This is Charles McMillian, who begged George Floyd to do anything to survive, and who begged Officer Chauvin to stop killing him. I love this man’s courage, his caring, his ability to put on a suit and hope that his words will matter in the trial of Floyd’s killer in the way they didn’t matter in the moment Floyd’s life hung in the balance, and I love him in his grieving for the helplessness of that situation in public.

It was and remains a crime for him to have lifted a finger; and more importantly to have pushed a cop aside to save George Floyd’s life. It was and remains a crime for the teenager who knew it was wrong and made a video record for the world to take that killing knee off of that dying neck. It was and remains a crime for the bystanders who tried pleas, who tried insults, who tried logical reasoning and public shame to just stop the killing. Had they touched the killer, it would legally have been assault. More importantly, had the killer responded by shooting them, I doubt we would even be having this trial.

It is a wrenching injustice that in May 2020, Charles McMillian was forced to beg George Floyd to try to save his own life. As much as it is a wrenching injustice that George Floyd’s anguished reply was “I can’t.”

This is the danger of investing some people with the power of being the law. And the danger of failing to strip them of that protection when they turn their badge into a license to abuse and kill.

And also, the fact that Chauvin did this in front of our elder, our youth, our children, our cameras all mean something. That he did not relent in his killing act even when George Floyd was dead. He must have needed to show that all their cries would go unheard. And he acted in the tradition of a long line of white men and law men brutalizing one of us in public to terrorize us all.

March 31, 2021