Racist Murder in America: Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and the COVID-19
Pandemic
https://socialistaction.org/2020/05/28/racist-murder-in-america-ahmaud-arbery-george-floyd-and-the-pandemic/
May 28, 2020
By Jeff Mackler
Black Georgia jogger, 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, was murdered in cold
blood by three white racists on February 23. Arbery’s family attorneys,
led by Benjamin Crump, have charged that his murder was premeditated.
Local police, on the scene soon after the murder, accepted the testimony
of the killers. They were considered “witnesses,” not suspects. One, a
former cop and police investigator, Gregory McMichael, who had worked
under the jurisdiction of the first two District Attorneys assigned to
the case, was immediately released along with his son, Travis. The DAs
concluded that Arbery’s murder was fully justified under Georgia law.
Under pressure some two months later, when evidence to the contrary
emerged, they recused themselves from further deliberations on the case.
Ahmaud Arbery: “Jogging while Black”
Arbery, a former high school football standout, according to the New
York Times, was jogging in the predominantly white, middle-class small
town of Satilla Shores in south Georgia, a short distance from his house
on the other side of the freeway, largely populated by poor Blacks. On
that fatal February 23 day, he stopped at an open construction site and
entered a partially built house to check it out. According to the owner,
who had installed a surveillance camera inside, it was likely to get a
drink of water. Nothing was stolen. The owner had previously reported to
the police that a number of others were recorded as similarly checking
out the house, including several whites. In no instance was anything
taken or damaged.
In this instance, however, immediately after Aubrey emerged and
continued his jogging, following a few minutes inside, he was confronted
by Gregory McMichael’s son Travis, armed with a shotgun and accompanied
by his father toting his .357 Magnum pistol. They proceeded to chase
after Arbery in their pickup truck followed by a third white man,
William “Roddie” Bryan, who videoed the “chase” and subsequent murder on
his cellphone. Bryan followed the McMichaels in his own car. The fleeing
Arbery was shot three times, as he tried to fight off Travis McMichael,
whose car had blocked his path. The killers told the arriving police
that they claimed the right of “citizen’s arrest” and “self-defense.
The video recording Arbery’s murder was not revealed by the cops and the
District Attorney until some two months later. The first DA, Jackie
Johnson, recused herself from the case because former police officer and
inspector, Gregory McMichael had worked in her office. The second DA,
George E. Barnhill, eventually did the same after Arbery’s mother, Wanda
Cooper, learned that Barnhill’s son worked in the Brunswick District
Attorney’s office, which had previously employed Gregory McMichael.
Georgia officials prepare their cover-up
But both Johnson and Barnhill had accepted the murderers’ story before
stepping aside. Both had seen the video and kept it hidden. Before
withdrawing from the case, Barnhill wrote to the police that he did not
believe there was evidence of a crime, stating that the McMichaels had
been legally carrying their weapons under Georgia law. He also stated
that because Arbery was a “burglary suspect,” the pursuers, who had
“solid firsthand probable cause,” were justified in chasing him under
the state’s citizen’s arrest law. Barnhill stated that video existed of
Mr. Arbery “burglarizing a home immediately preceding the chase and
confrontation.” Barnhill’s statement was contradicted by the owner of
the home, who had informed police that there was no burglary, that
“nothing was taken.” In the letter to the police, Barnhill cited a
separate video of the shooting filmed by a third pursuer, only later
identified as William Bryan. Barnhill said that this video, which had
not been made public, shows Mr. Arbery attacking Travis McMichael after
he and his father pulled up to him in their truck.
Arbery family fights back
Interviewed on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now!” Arbery family attorney
Benjamin Crump’s account is startling. Crump insisted:
“Well, as Ahmaud Arbery’s family and my co-counsels have maintained from
the beginning, we believe that William “Roddie” Bryan was part of this
organized gang that was attempting, based on a premeditated plan, to
confront and capture Ahmaud Arbery as he jogged through that community
that day. And the text message that was sent by police officer Robert
Rash to the homeowner, saying that, ‘If you see him again, don’t call
the police. Call Gregory McMichael. He’s a former police officer’ — so,
we believe this was an organized mob that was planning on confronting
Ahmaud. So it is wholly appropriate that Bryan was arrested and charged.”
