TAKE OFF THE CUFFS

Here are a couple more thoughts on the death of George Floyd, along with a semi-useful partial solution.

First, although we can see the policeman's knee on Floyd's neck, we have no way of knowing how hard he's pressing down. But some people think they do know.

Why? Because they are adding the audio from the scene, where they can hear Mr. Floyd saying he can't breathe. It's possible to combine these two facts—one visual, one audible—and reach a logical conclusion that might nevertheless be false.

We know the cops arrested the man for his alleged $20 crime. And we know the man was placed in the backseat of a police SUV with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Then, something happens. Based only on the video, we can't see what is happening. We just know the police are agitated. One of them races around the back of the car to the passenger side.

A (presumably) short time later, we arrive at the damning image: the cop with his knee on Floyd's neck. From another angle we can see two other cops kneeling along the length of Floyd's body, holding him down.

Something happened, and as a result the cops pulled the man out of the car and put him face down on the ground. Some sort of medical distress, is what we've been told. (The word "claustrophobia" has been bandied about.) Whatever happened, it was so severe the cops couldn't just sit the fellow down on the curb. Something else had to be done to maintain control.

So there's the situation: An ambulance has been called, and the police are holding the man down, waiting. If the ambulance had arrived in five minutes, Mr. Floyd would just be a footnote on the subject of how police restrain suspects.

If those guys had followed the pattern I've seen on the TV show Cops, they would have hauled the man out of the car, hogtied him, and put him back into the car for transport.

But they didn't do that. They got him out of the car and weighed him down with their bodies until the ambulance arrived. Maybe they thought they were doing him a favor, by not hogtying him. (Ironic, right?)

So, what happened in the backseat of the car?

Perhaps it was some sort of panic attack, triggered by the stress of being arrested. That would not be unusual. Black men especially have to worry about finding themselves in the hands of the police. (More about that later.)

So, a panic attack, perhaps.

I need to point out that difficulty breathing is a well-known symptom of panic attacks. Was George Floyd saying "I can't breathe" when he was in the backseat of the squad car, long before that cop put his knee on his neck?

Was that why the cop calmly held his position despite what Floyd was saying? Not because he's Satan and intent on murdering the man. But because he knew he wasn't the (direct) cause of Floyd's inability to breathe?

What if he knew (the way the rest of us specifically don't know) that the pressure on the man's neck was little more than symbolic, just enough to remind the guy: You're still in custody.

(And by the way, a knee on the side of the neck is not a chokehold.)

If the cop knew he wasn't the cause of the problem, he could simply wait for the ambulance. He would have to: There was literally nothing further he could do to help Mr. Floyd.

If George Floyd was saying he couldn't breathe in the backseat of the cop car, it would be a classic post hoc fallacy to conclude the cop's knee was the literal cause of the breathing problem Floyd complained of while lying on the ground outside the car.

And if there's no assault, there's no felony murder. In fact, if my scenario is correct, I doubt you can even show manslaughter.

Despite the video evidence, we have no fully defensible reason to land on the conclusion so many people have so firmly established. But jumping to conclusions is, as they say, the most exercise some of us get.

And once a thought pops into a human brain, it's there for the duration. You can't get it out of there with dynamite. In our defective heads, thinking we know something is virtually the same as knowing.

And we can't be wrong. Just ask us.

Of course, having a trio of cops weigh a guy down might still lead to death—indirectly. The stress of being arrested is enormous. Just being "in the hands" of the cops causes stress.

And let's not forget the Black Lives Matter folks make this one point, over and over again: White cops murder black men for no reason.

You think that doesn't add to a black man's stress level when he sees cops headed his way?

Despite the annoying fact that 99% of the videos offered in evidence simply do not support the claims BLM makes, those guys are not going away any time soon. We can only hope some good can come from this.

But I would be happy to see BLM fade away, replaced by a more general interest in reforming the police.

(And in addressing very real societal racism, another conclusion not actually supported by BLM video of police interactions with black folk.)

Let's start with the concept of arrest itself. Let's see if we might replace a great many arrests with the issuance of citations.

