Chauvin Murder Trial

[Rev. Rye]

So, I recently watched an interview with John “Natty Bumppo” Dean, a journalist who covered the murder of Sylvia Likens, a teenaged girl who was brutally murdered by the woman who was supposed to take care of her while her parents were away. I won’t bore you with the details, but it is one of those cases that tells you “so, look at this and tell me with a straight face that there’s a benevolent God watching us all.”





He ended it with a pithy statement (very relevant to discussions like this) about how she basically became something of a secular saint in the years since her murder, saying that she wasn’t quite as saintly as people made her out to be (nothing serious, mind), but he pointed out that it’s easy to make someone a saint once they’ve been crucified.

And, make no mistake, in the eyes of many, George Floyd was crucified. He was no Angel certainly, but, frankly, nothing in his past or present justified how his life ended. Eight cops (current and former) testified out that Chauvin was acting totally beyond the pale of any any reasonable restraint when he kept his knee on Floyd’s neck. And, for all those who pointed out that he was on drugs at the time and could have ended up hitting and killing some kid, if memory serves, he didn’t know that at the time. And nobody on scene knew about his 2019 traffic stop, and even if they did, the fact that this time, he ended up dead this time kind of undermines any relevant comparisons. He may have had a criminal record even before that, well, they didn’t know that either, and even if they did, does this mean that, if an ex-con gets 911 called on him, even for the most trivial reasons, it’s okay for the cops to use excessive force on him until he draws his last breath?

George Floyd was no Angel, and he was no saint. But it’s easy to make someone a saint when they’ve been crucified.