Note: I haven't verified all the facts in this yet, so take it with a grain of salt.
I had an interesting conversation with my gf last night. I read about how one of the officers, Lane, involved in the George Floyd death had been on the job for 3 days or something. He made several verbal attempts to get Chauvin off Floyd’s neck, but it was not enough to prevent the death. I felt bad for the guy; he’s less than a week on the job and in a probationary period. Chauvin was a 20 year vet. He’s in a position where he has to either escalate against the vet officer and risk his career, or sit back and let it happen. At the time he might not have expected that Floyd was going to die as a result of his inaction, and he certainly didn't expect the country to blow up about it. In hindsight, he chose poorly and he’s going to face consequences for it.
It made us wonder that if this hadn’t come to light, or if Floyd survived, what would Lane's career be like? The job as it is today attracts people drawn to power, and as a system it is bigger than any good intentioned individual within it. What would happen if he was in a similar situation years from then? Would he have stood up to other officers in the future when he felt he was more secure? Would he quit in frustration? Would he eventually be worn down into apathy?
I saw a picture of the 4 officers charged with the crime. Chauvin had the eyes of a shark, someone born to be a predator. There were some studies that reported domestic abuse rates for LEO families are several times higher than the average; incidentally, Chauvin's wife filed for divorce soon after he was in custody.
Lane’s red puffy eyes looked like he hadn’t slept in days. The other 2 officers that held Floyd down while Chauvin killed him, their eyes looked dead. We concluded that the enforcers are sometimes the victims of a broken justice system.