Statement on Police Brutality

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie were dis­mayed over the news of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25th at the hands of sev­er­al city police offi­cers.

Floyd was com­pli­ant and in hand­cuffs when he was tak­en to the ground and one offi­cer ground his knee into Floyd’s neck which led to his death. That action is uncon­scionable and the offi­cer should be pros­e­cut­ed to the full extent of the law. The oth­er offi­cers who stood around and let it hap­pen should also be pros­e­cut­ed.

The crime that Floyd was tak­en into cus­tody for does­n’t have a death sen­tence and even if it did the police offi­cers act­ed way out­side their man­date of pro­tect­ing and serv­ing. They vio­lat­ed depart­ment pol­i­cy and Floyd’s due process.

This is hap­pen­ing far too often in this coun­try where white police offi­cers with some kind of pow­er trip fetish, over police peo­ple of col­or and SHoWLE demands it stop now.

There is no more time for dis­cus­sions, task forces, or promis­es to stop the mur­ders — it MUST STOP NOW.

Police depart­ments, includ­ing Toledo’s, must come under cit­i­zen led review com­mit­tees.

Training pro­grams need to be changed to focus on de-escalation and teach­ing not to use tac­tics that unnec­es­sar­i­ly harm or fur­ther mar­gin­al­ize peo­ple of col­or.

There must be a stronger effort to recruit peo­ple of col­or for the police force and there must a strong effort to weed out the offi­cers who can’t treat all mem­bers of the pub­lic equal­ly and with­out bias.

We must all work togeth­er to end the mur­der of peo­ple in cus­tody by police.

Douglas Berger — President SHoWLE