No arrest, no massive existential crisis.

Might cut down on panic attacks, too. As well as the need to run from the cops, or fight them when handcuffs are pulled out.

From what I understand of the George Floyd case, the man should never have been arrested. Or, to be precise, cases like his should not in a "reformed" future lead to an arrest.

Same thing with Rayshard Brooks (the Wendy's guy in Atlanta). Issue a citation and arrange for a family member to pick up the car and give the guy a ride home. Where he will catch appropriate hell.

If he'd blown a much higher blood alcohol number, issue a citation and have the car towed. And get him a ride home.

It doesn't make sense to put people in custody just so they can enter the "system." Let a citation be their gateway to the legal system.

Also, maybe we could create some sort of criminal arbitration system, which would run parallel to the legal system. You screw up, you get a citation that lands you in arbitration, where you (and your lawyer) can try to make things right with the aggrieved party (and their lawyer). Keep the whole thing out of the dreaded legal system.

On the other hand, if weapons are involved, an arrest would probably be called for. But if you're packing heat in front of the police, you might already be experiencing a high level of stress.

Maybe a little more won't do that much damage.

TORCHING THE TRUTH

It would be great if the uproar over the death of George Floyd could result in real changes to make the lives of minorities safer and more worth living.

I guess we'll have to wait and see if that is the case.

But if the past is any indication of what might happen in the future, I wouldn't expect sweeping changes. Maybe something incremental that can be built upon, though. That would also be welcome.

My beef—and you know I always have one—is that whatever progress is made may come at the expense of the truth.

Here's the thing: Human beings find thinking difficult and annoying, which is why we tend to avoid it whenever possible. In its place, we pursue a procedure called rationalization, a kind of second cousin to actual thinking.

Rationalization prods the brain to come up with (semi) plausible reasons why it's okay to do whatever it is we've already decided to do. We also use rationalization to justify our opinions on various subjects.

Now, don't get me wrong. Rationalization may lead to real improvements in human life, though I doubt it would ever make things so good we could abandon the very process that got us there.

Rationalization is here to stay. We like it, it works, and it's easy.

It's also pretty much all we're capable of.

Example: Demonstrations over the death of Mr. Floyd have led to a number of buildings burned to the ground. One protester recently stated on TV that it took a bunch of burned buildings to get the other three officers charged.

That sounds like a logical fallacy referred to as a "post hoc" argument.

(Post hoc, ergo propter hoc: "After this, therefore because of this." If Event B takes place after Event A, some folks conclude that Event A is the cause of Event B. That may or may not be the case.)

It is very likely that charging the other three officers—including the guy who just stood around with his hands in his pockets—might take a bit of legal wrangling behind the scenes. And that just naturally takes time to arrange. Meanwhile—and unrelated—buildings burn.

(Frankly, I'm amazed all four were fired so quickly after the incident.)

But there is a much bigger problem left to deal with, a problem which may lead to an even more damaging eruption of anger than we have seen so far.

Believe it or not, there is simply no evidence, visual or auditory, that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer with his knee on Floyd's neck had any intention of harming the man, let alone killing him—for racial or any other reason.

(Saying you can't breathe may be taken as proof you can breathe. Besides, why would cops listen to perps? They're natural enemies.)

That said, virtually all the enraged people in the streets of our nation—and in selected foreign streets—take it as a fact that the officer deliberately murdered George Floyd because the man was black.

They know that's what happened. Period.

(Human beings always know what they know and they can't be wrong, far as they can see. Reality needs not raise its bumpy head to comment on this unfortunate process.)

The problem is, when this entirely unjustified notion of murder is tested in a court of law, the result may prove disastrous to whatever flammable structures remain in this country.

And the reaction of the white majority to that violent explosion might utterly erase whatever willingness to make progress in race relations that group of worthies may have tentatively agreed to.

And things could get worse. A lot worse.

I think the best we can hope for now is that the trial of the officers not take place before the election. Reactions to the outcome might just sweep Donald Trump into a second term.

And beyond...