Protests by people supporting the Black Lives Matter movement are still being held in many places all over the country. The death of George Floyd who was killed by officer Derek Chauvin after he had his knee on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes made many lose their trust in the police and are asking for the brutality by the officers to finally stop.
Many officers, however, spoke up and are asking from the public not to judge them and their profession based on what Chauvin did.
Mike O’Meara, the president of the New York Police Benevolent Association, is one of them. Recently, he held a press-conference for the media asking from them and the rest of the people to stop treating them as they are all Derek Chauvin. He started his speech saying the police is making 375 million interactions and that many positive responses a year with the public, wanting to highlight their profession is now being humiliated.
Former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane has been released from jail after posting $750k bail. He was charged earlier this month in connection to George Floyd’s death. https://t.co/SvlAT0ojj3 pic.twitter.com/PGZbIKVz6A
— E! News (@enews) June 11, 2020
He said the media is presenting stories saying how black children are afraid to go home from school fearing a cop may kill them, and says that can never happen because that’s nonsense.
“What world are we living in? That doesn’t happen. It does not happen!” he said.
“I am not Derek Chauvin. They are not him. He killed someone. We didn’t. We are restrained.
“Everybody’s trying to shame us. The legislators. The press. Everybody’s trying to shame us into being embarrassed of our profession.”
He then showed his badge and continued, “You know what? This isn’t stained by someone in Minneapolis. It’s still got a shine on it, and so do theirs.
“Stop treating us like animals and thugs, and start treating us with some respect! That’s what we’re here today to say. We’ve been left out of the conversation. We’ve been vilified. It’s disgusting.
“We don’t condone Minneapolis. We roundly reject what he did as disgusting. It’s disgusting! It’s not what we do. It’s not what police officers do.”
The video of O’Meara’s speech can be seen below.
It’s no question that reforms in the police are needed, but not all officers should be treated as bad people because one of them did something awful while on the job. The death of Floyd was a huge tragedy, yet there are many officers who would never harm any of the citizens they are sworn to protect.