In Minneapolis Minnesota, a cop with a track record of being physically abusive and aggressive used a power/leverage position of holding his knee on a Mr. George Floyd's neck, for over 10 minutes, whilst his fellow cops held down Floyd or stood guard.
They already had him cuffed and restrained, there was really no call to be sitting on the man's neck that long.
Mr. Floyd was accused of paying for a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill, (or wrote a bad check, sources are conflicted). Neither of which are a death penalty offense, or even really enforceable by local PD as that falls under the IRS and the Treasury Department's jurisdiction.
The Riots started as protests, however due to the large scale of the initial protests, and the overwhelming numbers of people in comparison to cops, opportunists have taken the upset as an excuse and means to commit acts of looting and violence on neighbors and businesses. This has led to a rash of violence in a population that is clearly upset with the repression tactics that the agents of the government have committed against them, after years of "qualified immunity" from prosecution for bad conduct and an unwillingness from the courts to hold accountable bad actors.
In short, this is the straw that has broken the proverbial camel's back, and people in general are pissed. What started off as anti-police brutality movements has devolved quickly into conflict along racial and socio-economic lines.
Apt description; there is no civility or reason to be had. It sickens me as people stand idly by and watch it happen, filming it. Then people wonder why Americans like me are so ardent in our right to keep and bear arms. Europeans often comment that they don't understand the mentality "Why would you need an 'assault weapon' with a 30 round magazine?!"
Case in point, if you can count, you can see a lot of potential hostile targets that can move quickly and have violent intent, and unless you think I'm capable of going 30/30, expect some missed shots and a need to reload and follow up with shots in quick succession.
Like that couple in Rochester NY (just 50 miles away from me) who were beaten with 2x4 planks. The woman ended up in the hospital, carried away by an ambulance. They are lucky to be alive, and in that moment had no reason to suspect that those people assaulting them would stop at just beating and looting, because if they had a mind to kill that couple, they very well could have. No one intervened.
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