My wife came downstairs to sound the alarm.
“A cop just killed a black man in Minneapolis,” she cried.
She started to give me the details of how it happened. She asked me to watch the video with her.
I interjected: “What the ….? That’s not how you hold someone down. Who are the idiots who teach you to put your knee on someone’s neck to hold him down?”
My wife’s words painted such a gruesome picture in my mind, that I didn’t need to see the video. Doing so only made me feel sick.
I’m not into watching people suffer. I’ve seen enough violence. I’d much rather watch videos of people getting along, in peace and harmony.
As a teacher of grappling and submission holds, and as a person who used to write a monthly column for a number of martial arts magazines, I cannot believe that cops are being trained to restrain someone with a “knee on the neck.”
And to hold your knee on a person’s neck for almost ten minutes, while the person is gasping for air, that is beyond horrible. You have to be absolutely ruthless and uncaring. You have to be filled with hate.
What a sad situation. How can a human being’s life end at the hands of an abusive, dirty, ruthless, insensitive cop? It’s truly tragic.
Now the country is in chaos and the virus appears to be off the front burner.
Yet it isn’t.
As I stated long ago, the worst viruses of all are internal. These are the viruses of fear, of hatred, of racism, of anger, of cruelty.
When you see a hateful act committed by anyone, you are witnessing what comes from within. Nothing is expressed on the outside without first being played out on the inside of someone’s mind.
I am grateful to the police across this nation who took a knee yesterday. I am grateful to the police who have embraced, consoled and hugged those who are suffering at this time.
We need more police officers in this country who are “peace officers.”
We need more regular people who are officers of peace.
My heart goes out to to George Floyd, to his family and loved ones.
May we have peace in this country. May we have peace in our world.
And may it begin within each one of us, starting NOW.
Matt Furey
