Police are our society's sheep dogs who protect us from the wolves among us. No civilized society can tolerate a sheep dog that uses his or her teeth on the sheep, other sheep dogs, or even the wolves once the latter are in custody. Regardless of "Gentle Giant" George Floyd's rap sheet, and of whatever (if anything) he had done to result in his arrest, the police were responsible for his safety once he was handcuffed and on the ground, and this duty of care was apparently not fulfilled. Disciplinary action and criminal charges are therefore entirely appropriate based on what we currently know.

Sorry, Your Race Card has Been Declined

Have we stopped to consider, however, that much of the "Justice for George Floyd" movement is based on the totally unproven proposition that what happened to him was racially motivated? I have yet to see any evidence of a racial motive, and two of the officers involved are not Caucasian. Maybe Floyd gave Chauvin trouble and he reacted with (allegedly until proven) excessive force while getting his companions to support his actions, or at least do nothing to intervene. Chauvin did have multiple complaints against him in the past, although only one resulted in disciplinary action.

The motives of the arresting officers do not make what happened right. Policies, procedures, and training need to be reviewed and changed throughout the nation to ensure that similar incidents do not happen in the future. The Left's race card should however be declined until such time as it is proven that Chauvin's actions were racially motivated. Now let's address those who are rioting, looting, burning, robbing, and murdering (with numerous African-Americans on the receiving end of so-called #justiceforgeorgefloyd), and vandalizing synagogues, churches, and even a memorial to Civil War African-American Soldiers, in the name of George Floyd.

"Viva Fernando y Vamos Robando!"

This phrase is from C.S. Forester's The Gun, which later became The Pride and the Passion with Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, and Frank Sinatra. The story is about a band of Spanish guerrillas who acquired a massive siege gun and used it (unsuccessfully in the book, successfully in the movie) to attack a French-occupied fort during the Peninsular War.

"Long live [King] Ferdinand and let's go robbing" related to purported guerrillas who used their purported resistance to French invaders to steal from other Spaniards. It is easy to imagine these bandits invading homes and farms, "requisitioning" horses, money, and even women from the occupants, and asking anybody who objected, "Are you an Afrancesado (French sympathizer) whose throat we should cut?" It was, after all, a lot safer to steal from Spanish peasants than from Napoleon's marshals. This is not to say that genuine guerrillas did not fight the French, but rather that bandits often found it convenient to call themselves guerrillas while they practiced their usual trade. Crusaders, under color of fighting for Jesus, similarly sacked Constantinople with the excuse that the occupants were the wrong kinds of Christians. The armies of the Thirty Years War often robbed and raped their own employers' subjects to supplement their pay. "Justicia para Jorge Floyd y vamos robando" is simply the same old garbage from a brand-new dumpster.

The looters, rioters, and robbers (not protesters) who are acting under color of #justiceforgeorgefloyd probably ask anybody who objects to having his or her property stolen, vandalized, or set on fire, "Are you a racist who needs a good beating?" If the looting or robbery victim is African-American, they may demand instead, "Are you unwilling to make a small donation, like the contents of your entire store, to the Cause?" They do not care about justice for George Floyd or justice for anybody, they do not care about Black lives or anybody's lives, and all they care about is an excuse to engage in common banditry.

Police exist to enforce the law and not take it into their own hands, e.g. with excessive force. The rioters, looters, arsonists, robbers, and killers who have clearly proclaimed, "Justice for George Floyd and let's go robbing" are on the other hand the absolute dregs of our society who have crawled out of their holes for no purpose other than self-gratification with loot, violence, and mindless vandalism of synagogues and churches. The Left appears largely silent about the latter, which most people would normally call hate crimes. There are even videos of looters robbing each other of their loot, much as stronger Spanish "guerrilla" bands might have robbed weaker ones under color of resisting Napoleon.

Why Aren't We Protesting This Instead?

Breonna Taylor was a law-abiding citizen who was killed in her own home by police who raided the wrong location with a no-knock warrant. Taylor's boyfriend Kenneth Walker believed, and reasonably, from what I have read, that he was dealing with home invaders, opened fire on them, and wounded one. The police officers returned the fire from what they believed to be drug dealers and killed Taylor.

Walker was arrested but the charges against him were dropped, and rightly so, as far as I am concerned. Even if the police announced themselves as police while they forced entry, Walker and Taylor were law-abiding citizens who had no reason to expect police to invade their residence. They might have therefore suspected reasonably that home invaders were falsely identifying themselves as police to gain time to kill them. The police had, on the other hand, been told that they were raiding a drug house so they believed reasonably that they were taking fire from drug dealers.

We therefore had a situation in which both parties seem to have had reasonable (as defined by law) cause to fire upon one another and were therefore guiltless in doing so. This does not change the fact that an innocent civilian is dead and a law enforcement officer has been injured, because of the fiasco in question. There is however no evidence that this incident was racially motivated either, as the wrong address could have been anybody's. This is but one of many similar incidents that have proved deadly for civilians and police alike. The consequences are in fact no different than those of a "swatting" incident that goes bad. Somebody ought to be investigating why the officers were sent to the wrong location in the first place, and also what changes need to be made to ensure that it never happens again to any civilian or law enforcement officer.

Civis Americanus is the pen name of an American Thinker contributor who remembers the lessons of history and wants to ensure that our country never needs to learn those lessons again the hard way.