By Aaron Miller-
A group of white teenagers from a well to do Connecticut town posted a video on social media showing them re-enacting the horrifying police-involved death of George Floyd.
The heartless display prompted school officials in Old Saybrook to launch an investigation, and also lodge a complaint to Police.
Upon hearing about the spread of the post on social media, The Eye Of Media.Com speedily made inquiries in the city of Connecticut to inquire from teenagers and young adults why teenagers would post such a thoughtless and callous video on social media.
Lying Face Down
In the clip, one teen is seen lying face down on a patch of grass while two others stand over him. The video, which is captioned with the words ‘George Floyd junior,’ shows one of the teens mockingly yelling: ‘Get the f*** down on the ground.’ As one teen kneels on the ‘detained’ kid’s hands, another stands over his head and kneels, pressing his right knee against his neck for a few seconds.
George Floyd, 46, died in Minneapolis on May 25 after police officer Derek Chauvin put a knee in his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, ignoring his cries of ‘I can’t breathe’.
As one teen kneels on the subdued kid’s hands, another stands over his head and presses his right knee against his neck for a few seconds.
Several of his acquaintances are heard in the background laughing.
‘That’s f****d up,’ one of them says, indicating that the teens were well aware of the inflammatory nature of their post.
One of the teens jokingly ordering the ‘bound’ teen to perform oral sex, eliciting laughs from the others.
Cruel George Floyd Challenge Posted On Social Media
Responses
There were a range of responses to our question. All of the people we spoke to were spoken to by phone Some individuals why willing to be identified, others were not. They were drawn from three cities of connecticut ,New Britain, Plainville, and Bloomfield. We have selected three responses from the five we spoke to, and all those we spoke to were white males.
The most common response provided was that the teenagers are reacting to The Black Lives Matters group by disrespecting the memory of George Floyd.
One white teenager of 19 from New Britain, who ironically gave his name as George said: ” I can tell you these folks are responding to The excessive reaction of Black Lives Matters protesters.
They went about destroying buildings and looting in shops just because a black man known to be a criminal, not a nice guy, was killed by a police officer. They have ignored or are not aware of the fact that cops in America have killed more white people in the same brutal manner”.
When it was pointed out to George that the argument provided in response to that view is that black Americans make up a much smaller proportion of Americans as a whole, he interjected ” that’s not the fxxxxxx point, a life is a life. Everyone knows that American cops are brutal as hell. They are paranoid guys, and sometimes waste people’s lives because they are crazy themselves.
”Cops have wasted the lives of a lot of white mother fxxxxxx’s and black mother fxxxxx’s. Sometimes they do it because they fear the risk of being killed themselves, other times because they are simply sadistic bxxxxxxx. I’m not condoning what these teens posted on social media, they are probably idiots themselves, but I can tell you this is one of the reasons they would have done this.
Many of the kids probably have racist parents that they have heard speak negatively about African Americans, and some have none racist parents who have also expressed anger at the black lives matters protesters”
Another young man of 18, Leon Ovais from Plainville, said: ” I think some of them may come from families associated with the Ku klux Klan or far right groups. Their actions were a statement to show they are prepared to offend and they wanted to create the controversy. They knew it will fetch them some attention.
”I think they may also be reacting to the Black Lives Matters(BLM)movement. Many people feel it is wrong for a known criminal to become a matyr just because he was killed a police officer when police officers have a long history of killing both black and white people. You only got to watch youtube documentary’s about it and you will see that some police officers are just ‘trigger happy’. It a’int just about black folks, they killing white folks too.
The story was captured by the Uk Daily Mail Online who through an impressive level of research and resourcefulness managed to track down one of the teens who sent the British media publication a picture of some exclusive picture of one their classmates enacting the challenge by kneeling on the neck of a brown cow.
The shared images horrified social image users, and the potential explanations provided are not good reasons for insensitive acts of this nature. Objections to conduct by groups of people can be expressed through forums and debates, but not through this kind of behaviour.
Police are not likely to tale any actions against immature teenagers who behaved this badly. The authorities of their school will be expected to act once they complete their investigations.