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Letter: George Floyd was not insignificant

(Mark Lennihan | AP photo) Volunteers Christian Tyler and Ashante West, right, carry brooms after participating in a community cleanup effort as they walk by a boarded up pawnbroker's store, Tuesday, June 2, 2020, in the Fordham Road area of the Bronx borough of New York. Protesters broke into stores Monday night in reaction to George Floyd's death while in police custody on May 25 in Minneapolis.

Watching the death of George Floyd is beyond difficult.

You watch a man, helplessly handcuffed, plead for his life as that life is senselessly ended at the hands of American law enforcement officers. Those who were there knew it was wrong. Maybe some of the other officers had some idea this was not right. But they did not protect Floyd and he died anyway.

I don’t think his killer probably intended to cause his death, but his apparent intent was equally pernicious.

Floyd was face down and handcuffed. There was no reason for the knee on his neck except for that white police officer to say to that black man, “You and your life are insignificant. I’ve got you and if I want to shove your face into the asphalt I can do whatever I want and there is nothing anyone will do about it.”

For too long, too many marginalized Americans have feared similar treatment from law

enforcement. This death forces every decent empathetic American who has viewed it to acknowledge that there is an underbelly of evil in America that must be purged from law enforcement.

George Floyd was not insignificant. Let his death not be in vain.

Mark Petersen, Park City

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