What concerns me about the approach of at least two posters on this thread - and obviously they do not need naming, they have nailed their colours firmly to their mast - is that violent death at the hands of the police appears to be something that criminals should accept as a routine risk of their chosen career path.
I find this deeply disturbing, not only becuase in my view it shows an absence of simple human feeling that someone has died a violent death, but also that it accepts that we are about to slide down a seriously steep and dangerous slope as a society, in terms of our attitudes to crime and policing.
If we say that Mr Floyd effectively 'got what he deserved' - shouldn't have been a criminal etc. etc., then by that measure we must accept that the offcer is blameless - just doing his job, regrettable consequences and so on and so on.
But if we accept that, then were, if indeed anywhere, are we going to draw a line?
Do we read about a UK police pursuit officer running a teenage faitl-to-stop off the road and killing him, and use the same approach - should't have been in the car, poor policeman got to live with it, and so on and so on?
In my view, that is presuming to a ludicrous degree, that criminals are bright enough to make a risk assessment before they embark on criminal activity, which, given that crime of any sort is a stupid thing to do in the first place, allows for a level of forethought and anticipation that is well outside the thought patterns of the average con.
People do stupid things, they behave in stupid ways, they break laws, that is why we have police forces.
But unless police forces are accountable to high standards, we will simply slide into anarchy where, as Clint Eastwood memorable says, you execute your neighbour because his dog wees on your lawn.
We have to have high standards of behaviour, and enforce them, or we cannot hold the moral high ground over situations like this.
To say that this officer went to a normal day of work, and ended up bewlidered and blinking in the full glare of the legal system is to assume that his actions did not precipitate the death of another human, which they clearly did - the finer points of the level of his contribution is what is being thrashed out now.
But to sympathise with one sideand condemn the other in the way that some on here are doing, is in my view morally wrong.
It does not allow for the complications of life whereby a simple 'You're a criminal, your death doesn't matter ...' approach is unrealistic, and not a view I can ever begin t understand, much less support.,