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Comment by thedaly | Hacker News Reader

> Santamaria was later required to come up with security plans outlining the number of officers needed per night. The officers insisted on getting paid cash, she said. She feared if she didn’t oblige, she’d lose her license.

> Eventually, another officer helped schedule off-duty work: Derek Chauvin. He worked security at her club for 17 years.

> ...

> She sold the club in 2019. When Santamaria saw Chauvin pinning George Floyd on the pavement in the video that shocked the world, she recognized both, because Floyd worked as a bouncer inside the club in 2019.

That is an interesting connection. I didn't know that they worked together.

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One theory I read is that Floyd and Chauvin were part of the same counterfeiting ring operating out of that club, and Chauvin murdered Floyd in order to keep him quiet. (Recall that Floyd was originally arrested for suspected use of a counterfeit $20 bill.) I think maybe part of the idea was that nightclubs are interesting to counterfeiters because they deal with so much cash.

(Racism still plays a big part in the Floyd story even if this is true -- Chauvin presumably thought he could get away with it, and his fellow officers mostly didn't try to stop him.)

> Racism still plays a big part in the Floyd story even if this is true

What makes you think that?

Just a general tendency of all excessive violence always(ish, I can think of one exception) happening to be against colored people?

If you can only think of a single example of the police being excessively violent against a white person, then you are woefully under-informed. I'm not surprised though, I blame the media.

You can probably draw some broad, population-level conclusions from statistical data that shows more police violence against minorities, though some can be explained by other socioeconomic factors as well. In general, I'd say that American police are simply violent to everyone.

You're asking me to believe that this man feels a certain way and committed a racist murder based on a general tendency? Even if I grant you the ridiculous premise that this tendency is real, that line of thinking isn't close to sound.

I see I'm getting downvoted here by the typical good dogs, but this has always bothered me about the incident. The racism was presented to us by the media with no explanation, and most people just took it to be fact. No curiosity, no convincing required. I've asked several people, nobody is able to make a case that's even remotely compelling, similar to how you failed to do it here.

>The racism was presented to us by the media with no explanation

There were hours and hours and hours of explanation. You just decided that you didn't like the explanation and decided to ignore the facts. Assuming you're asking in good faith which is extremely doubtful. You're being downvoted because the murder happened 3 years ago, Chauvin was convicted by a jury of his peers, and its not worth anyone's time to explain it personally to someone who is "just asking questions". You take the time and do your own research.

He was convicted of murder, I don't question that. He was not convicted of racism.

If it's so obvious and self evident and I've merely ignored the facts, surely you could explain it to me succinctly. You can't, of course, because you don't know why you believe it, and there is reason to believe it.

You don't have to believe anything, but if you don't see the racism that pervades our society you're utterly blind.

So whenever anyone suggests a racial motive in a specific case, where this is no supporting evidence in that case, your stance is to just go along with it, because racism pervades our society?

There is a difference between recognizing that racism exists, and saying that racism is at the root of a particular problem (rather than "merely" something that also exists).

This is one of the big problems with this kind of stuff, because as soon as racism merely exists it becomes completely taboo to offer any other sort of explanation as the root cause.

> You're asking me to believe that this man feels a certain way and committed a racist murder based on a general tendency?

No, no. This man might have had other motives for his murder too. I’m merely saying a contributing factor is that society (and the law/police in specific) seem to be more accepting of violence when committed against minorities.

Maybe due in part to the historical deprivation of economic opportunities that would be preferable to such vulnerable arrangements.

Chauvin was obviously in the wrong from pretty much every angle, but the chances of the a person actually dying under those circumstances are actually fairly small. If it was an intentional pre-meditated murder then it was either an incredibly piss-poor plan or some 4D chess master move.

That said, it's certainly possible he simply wanted to be a dick to Floyd, possibly just for incredibly petty personal reasons, or something like that.

> If it was an intentional pre-meditated murder

From what I understand he was convicted for second degree murder, specifically "unintentional second-degree murder while attempting to commit felony assault". So he may not have intended for George Floyd to die, but he did intentionally assault George Floyd who died as a result. So that's not intentional premeditated murder, but it's nevertheless a form of murder.

(He was also simultaneously convicted for third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter, but not first-degree murder.)

I wonder what combination of "they get shot with a gun lifted from an evidence locker" and "the IRS descends upon the local police department for widespread tax evasion" would have happened if the victims of the shakedown rackets simply reported the cash payments like any other wages.

>I didn't know that they worked together.

Surprising. It came out fairly shortly after the incident that they were at least known to one another on some level through that security job.

When I learned that I was suspicious that Chauvin was settling some personal score (and that explained why Floyd seemed to believe that Chauvin was going to kill him), but I don't know if any evidence for that came to light. Possibly an under-investigated angle, I'm not sure.

if you recognize someone from a previous job, even if he committed a crime, would you kill him if he did not represent any danger ?

That’s a difficult hypothetical considering most of us don’t work in a capacity where we’re allowed to kill people.

If you hated him enough and thought you could kill him with impunity? Certainly some would.

> and that explained why Floyd seemed to believe that Chauvin was going to kill him

This is more simply explained by the fact that Chauvin was in fact killing him.

I'm referring to what happened before Chauvin had him on the ground.

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