America. Everyday citizens assumed that they elected serious people to manage our society; to prosecute those that wish to destroy the sovereignty of American citizens. Just as our media class has failed us, so too has our political class.
When our media and political class overtly hide the truth and openly fan the flames of ill-informed public discord/violence, we have moved from malpractice to malevolence.
Instead of trying to understand the situation and delve into the details of the events as they took place, the media and political leaders used a single video showing a small portion of the entire encounter. While knowing that the underlying details would expose an entirely new and relevant set of facts, our media and political class painted police officers as a whole, and America in general, as systemically racist.
As the saying goes, “A lie can travel half way around the world before the truth puts its shoes on.”
Some very simple facts change the picture painted by the image of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck:
- It was not until after George Floyd’s death that policies for the use of, and training for, neck restraints and kneeling on the neck specifically were modified in the Minneapolis Police Department. Kneeling on the neck, at the time of Mr. Floyd’s death was allowed in certain circumstances.
- The incident sparking unrest throughout our country happened on May 25, 2020. Cities burned, people looted, and we all watched in nightly horror as the fabric of our society was shredded.
The bodycam footage showing the entire struggle with Mr. Floyd was not made public until August 10, 2020. The video clearly shows an intoxicated man resisting arrest and refusing to be seated in the back of the police cruiser. - Proof of George Floyd’s intoxication resides in his autopsy results. CNN reported on April 9, 2021 that Hennepin County Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Andrew Baker, ruled George Floyd’s death a homicide. The first paragraph of that article begins:
“George Floyd’s heart disease and use of fentanyl were contributing factors to his death, but they were not the direct cause…”(https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/09/us/derek-chauvin-trial-george-floyd-day-10/index.html)
Since Dr. Baker ruled the death a homicide, we can assume that as contributing factors go, Dr. Baker determined that the knee on the neck was more detrimental to Mr. Floyd’s immediate health concerns than either his heart or the fentanyl use.
However, as early as August 27, 2020, Fox News reported on filings in the case against the four Minneapolis Police Officers. That article states:
“A memorandum filed by the Hennepin County Attorney’s office on June 1 indicated that chief medical examiner Dr. Andrew Baker, who listed Floyd’s death as a homicide, thought the amount of fentanyl in Floyd’s blood was “pretty high” and could be “a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances.”
“[Dr. Baker] said that if Mr. Floyd had been found dead in his home (or anywhere else) and there were no other contributing factors he would conclude that it was an overdose death,” the memo said.”
(https://www.foxnews.com/us/medical-examiner-george-floyd-fentanyl-system)
The Simple Truth – George Floyd, while intoxicated on fentanyl, resisted arrest and suffered cardiac arrest resulting in his death. Many lessons can be learned from this tragic encounter. The most important lesson may be that our legacy media and political class were willing to watch our society burn while they stoked the flames with their systemic racism/police brutality lie.
Riots
Life is a precious gift. To ensure the preservation of life individually and collectively, each instance of a life being lost unnecessarily due to negligence, malevolence, carelessness, or as a result of poorly designed or implemented policies, should be investigated to understand the changes needed. There are many aspects of George Floyd’s death, and the life that preceded it, that should be analyzed to understand how he ended up dead on a Minneapolis street.
What should have been an isolated incidence of counterfeit/resisting arrest/fentanyl possession, was repackaged by the media and our political class as police brutality and systemic racism. Let’s take a quick look at the basis of this charge.
The Washington Post’s Police Shooting database reported that in 2019 a total of 55 unarmed citizens were shot and killed by police. Of those, 25 were white, 14 black, 11 Hispanic and 5 other. If we look at the data regardless of reason or arms involved, 1,003 American citizens were killed by police in 2019. Of those, 405 were white, 250 black, 163 Hispanic, and 185 either other or unknown.
I am no statistician, but the easy math means that 0.00012% of the 2019 American population (328 million) was white and killed by the police, 0.000076% of the population was black and killed by the police, and 0.00005% of the population was Hispanic and killed by the police. Without taking into account the racial makeup of our population, in absolute numbers, the chances of an American citizen being killed by the police are an infinitesimally small 0.00031%.
By contrast, a study published by Johns Hopkins in 2018 estimated that more than 250,000 people in the United States die every year because of medical mistakes. This means that 0.076% of the entire U.S. population is killed each year from a medical mistake. By this admittedly simple math, you are 250 times as likely to die from a medical mistake in America as you are to be killed by a police officer regardless of the type of interaction you are having (armed, unarmed, etc.). Going further, you are 4,545 times as likely to be killed by a medical mistake as you are to be unarmed and killed by the police.