Crump’s remarks were made only after the Bryan cellphone video was
leaked to the media by the McMichael’s attorneys, who believed that it
would vindicate their clients. The aforementioned text message sent to
the owner of the house under construction by police officer Robert Rash,
with instructions to not contact the police but rather Gregory
McMichael, was central to attorney Crump’s charge that Arbery’s murder
was premeditated. Here you have the McMichaels, armed, ready and in
immediate pursuit, as unarmed Arbery emerges jogging, as had been his
habit, from the open construction site, while dutiful Gregory McMichael
phones the police from the back of his pick-up truck to inform them of
his pursuit. The police arrive less than a minute later.
Crump concisely summarized the Arbery family demands as follows: “We
want the Justice Department to not only open a hate crime investigation,
but we want them to look at the due process of law violations under the
14th Amendment involving everybody who was involved in this
investigation, from the police officers who were first on the scene to
the first DA, Jackie Johnson, who, it is alleged, told the police not to
file charges in the case; to the second district attorney, Barnhill, who
also said, like Jackie Johnson, he had a conflict of interest, but yet
wrote a memorandum saying that he saw no probable cause to arrest this
murderous father-and-son duo, and, in essence, put his thumb on the
scales of justice in favor of the McMichaels; and the third prosecutor,
who said when he looked at this video and he looked at all this
evidence, the statements, said that he didn’t feel he could arrest them,
that he had to take it to a grand jury; and so, the Glynn County
Sheriff’s Department, who leaked the video of Ahmaud Arbery from three
years prior, we believe, in an attempt to assassinate his character, as
well as Robert Rash, the police officer who sent the text to the
homeowner that condoned and encouraged this vigilante mob to capture and
confront Ahmaud Arbery.”
Until the release of the Bryan video the Arbery case was basically
considered closed. The law, in all its racist majesty, was followed, so
proclaimed the authorities, who managed to secretly leak a report
indicating that Arbery had been previously convicted of a shoplifting
offense. He was Black, in a white neighborhood, trespassing in a house
under constructing, tagged as a burglar fleeing from a crime and pursued
by two and then three innocent bystanders, who were legally armed,
legally in pursuit of a criminal and legally entitled to shoot him in
“self defense.” All this was deemed by three DAs to be totally in accord
with the law. In truth, Arbery was lynched in accord with the
“principles of southern justice,” today practiced by killer cops across
the nation.
Video’s release brings national media exposure
But again, only with the release of the video, national media, in the
context of today’s COVID-19 pandemic, as we shall see, finally took
notice. The New York Times asked Michael J. Moore, an Atlanta lawyer who
formerly served as a U.S. attorney in Georgia, to review Barnhill’s
letter to the Glynn County Police Department, as well as the initial
police report. Meanwhile, The Times compiled a detailed minute-by-minute
account of the unfolding events, using multiple videos, phone and text
messages. Moore emailed The Times stating that Barnhill’s opinion was
“flawed” and that the McMichaels appeared to be the aggressors in the
confrontation, and such aggressors were not justified in using force
under Georgia’s self-defense laws. “The law does not allow a group of
people to form an armed posse and chase down an unarmed person who they
believe might have possibly been the perpetrator of a past crime,” Moore
wrote. The Times compilation, coupled with the release of the Bryan
cellphone recording, instantly reversed the lynching cover-up momentum.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), notwithstanding its racist
history, took over the investigation and arrested the McMichaels on
charges of murder along with Bryan, the previously proclaimed
happenstance eyewitness, who is today jailed and charged with the same
felony murder.
Cobb County’s first Black female prosecutor, Joyette Holmes, has now
been appointed lead prosecutor. As with the events in Ferguson,
Missouri, where police murdered innocent Black man Michael Brown, the
case is expected to proceed more openly and slowly through a number of
legal channels, wherein the temporarily cowed racist criminal
“injustice” system can be expected to craft more “refined” arguments and
“legal interpretations” aimed at the release or perhaps partial
vindication of the three racist Georgia lynch mob participants.
Police murder one unarmed Black person each day!
In racist America police and police-related murders of unarmed Blacks
are tragically routine. A partial study of such murders released several
years ago at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement demonstrating
that cop murders of unarmed Black people take place on average of one
per day! I say partial because many districts make it a point to not
report such murders. And how many of these murders end in the conviction
of the killer cops? Less than a handful! A tiny few of the thousands of
racist murderers are ever convicted. We list here just a handful of the
Black victims of police murder to keep their memories alive as we
continue to challenge the inherent racism in capitalist America.
