The Evil Twin Poem by Doug Lane

I thought
Minneapolis
was a nice city,
not as posh
as St Paul,
but with lots of parks.

Certainly nicer than,
say,
Ferguson, Missouri,
or Montgomery, Alabama,
or Arkadelphia, Mississippi,
or Memphis, Tennessee,
where they shot
Doctor Martin Luther King.

But I keep seeing
Officer Derek Chauvin
press his knee
for NINE MINUTES
into George Floyd's neck
while George says,
with his last breath,
"I can't breathe."

And I see
how infinitely sad
George looks
as they cuff him
and force him to the pavement
while he doesn't resist
and he must be thinking
"They're going to kill me.
What have I done
to deserve
this?
Be black? "

And I see the other officers
just standing
and staring
and doing nothing
to stop Chauvin
from crushing the life
out of Floyd
who continues to
mildly, desperately, softly,
plead "I can't breathe.
I can't breathe."

And then I think about
Officer Chauvin's
long, long, rap sheet
- -18 offenses over many years- -
including many beatings
and even a previous killing,

and I wonder
was Minneapolis
SO short
of candidates
for the police department
that it had to sweep
this monster's
endless crimes
under the rug,
to continue to employ him
asa law officer,
or lawless officer,
until he
killed AGAIN

before firing him,
arresting him,
trying him?

And did the local
district attorney
need a whole
week
and a
riot
after viewing
that video
of George Floyd's murder
to decide
to charge
and arrest him?

When anybody else
with a scrap of decency
and sanity
would have just needed
minutes?
Or seconds?
Or no time at all?

Minneapolis reminds me
all too much
of that murdered jogger's,
Mr Ahmaud Arbery's, town.
Brunswick,
in the Georgia sticks,
where the local hicks
swept the killing
under the rug
for months
before the video truth
forced the state of Georgia,
not Brunswick,
never Brunswick,
to charge those crackers
with murder.

And how did Minneapolis,
as far north as it is,
end up
in the Confederacy,
and how did George Floyd
never find safety,
in distance and time,
from the same fate
that awaited
his enslaved ancestors
south of the slave line?

And I can't help wondering
if the citizens
of Minneapolis
had to riot
for three days
and burn down
a precinct house
to get the wheels of justice
turning
for Mr Floyd,
then
how nice a town
can Minneapolis
be?