Was George Floyd lynched for having a white girlfriend?

Tweet

This is actually a two part question, so let's tackle part one first: Was George Floyd lynched?

Consider how Sumaiya Shaikh describes lynching in The Cognitive Neuroscience of a Lynching, Wired, 18/Jul/2017:

A mob lynching isn’t the same as any physical harm or a killing. It needs several components to come together: attackers, spectators and outnumbered victim(s). It needs the public humiliation of the victim and, unlike a lawful process of punishment, a lynching is a demonstration that the sentiments of the attackers are beyond the law or the government.

The murder of George Floyd had all those elements. The attackers were Derek Chauvin and the other cops, fortunately for all, one of the spectators made a video, and Floyd obviously was the victim. He was humiliated. His killing was unlawful, and they demonstrated to the onlookers that they made their own "law." Thanks to Darnella Frazier, the 17-year old that made the 10 minute cell phone video that blew the lid, this may be the most widely viewed lynching in history. Shaikh continues:

Whether the victims die or survive the lynching, they are almost always bent on their knees or close to the ground, palms joined together, begging for mercy and often soaked in blood. Their gesture and facial expressions suggest that they will do and say anything to save themselves from more harm.
...
The victim’s brain, paralysed by fear, inhibits all movement and prevents him from running away from the attack.

This last part could explain why Floyd said he couldn't get up with three cops on top of him. He showed all the classic symptoms, including his stomach aching as the bowels leave the body for the last time. Shaikh continues:

The perpetrators are the people that are hired or spontaneously perpetrate a lynching by others in leadership positions. This category of ‘participants’ isn’t an individual but a group that unites to act as a single entity.

This mob was hired by the city. Lynch mobs also post guards to stop anyone who might try to interfere from doing so. This had that too, in the person of Officer Thao.

It is important to understand that a lynching is not a hanging. The hangman's knot, and the drop, often weighted by sandbags, is designed to break the neck of the person being executed and insure that death comes quickly. That's why it is considered one of the five humane ways of carrying out the death penalty, and still legal in some states.

A lynching is death by strangulation. The victim is "strung up" for public display, and then is allowed to twist and strangle as the life is driven out of him slowly over a matter of minutes, even hours. It is a form of torture, as George Floyd was tortured. Do not be confused because no rope was used. The murder of George Floyd by Officer Derek Chauvin had all the important elements of a lynching. For all intents and purposes, George Floyd was lynched.

George Floyd and girlfriend Courteney Ross

This brings us to the second half of the title, and the sticky question as to the motive of Chauvin, and perhaps the other cops.

This question gets more interesting now that we know that both George Floyd and Derek Chauvin worked security at the same club, and Chauvin had a prior beef with Floyd. Both had worked part-time as security for El Nuevo Rodeo, a popular Latin club for about a year. Buzzfeed reports:

“It’s very shocking,” said Alexander Vasquez Hagen, who worked security at the club several years ago and interacted with Chauvin in that capacity. He said he knew and liked Floyd from the city’s club scene.

“Crazy,” added AJ Jaurequi, a club promoter in the area. He said he wondered if the two men “had some beef with each other, because it’s odd that you’d treat someone you knew like that.”

Maya Santamaria, the club’s former owner, said Floyd, the father of a six-year-old girl, was “a sweetheart” and that “everyone loved him.” Santamaria said she’d hire Floyd for busy nights, to join the 25 other security guards inside the club.
...
Santamaria recalled that Chauvin, a 19-year-veteran of the department, “was nice but he would overreact and lash out quickly.”

This was particularly true, she said, on nights when the club hosted special events like Twerk Tuesdays and other dance festivals geared toward the black community.

“His face, attitude, posture would change when we did urban nights,” she said, adding that he had a “propensity to pull out pepper spray” and use it on her patrons, something she said she had spoken to him about.

Now David Pinney, a man who worked security with both Floyd and Chauvin, told CBS that Chauvin knew Floyd "I would say pretty well." He said they had a history:

"They bumped heads," Pinney said.

"How?" CBS News asked.

"It has a lot to do with Derek being extremely aggressive within the club with some of the patrons, which was an issue," Pinney explained.

Courteney Ross at George Floyd Memorial Monday

Pinney says that Chauvin had a problem with black people, and thinks he should be charged with first degree murder because "He knew him."

I think we can say that it has been established that Chauvin had exhibited racist behavior towards African Americans, and that he knew Floyd when he was killing him. Therefore it is probable that his motives were racist as well as personal. As to the last part of my question, beyond the fact that George Floyd's girl friend, Courteney Ross, 44, is white, I can offer only speculation.

She met Floyd three years ago when he was working security at a Salvation Army store, and they had been dating since. She manages The Coffee Shop Northeast, about 6 miles from the club where both Floyd and Chauvin worked. Nothing I've seen so far indicates that Chauvin knew she was Floyd's girlfriend, or even of her existence, but what we are learning about both Floyd and Chauvin and their prior relationship serves to highlight the small town nature of Minneapolis. If Chauvin was observant, as most cops are, he just may have had occasion to notice that Floyd had a girlfriend, and that she was white. This may be worthy of further investigation, given the similarities between the murder of George Floyd and a lynching, and the history of real or imagined interracial relationships as a prime historical motive for lynchings.

Clay Claiborne.