Deacon Kyle Eller: George Floyd and the dignity of the human person

Mere Catholicism 

I recently watched a documentary film called “The Fall of Minneapolis,” which is about the death of George Floyd in 2020 in Minneapolis and its aftermath. It moved me in a way I did not expect and in ways that seemed worth further reflection. 

If you follow the news, you may know that this film is controversial, and let me say directly that I’m not giving it an unqualified endorsement. There is real and valuable reporting in it: bodycam footage, documents, interviews with a couple of the convicted police officers, interviews with police officers who were not involved in the arrest but worked in Minneapolis in the days that followed.  

But like most documentary films on fraught subjects like this, it has a strong point of view that it’s trying to advance, and it draws conclusions that are debatable. If you choose to watch it, I recommend accompanying it with sources on the other side of the various debates to get a balanced view. 

The part that touched my heart most and still lingers with me came at the beginning of the film, which centers on police bodycam footage from Floyd’s arrest and detainment prior to those final terrible moments, which I had not seen before. 

I’m not an expert at evaluating these things, but in that footage I didn’t see what the early accounts of that terrible day might have led me to expect: an aggressive police officer callously indifferent to the life of the man he was arresting and acting out some kind of power trip. Likewise, I didn’t see what critics of those early accounts might have led me to expect: some belligerent criminal trying to resist arrest and get away. 

Instead, my heart was moved with pity and sorrow for these men, neither of whom seemed to have any intention of hurting the other, locked in this situation where everything went so horribly wrong. 

I pitied the arresting officer, approaching a suspect in a highly agitated state, who was sitting in a car and for several moments would not or could not consistently obey the direction to keep his hands visible and still. I tensed up just watching it in the comfort of my chair. 

But my heart broke most of all for Floyd, who from the very instant he was approached by the police officer seemed to be in a state of nearly hysterical anxiety and fear and unable to get a handle on those emotions. He seemed obviously terrified, in ways both rational (there was a police officer with a gun trained on him shouting orders) and irrational. He never calmed down. 

Whatever combination of things led to him being in that state — the situation itself, the drugs eventually found to be in his system, whatever else may have been going on — and whatever faults he may have had in bringing about those circumstances, he did not in those critical moments seem to me to be aggressive in a mean or hostile way. He just seemed terrified beyond rational thought, and I felt so, so sorry for him. I kept wishing for someone to speak calmly to him for just a moment, to try to look him in the eye and speak his name and reassure him no one wanted to hurt him. The police officers did try to say some of the right things to him, but tinged with their own (understandable) agitation and commanding tone. 

Just before those terrible last moments, Floyd was distressed at the tight quarters of the police vehicle officers were trying to put him in, saying he was claustrophobic and could not breathe, and even with several officers now trying to force him in, he would not remain in that space. 

In our deeply polarized society, in the context of our nation’s complicated, ongoing reckoning with racial justice, and in the wake of all that followed that terrible day, perhaps it was inevitable that this poor man’s complicated life would risk being reduced to oversimplifications to serve competing narratives: either the saintly “gentle giant” folk hero slain by brutal cops or the dangerous career criminal suffering the consequences of his choices.  

I must admit that, as a Catholic Christian observing these things mostly at a distance, it’s the latter caricature that most bothers me. Reflecting on the film and the commentary on it called to mind for me the first anniversary of Floyd’s death. As I had scrolled Facebook that day, I was horrified to notice that on local news coverage of commemorations of the anniversary, the most common Facebook reactions were the “laugh” emoji. I noted that day in disgust: “I really don't understand what has happened to people.” 

I still don’t. Similarly, I don’t get the hard-hearted mentality expressed so frequently on social media where simply labeling the man as a “criminal” or “drug addict” somehow ends all concern for his life or discussion of whether he was treated justly. In particular, I can’t imagine how any disciple of Jesus Christ — who spent some of his last moments on the cross welcoming a convicted criminal to join him in the kingdom of heaven and who showed such profound concern for every sinner and broken person he encountered, whose work is mercy and redemption — can possibly justify thinking this way. Talk about losing the thread. 

I suspect most of us know and care about people who struggle with addiction and people who have had troubled pasts and have struggled to get on the right path. I know and love people who, had things gone slightly more wrong, could have easily ended in a story like George Floyd’s. Those people have the dignity of being loved by God to the cross. 

Watching the documentary left me moved in a new way by pity and compassion for George Floyd and for everyone who had to deal with that terrible situation, and I found myself praying earnestly for the repose of his soul, that we will meet him in heaven, healed, redeemed, restored, and made whole, in the fullness of life with God, who is mercy and love. 

Deacon Kyle Eller is editor of The Northern Cross. Reach him at [email protected].