THE TRAGIC DIVIDE – AT 11:30 P.M. ET:  The trial of the police officer accused of murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis starts Monday.  The Floyd death sparked the series of riots and "demonstrations" that we saw last year, and triggered the "national discussion on race" that accompanied it, a discussion in which almost everyone who is white was assumed to be a racist.  Not a great starting point.

Has the discussion led to greater racial understanding?  Are you kidding?  From USA Today:

Americans' trust in the Black Lives Matter movement has fallen and their faith in local law enforcement has risen since protests demanding social justice swept the nation last year, according to an exclusive USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll.

The debate over the intersection of racism and policing will be in the spotlight again as jury selection opens Monday in the Minneapolis trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, which sparked nationwide marches last year.

The survey finds complicated and shifting views about Chauvin's actions and broader questions of race. On many issues, there is a chasm in the perspective between Black people and white people.

Last June, 60% in a USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll described Floyd's death as murder; that percentage has now dropped by double digits to 36%. Uncertainty has grown about how to characterize the incident, caught on video, when Chauvin held his knee on Floyd's neck and ignored his protests that he couldn't breathe. Last year, 4% said they didn't know how to describe it; that number has climbed to 17%.

"There were eight minutes that the officer could have made a different decision, and he willfully held a man," said Valda Pugh, a 67-year-old retiree from Louisville who is Black. She was among those surveyed. "It was a murder. It was willful – maybe not premeditated. Nonetheless, the young man died."

Kevin Hayworth, 66, of Garner, Iowa, who is white, disagreed. "I think it was a police officer doing his job," he said in a follow-up phone interview. "It was just a tragedy, but I think he was within the limits of his duty of jurisdiction." 

Reckless disregard for human life or tragic accident? Derek Chauvin goes on trial, charged with murder of George Floyd.

Primer:George Floyd's brutal death sparked a racial justice reckoning. One officer involved goes on trial this month. What you should know.

Nearly two-thirds of Black Americans, 64%, view Floyd's death as murder; fewer than one-third of white people, 28%, feel that way. White Americans are more likely to describe it instead as the police officer's "negligence," 33% compared with 16% of Black respondents.
That said, Americans who have heard at least something about Chauvin's trial say 4 to 1, or 60%-15%, that they hope Chauvin is convicted. That included 54% of white Americans and 76% of Black Americans.

The online poll of 1,165 adults, taken Monday and Tuesday, has a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

COMMENT:  Now, through a trial, we may actually get some facts.  We certainly want a full autopsy report.  We certainly want to know why the officer's knee stayed where it was...and was it actually on the deceased man's neck?

There is police misconduct.  No one seriously denies that.  That's why police departments have internal affairs divisions.  But there are also false charges, rushes to judgment, and overheated "news" reports.

March 6, 2021