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Indifference & Inaction: Damn them Both

Seeing the slow torturous murder of a restrained compliant suspect by a uniform police officer was evil incarnate.  Beyond shocking and beyond any understanding or comprehension.

Even more horrendous were the other uniform police officers at the scene who did nothing as they heard the cries of “I can’t breathe!” from the hapless victim.  Protect and serve! Do it now!  Why the hesitation? Indifference to the sobbing victim’s gasping pleas and their inaction to stop the on-going barbarism by one of their own.  Voluntary blindness indeed.

In broad daylight and in the presence of several witnessing citizens.  On a busy avenue with passing traffic.  Ho hum, just a normal day.

This brazen criminal act of indifference to life was beyond anyone’s sense of basic humanity.  Basic dignity for the sanctity of life.

This happened inside of an  American city.  Not inside the Warsaw Ghetto; not inside Treblinka; not inside a Russian gulag; not inside Tiananmen Square.

My mind immediately harkened back to the filmed atrocities committed by the Nazis inside of the concentration camps against the victims who the Nazis classified as “subhuman” and not fit to live.  A culture of death personified six million times over!

I still see the smug indifference on the officer’s face as he continued to do the devil’s work.

He casually leaned forward with his knee on the neck of the bound victim.  The officer placed his left hand inside his pocket.  He seemed relaxed – “Just another day at the office”. What in God’s name was he thinking about?  Was he thinking at all?  Is this the day that he awoke; ate breakfast; put on his uniform and decided that it was a good day for him to kill someone?

There could not be any plausible excuse for this officer’s wanton disregard for a human life. None whatsoever in my book.

It was sickening for me to watch this video.  It was repulsive.  I has utter disgust with pained disbelief as the eight-plus minutes elapsed on that asphalt.  A deep anger welled-up from within me. I was waiting and hoping in vain for . . .

Someone, anyone do something – stop the torture, stop the murder,  push that knee-bending, life-ending cop off of him!  Do it now!  There is still time!  Damn the consequences!

No dice.  A man dies unjustly. Indifference and inaction at its worse.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

~Edmund Burke

We all now reap the whirlwind.  God help us!

Danny Pitocco
Danny Pitocco
RETIRED (as a Detective with the Snohomish County Sherriff’s Department, Washington State), Danny has over forty years of law enforcement experience across city, county, state and federal levels of government, including service as a Special Agent for the DEA, US Department of Justice. He’s a decorated law enforcement veteran, and recipient of the "Detective of the Year" award for Snohomish County, Danny is a certified composite artist and has testified as an expert witness in the field of narcotics and modus operandi of particular crimes in state and federal courts in California, and has given testimony before federal grand juries. Danny served four years of active duty in the US Marine Corps and loves Jesus as his personal savior.

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8 CONVERSATIONS

  1. Although it does not seem right to invade the life of other countries, I have already spoken several times about this painful and dramatic event in which not only the act of the policeman, unacceptable in a straight state, but the indifference of others also emerges , of many others. And that attitude was repeated in Buffalo where he was pushed, causing serious injuries, a man who had really wanted to demonstrate that he could not remain indifferent to free violence.
    Indifference is associated with insensitivity, detachment and coldness, characteristics that theoretically go in the opposite direction to the social condition of human beings that allows them to relate. Being indifferent implies that nothing matters, that in front of a person or a situation we feel nothing, that we are not interested in anything.
    Life is full of moments and situations in which opting to be indifferent is not the best choice. We may be more or less interested, but we cannot stop hearing. It is a resource that makes us choose whether to perceive the stimuli or to remove them from us; therefore absolute indifference is impossible.
    It is said wisely that “indifference is the toughest answer, even when not much is expected”. It is proven that when we show our indifference to another person, this attitude is one of the most aggressive and painful that can be assumed. Showing indifference implies that we are withdrawing all our feelings and that the other does not even exist for us.
    Of course, keeping us apart is also a way of self-protection. And then you can understand the attitude of passersby who might have feared ending up like poor Floyd. It is even customary to think that the ability to be indifferent to life’s events is a real strength. However, the reality is very different: indifference hurts both those who suffer it and those who put it into practice.

  2. The heart of the matter is as you said Danny: what one earth was that officer thinking and further why didn’t someone step in, if not his fellow officers, a citizen??
    It is a scary realization for us all to realize how we seem not to know what to do in a situation like this. I know that there are some people will not hesitate to step in. I hope there are more like that than indifferent or so clinging to this life as if this life is worth so much. I think people are afraid of the corruption and that if they went to push that officer off they would be hit with a lawsuit…
    sad times.

    • Fear ends when faith begins. Doing the right thing, the right way, for the right reason at the right time regardless of the personal cost pays dividends in the long run Laurie. Thanks for your valued response.

  3. This is exactly what it says . So Officer Dorn who was retired but came to help in the chaos that was relentless is now dead. So is his life worth less than George Floyd? I think not, but will there be those riot in his name? No because he was Law Enforcement.

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