Dontre Hamilton, Shot 14 times by a police officer in a Milwaukee park.
The officer was responding to a call from employees at a nearby
Starbucks alleging that Hamilton, who had been diagnosed with paranoid
schizophrenia, was disturbing the peace. Arriving officers first
determined that Hamilton had committed no crime.
Eric Garner, Placed in an illegal chokehold by NYPD officers for 15
seconds for allegedly selling loose cigarettes. Garner said “I can’t
breathe” 11 times as he was held down by several officers on a sidewalk.
Michael Brown, Shot and killed by Ferguson, Missouri police officer
Darren Wilson.
John Crawford, Shot and killed by a police officer at a Walmart in
Beavercreek, Ohio. He was shopping and holding a toy BB gun.
Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old mentally ill man, was shot three times,
including once in the back, by a white police officer.
Dante Parker, father of five, died in police custody after being
repeatedly stunned by a Taser in San Bernardino County
Tanisha Anderson, died after officers in Cleveland slammed her head on
the pavement while taking her into custody.
Tamir Rice, 12 years old, was shot and killed by Cleveland police after
officers mistook his toy gun for a real weapon.
Rumain Brisbon, was shot and killed by a Phoenix police officer who
mistook a pill bottle for a weapon.
Akai Gurley, Shot and killed by a police officer while walking in a
dimly lit New York City public housing stairwell with his girlfriend.
New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton called the shooting
an “accidental discharge.”
Jerame Reid, Shot and killed by police officers in Bridgeton, New
Jersey. He was a passenger in a car driven by his friend, who was pulled
over by police.
Tony Robinson, Killed by a Madison, Wisconsin police officer who was
responding to reports of someone disrupting traffic.
And on March 13: Breonna Taylor, an EMT in Louisville, Kentucky, was
shot dead in her own apartment at one o’clock in the morning. Using a
“no knock” warrant for a suspect who had already been apprehended,
police broke down her door and fired 20 shots, eight hit Taylor.
And just last week: George Floyd, pinned to the ground with a
Minneapolis cop’s knee on his neck, Floyd repeatedly exclaimed, “I can’t
breathe.” He died in a hospital shortly after. Police hurled explosive
tear gas canisters and fired rubber bullets at the thousands of outraged
protestors marching from the site of his killing to the 3rd Precinct
police station. Two days later, with thousands of outraged protestors
outside, the precinct, earlier evacuated by the police, was burned down.
In neighboring St. Paul, buildings were set afire across the city. As
we go to press 500 National Guard troops have been called in by the
governor.
The original police report read that Floyd “appeared to be under the
influence,” had “physically resisted officers,” and was “suffering
mental distress.” Said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, after viewing a
bystander video, “Every bit of what I saw was wrong. It was vicious. And
it was unacceptable. There is no grey there.” The four cops involved
were subsequently fired. No murder changes have been pressed. No
arrests! The announced future FBI investigation can only be expected to
find “grey” areas to perhaps, once again, exonerate the killer cops.
A May 28 New York Times article, titled “Fury in Minneapolis Over Latest
in a Long Line of Police Killings,” began by noting that the appointment
of a Black police chief who once joined a lawsuit that accused the
department of being “a cauldron of racist behavior,” has not changed the
racist nature of policing. “Excessive force complaints…have become
commonplace, especially by African American residents.” The article
notes that of the many resident reports of racist and vicious police
violence since 2012, “about 1 percent…have resulted in disciplinary
action, according to city records.”
Moreover, the article records the repeated failures of numerous efforts
to “reform” the police, including the election of a white mayor who
“openly discusses systemic racism” and the appointment of a Black police
chief who “embraces a community-oriented approach” and earlier in his
career sued the department for being “a cauldron of racist behavior.”
The article continues, “There have been some hard-won police reforms
including a change to the use-of-force manual requiring that officers
intervene when they see colleagues using excessive force.” But when
George Floyd was lying on the ground repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe”
while Office Derek Chauvin drove his knee into Floyd’s neck – continuing
even after he went unconscious – the three accompanying cops at the
scene did nothing but keep away the increasingly distressed onlookers
who saw it all.