Where is the outrage at the medical community? Where is the demand to defund doctors and hospitals? There is none because we need hospitals and doctors. There is none because we realize that we are all human and humans make mistakes. Where mistakes are made, we should do our best to determine cause and implement corrective action. Where malicious intent is present, prosecution is paramount to retaining confidence in the service delivered. Where laws are broken, whether by a policeman, accountant, politician, medical professional or student; consequences are necessary to encourage society’s safety and security. People come
to the United States of America in droves because of its foundation in law and order, not in spite of it.
Our media and political class had an obligation to inform the public of these statistics. They had an obligation to educate the masses regarding the actual outcomes experienced by the general population in police encounters. As noted above, police interaction outcomes are far more safe than medical interaction outcomes.
Instead, the media and political class fanned the flames of division and violence.
Protests began in Minneapolis, MN on May 26, 2020 and quickly spread across the globe. Each evening brought new pictures of violence and unrest. Whether it was the sight of Minneapolis’ third precinct being burned to the ground or the body of former policeman, David Dorne, in the streets of St. Louis, lawlessness and anarchy raged the entire summer.
As the country’s attention was beginning to turn to the DNC and RNC national conventions, Jacob Blake was shot in Wisconsin on August 23rd as he reached for a knife while resisting arrest. Again, the details of the encounter were ignored while the flames of the narrative were fanned. Vice Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, visited Mr. Blake and said how proud she was of him. Kamala Harris also promoted and contributed to the Minnesota Freedom Fund that was used to bail out violent rioters in Minnesota.
On August 28th, Rand Paul and his wife, along with many other attendees of a RNC event at the Whitehouse, were violently accosted by BLM and Antifa protesters. There is ample video evidence of the events of that night. I thought that sitting members of Congress being assaulted by angry protesters was evidence of insurrection. Where are the hearings for the assault on democracy that occurred on August 28, 2020 in Washington D.C? Are the people that assaulted the police officers protecting Senator Paul still in custody awaiting trial in solitary confinement?
The summer of 2020 will be remembered as the time when Defund The Police became the battle cry for the democrat party and BLM and Antifa became their foot soldiers. The streets of New York, D.C., and other cities were painted with their slogan. Politicians, celebrities, and sports stars all began kneeling for BLM. One CNN chiron of the Kenosha, WI unrest famously captioned their reporter standing in front of a burning business in Kenosha as “Fiery, but mostly peaceful.” The media even promoted the CHAZ (Capital Hill Autonomous Zone, Seattle, Washington) as a “Summer of Love.”
Seattle Mayor Celebrates Summer of Love
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer Kneel for BLM
The summer of 2020 began with the Memorial Day death of George Floyd. By Tuesday, June 2nd, CNN was already fanning the flames of division when Chris Cuomo asked on his prime-time show, “Please, show me where it says that protests are supposed to be polite and peaceful? Because I can show you that outraged citizens are what made the country what she is and led to any major milestone. To be honest, this is not a tranquil time.”
As a reminder to CNN viewers and anchors alike – the 1st Amendment to the Constitution reads:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
After having spent the entire summer downplaying and excusing the violence endured by our urban citizens, Chris Cuomo’s prime-time partner, Don Lemon, let the nation know how they and their democrat partners felt about the summer of violence. In his discussion with Chris Cuomo on the hand-off between shows on August 26, 2020, Don Lemon stated, “But guess what? The rioting has to stop. Chris, as you know and I know, it’s showing up in the polling. It’s showing up in focus groups. It is the only thing – it is the only thing right now that is sticking.”
The Simple Truth – BLM and Defund the Police are movements based in fantasy and media gaslighting. Police brutality, although it does exist, is not rampant in the American experience. The American people are not racist. The summer of violence promoted by the media and tolerated by political parties and law enforcement agencies was used to further shake and prepare the American citizenry to accept the coming crime of the century.
Simple Truths for Complicated Times – Part I – Impeachment, COVID-19
Simple Truths for Complicated Times – Part III – Election 2020
Simple Truths for Complicated Times – Part IV – January 6th, Boards of Education
Simple Truths for Complicated Times – Part V – Masks and Vaccines, Hospital Protocols
Simple Truths for Complicated Times – Part VI – Failing President, War
Simple Truths for Complicated Times – Part VII – Conclusion
