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Rafe wrote: Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:43 pm

Daisy Cutter wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 7:55 pm When this broke, I did a quick search of Harris Co criminal records, and a George Floyd, 46, 6'6"/ 250 lbs popped out, but I sat on it because I didn't have a middle name or DOB on the Milwaukee man. What piqued my interest was the "gentle-giant-father-of-two" and "starting a new life" narrative, which usually means they are laying the groundwork for bad news. He has used various aliases, including Floyd Perry, and two DOBs.

Well the Chicago Tribune has confirmed my suspicions. He's got a pretty decent record here (Houston), culminating in a 2007 home invasion of a residence where he was the gunman who stuck a pistol in the stomach of the lady of the house. Looking for drugs and money. He was also the driver. In their haste to leave, they left one of their proteges behind, who fled on foot. Neighbor got the license and they were picked up.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-w ... story.html

Convictions, all from public record. Anyone can find this.

8-97 Drugs del. State Jail Felony
9-98 Theft from person (pled down from Agg. Robbery)
12-98 Theft.
8-01 Failure to ID fugitive. Class B Misd.
10-02 Possession State Jail Felony
1-03 Trespass. State Jail Felony
2-04 Del controlled substance. State Jail Felony
12-05 Possession/ Delivery. 2nd Deg Felony
11-07 Aggravated Robbery/ deadly weapon. Felony 1st Deg.
Discharged TDCJ 2013

I know that this doesn't justify excessive use of force on a suspect and I think the officers should be held accountable. I'm interested though in how the media have (almost) completely ignored his background. They must know. Its relevant because it speaks to his state of mind at the time of the arrest. If he had more counterfeit on him, in his vehicle, or at home, he would be facing prison again. Knowingly passing funny money is both a Federal and State felony.

I would want to know whether he was in his own car, and whether LE rolling up, had run a quick check on the plate and seen that owner was a violent felon, which would have put them into higher alert status. Also I'm curious why there is no video (shown) so far of how he ended up on the ground. Something set the officers off. Did he head-butt, bite, spit, or knee a groin? The fixed camera footage on the building next door could have shed some light on this.

Standing by for developments......

Bringing up a post from over a week ago. First, as Daisy Cutter did, I want to be completely clear that I believe the death of George Floyd is unconscionable and the charge of 2nd degree murder against Chauvin is very much warranted. And like Daisy Cutter said, Floyd's past had zero bearing on the way in which he was killed.

I also support the right of all the protesters around the country to respond. Note that I said protesters, not looters and rioters; them I have no tolerance for.

I also very much appreciate the memorials for Floyd that have been televised, and in particular the way that his brother has stepped up to condemn the violence being perpetrated in George's name.

What troubled me about some of those eulogies to Floyd, though--at the memorial services and some of the protests--is canonization in martyrdom. In many instances he's being painted as an absolute saint, the "gentle giant" who never had a disparaging word for anyone and who would open a window for a fly to leave the house rather than swatting it.

But the facts are the facts. This man was a felon. A violent felon, at that. At least two of his convictions involved his use of a firearm...though at least he never shot anyone with it. The actual time served isn't completely clear to me, but he served time on at least six instances (these just augment what Daisy Cutter already posted; it's unclear what sentences he may have served or been issued for his other offenses):

• 1998: 10 months, armed robbery (firearm)
• 2002: 8 months, possession (cocaine)
• 2003: 30 days, trespassing
• 2004: 10 months, delivery of a controlled substance (cocaine)
• 2005: 10 months, possession/delivery of a controlled substance (cocaine)
• 2009: 5 years, from 2007 armed home invasion; initial bail set at $50,000

In that home invasion, Floyd was the front-man for a group of six thieves, Floyd being one of the six. He presented himself, dressed in blue-clothing, like a uniform, at the door of the house occupied at the time by a pregnant woman (some reports say that she was seven months pregnant, but I can't find anything to confirm that), her spouse (at least common law) and a 1-year-old girl. To get her to open the door, Floyd told her he was with the water department. She attempted to close the door. Floyd (the rest is directly from the charge documented in case 01610509, Harris County, 11/27/2007) "prevented her from doing so. At this time, a black Ford Explorer pulled up in front of the complainants' residence and five other Black males exited the vehicle and proceeded to the front door. The largest of these suspects [Floyd] forced his way into the residence, placed a pistol against the complainant's abdomen, and forced her into the living area of the residence. This large suspect then proceeded to search the residence while another armed suspect guarded the complainant, who was struck in the head and side areas by this second armed suspect with his pistol after she screamed for help."

Floyd moved to Minnesota after he got out of jail in 2014. By all accounts, he really did make an effort to turn a new leaf. Although there is a street- or store-cam video that purportedly shows Floyd discretely getting rid of a small plastic bag full of something white during that final Minneapolis arrest. Not embedding the YouTube video of it (no, the final moments aren't shown, and this view is from across the street from that): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IhyTi1ve0s. But George Floyd was no saintly man, and he wasn't a one-time offender. His death deserves outrage, but the means of death doesn't elevate him to sainthood. The eulogies and messages don't have to mention these elements of his past, but neither should they purposely, intentionally obfuscate what his past was really like.

Rafe wrote: Tue Jun 09, 2020 2:24 pm At George Floyd's funeral service today in Houston, behind and just to the side of the speaker's podium, is an 8-foot-tall artist's portrait of Floyd complete angel's wings and a halo. I make no additional comment.

The funeral is a massive, televised affair. It began at 11:00 a.m. in Houston...3 hours and 25 minutes ago. The Rev. Al Sharpton is now speaking at the podium.

flechero wrote: Tue Jun 09, 2020 2:41 pm What's tragic is that everyone- black, white and other was outraged at Floyd's murder... we all called it murder from the start. It's being used to fuel racism where there was not racism. Now it's "us against them" and whites this and whites that.

