George Floyd Death: Statement from Hendersonville Chief of Police Herbert Blake

Hendersonville -- Statement from Chief Herbert Blake Concerning the Death of George Floyd

While most state laws allow the police to use the amount of force necessary to affect a lawful arrest, the knees of the Minneapolis, Minnesota police officer on the neck of Mr. George Floyd, under the watchful eyes of other officers, in my opinion was grossly negligent and indifferent.

North Carolina General Statue 15A-401 provides officers in our state with rules on uses of force to affect an arrest. This is available for anyone to review.

In this case, Mr. Floyd was handcuffed with his hands behind his back. The video shows a police officer who could have weighed 300 pounds with his knee and bodyweight on Mr. Floyd’s neck for at least seven minutes as he lay on the street asking to be allowed to breath.

At that point, whatever struggle that may have happened - if it happened - was over. Any movement after that by Mr. Floyd appeared to be his attempt to breathe, to survive.

This was a very disturbing encounter that resulted in a death and it should be rejected by law enforcement leaders, by officers and even the most resolute supporters of law enforcement.

Since the 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, many communities have viewed incident after incident of questionable use of force by their police; unfortunately, these kinds of incidents keep happening, even though we are under a microscope.

I am a longtime member of the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police and International Association of Chiefs of Police. Both organizations issued official statements rejecting this incident.

A part of the statement from the NCACP states “the untimely death of Mr. George Floyd of Minnesota is deeply disturbing to the police executives of this state and should be of great concern to every citizen across this nation. The NCACP fully supports the swift and timely actions by Chief Medaria Arradondo of the Minneapolis Police Department to terminate the officers involved in this case.

“The actions of the officers involved appear without merit, justification and displayed an absence of the very basic sense of compassion and empathy for the life of Mr. George Floyd.”

A part of the statement from the IACP states “law enforcement officers are trained to treat all individuals, whether they are a complainant, suspect or defendant, with dignity and respect. This is the bedrock principle behind the concepts of procedural justice and police legitimacy.

“That is why incidents involving the use-of-force are never the desired outcome in any given situation; moreover, it is the responsibility of police leaders to hold officers accountable for incidents when use-of-force is not aligned with agency policy or appropriate to the given circumstance.”

In regard to this video, many people are asking why it seems like some officers are ready to use excessive force with little or no provocation. Increasingly, people who don’t trust the police point to what is called the “warrior mindset.”

This is a belief by many that some officers, regardless of the nature of the crime, think the streets in the communities they serve are battlefields; that they are surrounded by potential enemies; and every encounter is a battle to be won.

I can say that very few officers have this mindset; the best of us do not. But those who do can cause indelible damage to our profession. In an incident like this, silence can be viewed as complicit; as approval.

So I feel obligated to as a police chief to speak up about this. This was bad police work. This was a lack of humanity and courage. I believe every community would expect an experienced police officer to be able to get himself under control in much less than seven minutes.

I think citizens would expect any officer on a scene like this, regardless of how much experience they have, to intervene. The assisting officers were more concerned about blocking the view of citizens who were trying to record.

They ignored the pleas of the person in their custody asking for help as well. They were derelict in their duties. In fact, officers are even taught and required to check the handcuffs on a person in their custody if the person complains that the handcuffs are too tight.

I assure you that those former officers in this incident do not represent the law enforcement officers serving in this community.

The solid majority of men and women in law enforcement are truly dedicated, mindful, law abiding, compassionate officers who do an excellent job on a daily basis.