Standard Operating Procedure

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

This particular human rights investigation, released today, was of a police department where almost two years ago one of its white officers nonchalantly kneeled on a black man’s neck and held George Floyd there until he was dead.

This particular report showed:

• Police routinely use higher rates of more severe force against black people than white people in similar circumstances.
• Police are more likely to stop vehicles when they see people of color, or indigenous people, in them.
• Those people are treated differently than white people are in similar circumstances. More likely to be searched, more likely to be cited, held longer, treated violently, taken to jail.
• Police are overaggressive and undertrained.
• Police are far more likely to use deadly force against darker skin.

These particular findings were in Minneapolis. I wish I could say all this is shocking.

Truth is — look around you — in many cases in the United States, this could be your city.

Your city nonchalantly kneeling on somebody’s neck.