I saw several interviews- sadly, no real sorrow for Floyd, just a bunch of racist rhetoric.

Where is the outrage for the loss of life in chicago last weekend or at any of the looting and riots? Making all white people the enemy is only going to make it WORSE. It's like the end goal is a race war or something. Disgusting.

Rafe wrote: Tue Jun 09, 2020 4:59 pm

flechero wrote: Tue Jun 09, 2020 2:41 pm What's tragic is that everyone- black, white and other was outraged at Floyd's murder... we all called it murder from the start. It's being used to fuel racism where there was not racism. Now it's "us against them" and whites this and whites that.

I saw several interviews- sadly, no real sorrow for Floyd, just a bunch of racist rhetoric.

Where is the outrage for the loss of life in chicago last weekend or at any of the looting and riots? Making all white people the enemy is only going to make it WORSE. It's like the end goal is a race war or something. Disgusting.

The service has wrapped and televised coverage continues with the horse-drawn hearse procession to the cemetery; 4 hours 45 minutes of television coverage so far.

The Rev. Al Sharpton is one of the most racist individuals I know. And yes, absolutely, this has been made into nothing but racist rhetoric.

Dear Rev. Sharpton, let's please look at the definition of racism: "a belief that race is a primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent uniqueness, separation, or specialness among human beings."

Rev. Sharpton, what you constantly preach is that African Americans are somehow innately different, unique, or special from other people. You do not preach or espouse equality; you preach difference, divisiveness, and defiance.

The inconvenient truth is that, biologically, there is absolutely no such thing as "race" among human beings. None. In the taxonomy of science, there would have have to be subspecies of Homo Sapiens Sapiens before there could be a different races. There are not. We are all of one and the same species.

In fact, Rev. Sharpton, of the 3.2 billion DNA markers in each of our genomes, all human beings who have ever lived are approximately 99.7% identical. We're not only more alike than different, but we are all virtually identical. Of the genetic markers that help define our differences at global population levels--Africa, West Eurasia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania, Northeast Asia, and Americas; what you might point to as the true, genetic measure of diversity--population geneticists estimate there are approximately 4 or 5 million markers, called single nucleotide polymorphisms, that can potentially differentiate one ancestral population from another. That's 0.156% of our DNA.

We, none of us, are different, unique, or special. We are human.

All of us came out of Africa. All of us. Whether you subscribe to scripture or evolution, we all had a common origin. And we were all dark-skinned. Rev. Sharpton, do you know why my skin is pale and yours is dark? Vitamin D. That's the only reason. Vitamin D. Some of the humans who left Africa moved north into Eurasia. The ice age came, the Last Glacial Maximum, and it began to greatly reduce the sunlight reaching the northern latitudes. Our bodies synthesize vitamin D from sunlight, and without sufficient vitamin D humans are at far greater risk of dying from multiple problems, including heart failure, and insufficiencies impact fertility and successful births. Light colored skin absorbs sunlight at far greater levels than does dark skin. What was a distinct advantage in sub-Saharan Africa could have been a death knell in sunless northern Europe and Asia many millennia ago. The bodies of my ancestors had to adapt to survive, and they did so by losing skin pigmentation. White people didn't gain something special, something genetically unique. We're pale because we lost something. We needed vitamin D, so our bodies lost the pigmentation we had originally had before emigrating from Africa.

From January 1, 2017, through March 31, 2020, police in the United States killed over 24% more white people than Black. You, Rev. Sharpton, are not different, unique, or special. Neither am I, and neither was George Floyd.

This should be a human issue, a humanitarian issue. Not a Black vs. white issue. Please, Rev. Sharpton, you should be preaching equality and God's love for all mankind. Please, please entreaty God in prayer and listen to Him openly, and then decide if you should continue your racist rhetoric, to continue to fulminate an illogical, deep division among what you call "races." I pray that if you truly open your heart to God that His love and grace will inform you, and you will finally realize the error in your ways. That we must embrace all men as brothers. All men. Not just those whose skin pigmentation looks a bit more like our own. Otherwise the only race, the human race, is doomed.

Ruark wrote: Tue Jun 09, 2020 7:02 pm One aspect of the race issue is that whenever it's convenient, the difference between races is reduced to skin pigmentation. The differences are cultural and social, not cosmetic. For example:
39% of murder victims are black.
90% of those are killed by blacks.
A third of all rapes, and over half of all robberies are committed by blacks.
1 out of 3 black men have felony conviction records.
Black women are 3 times more like to be killed by domestic violence than white women.
77% of black babies are born to unmarried women.
The black high school dropout rate is about 40%. In some big cities, it's over 80%.
Subsequently, the average black wage earnings are less than half that of whites.
38.4% of blacks are obese, compared to 28.6% of whites.
Because of diet and lifestyle factors, blacks are 40% more likely to be diabetic than whites.
The number of unarmed blacks killed by police in all of 2019 was 10. The number of police killed in the line of duty by criminals was 89.
There is much, much more.

These are the REAL issues pressing on the black community, but when's the last time you heard Jackson, Sharpston, BLM, et. al. address them? Never, because they're not "glamour" issues that get media attention. It's all about "oppression by the white man."

But whenever we talk about certain issues, this all magically vanishes, and it's simply just "skin color."

Grayling813 wrote: Wed Jun 10, 2020 7:32 am Propaganda Schedule 2020:
January: Orange Man Bad, everything he does/says/touches...bad, bad, bad
February: Repeat January. Revision: Begin Coronavirus campaign
March through late May: Coronavirus campaign continues
Late May: Begin Systemic racism campaign
June through???: Systemic racism campaign continues