There is no reforming the racist nature of the police in a capitalist
society. Their job is to terrorize, divide and make compliant the
working class, to ease the way for the workers’ exploitation at the
greatest levels of profit possible. Racism, sexism, homophobia,
transphobia, and anti-immigrant hatred are quintessential tools of that
exploitation, along with many other institutionalized repressive forms
the ruling class promotes and enforces to keep workers divided from each
other.
In all of these very briefly detailed cases above, the murder victims
were Black and unarmed. No police officer was charged or convicted of
murder.
And then there was Malcolm and Martin…And now there is Mumia and Leonard
and countless other victims of racist police murders and frame-ups, like
Trayvon and Oscar.
COVID-19 and Ahmaud Arbery
The national exposure of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder, a racist killing that
would have otherwise passed virtually unnoticed, came at a special time
in U.S. history. It broke into the headline at a time when the Covid-19
pandemic, like the racist pandemic that daily plagues U.S. capitalist
society, has taken its greatest toll on Black America. Every study today
tells us that the COVID-19 death rate of Blacks is qualitatively greater
across the country than whites. Blacks have been systematically
subjected to racist discriminatory policies that relegate them to the
lowest paying service center and other low-wage, dead end jobs, to the
poorest housing conditions and the least healthcare coverage, if any.
Largely obscured by capitalism’s incessantly-hyped claims of stability,
low unemployment rates and a prosperous economy, this veil of lies has
been suddenly and unexpectedly lifted to reveal a society replete with
unprecedented inequality – a society with real overall unemployment
rates at close to fifty percent. As always, Blacks suffer a
disproportionate share of this generalized horror. A broad range of
economists today predict that some 42 percent of the jobs lost over the
past two months are never coming back. And if the newly unemployed, 40
million in the past seven weeks alone, do find work, it is expected that
it will be at significantly reduced pay and benefit rates.
Tens of millions of working people have become aware more than ever of
the nature of the capitalist beast that today seeks to force millions
back to work in the most dangerous of times just to keep capitalist
profits rolling in.
It is in this context only that Ahmaud Arbery’s case has come to
national attention, including when CNN host Chris Cuomo, brother of New
York Governor Andrew Cuomo, regularly features COVID-19 pandemic
reporting as well as exposés of Georgia’s police racism in Arbery’s case
and now with regard to George Floyd. Indeed, the Democratic Party’s
“establishment” leaders of U.S. capitalism fully understand that this is
no time for blanket denials of society’s ills. They have pressed their
presumptive candidate, racist Joseph Biden, to assume a more reasonable
stance toward vital social questions, encouraging Biden to at least pay
lip service to some of Bernie Sanders’ timid reforms, if not flirt with
the idea of tacking on “liberal” Elizabeth Warren as his VP. Or perhaps
even a Black running mate like Georgia’s liberal Stacey Abrams, who
opening seeks the VP spot, to help the racist Biden win the votes of
Black communities in the disgusting spectacle that capitalist electoral
politics has descended to.
The racist disparity of COVID-19, where the oppressed suffer the
consequences qualitatively more than the general population, is but the
flip side of the institutional racism that allows white racist police to
murder unarmed Black women, men and children with impunity, while
filling the prisons with millions more to work at Fortune 500
corporations in the increasingly privatized, for profit,
fifty-cents-an-hour slave labor prison-industrial complex. The fires of
mass discontent that now burn in Minneapolis, St. Paul and as we write,
in Louisville, Kentucky, are but the initial sparks that may well ignite
a working class fightback that opens the door wider than in nearly a
century to the thinking of previously unknown thoughts. The great
working class masses that hold the potential to bring this degenerate
system to an end will have the final word in this matter. The stakes
have never been higher.
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May 29, 2020
George Floyd’s death by Blue Plague in Minneapolis was widely condemned
by the same parties that have encouraged and funded the spread of the
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Pandemic Capitalism’s Cruel Absurdity
May 24, 2020
By MARK T. HARRIS
The United States has the highest number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in
the world. Capitalism’s inexorable drive for profits over human needs
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Killer Capitalism Says “Back to Work!” in a Pandemic
May 21, 2020
By JEFF MACKLER and JAMES FORTIN
The daily number new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. is still
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really should be done?
--
___
Steven Pinker
“It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer.
But it was also natural to think that the sun went around the earth. Overcoming
naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's
highest callings.
[Can You Believe in God and Evolution? Time Magazine, August 7, 2005]”
― Steven Pinker