2020年5月25日，喬治·佛洛伊德(George Floyd)在美國警察的過當拘捕行動之中死亡。
節錄一段”His name is George Floyd” 這本書模擬的拘捕片段供大家參考。
“Let’s just take him out and just MRE,” he said, using the wrong acronym for “maximal-restraint technique.”
進行強力拘捕。
Kueng and Chauvin pulled Floyd out of the vehicle, allowing his body to fall to the pavement.
Kueng 和Chauvin 把Floyd從警車中拉出來，讓他落在人行道上。
Floyd thanked the officers, grateful to be outside the confines of the police car. But his predicament was about to get worse.
Floyd感謝警官，他終於可以從警車的密閉空間出來透透氣。但是他接下來的狀況將變得更糟。
The officers pushed Floyd down to the ground on his stomach. Chauvin lifted his left knee and placed it on Floyd’s upper back. Then he shifted his knee to the back of Floyd’s neck.
警官將Floyd推倒趴在地上。Chauvin把他的左膝抵在Floyd的上背，接著挪動膝蓋去壓住Floyd的後頸。
“I can’t breathe!” Floyd shouted again.
Floyd又大叫：「我無法呼吸！」
Kueng and Lane stepped in. Lane held Floyd’s legs. Kueng shifted his weight on Floyd’s lower back and pushed away Floyd’s hands. Chauvin then pulled Floyd’s fingers upward and forced his wrist into an unnatural angle, causing him to writhe in pain.
Kueng 和Lane 接著介入。Lane抓住Floyd的雙腳，Kueng壓住Floyd的下背、撥開Floyd的雙手。這時候Chauvin把Floyd的手指往上扳，手腕形成的不自然角度，使得Floyd痛得扭動起來。
“You’re under arrest, guy,” Chauvin said, and then Floyd begged for help to someone beyond the earthly realm.
Chauvin說：「小子，你已經被逮捕。」這時Floyd只能無助地呼救。
“Mama!” he shouted from beneath Chauvin’s knee, with his neck cranked sideways. “Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!”
「媽媽！」在Chauvin的膝蓋下他叫著，脖子向旁邊扭曲。「媽媽！媽媽！媽媽！媽媽！媽媽！媽媽！」
Chauvin continued to dig his knee into him. Floyd pressed his knuckles on the pavement and slightly raised the right side of his torso off the ground, trying to gasp for more air. He begged for mercy.
Chauvin繼續用膝蓋向他的脖子壓下去。Floyd的指關節壓在人行道上，右側的身體微微往上離開地面，拼命試著多吸一些空氣。他求警官饒了他。
“I can’t breathe for nothing, man. This is cold-blooded, man,” Floyd cried. “My face is gone.”
「我無法呼吸了，警官。真是冷血，警官」，Floyd哭著說，「我的臉毀了」
Chauvin looked down and dismissed his suspect’s concerns: “All right, you’re doing a lot of talking.”
Chauvin往下看但完全不理會嫌犯的抱怨，「是喔！你的話還真多。」
Lane showed concern about one aspect of his health. He noticed Floyd’s bloody lip, which prompted him to ask the dispatch to send an ambulance. He used a low-priority “Code 2” to indicate that the matter was not particularly urgent.
Lane擔心他身體的狀況。發現Floyd的嘴唇流血，馬上呼叫控制中心派救護車來。但是用了優先順序低的「code 2」來呼叫，表示認為事態並不特別緊急。
Meanwhile, Floyd continued begging for his life. Chauvin dug his knee into Floyd even more, a half smirk on his face.
這時候，Floyd繼續懇求警官饒了他的命。Chauvin非但不管，膝蓋反而更加用力去頂Floyd，臉上露出一抹得意的微笑。
The other officers continued to talk among themselves casually. They assumed Floyd was “on something” and called his behavior erratic. Lane speculated about whether Floyd could be one of those cases they had learned about in training, in which a person under the influence supposeally gains superhuman strength and poses a threat to oficers and the community.
其他的警官繼續輕鬆地閒聊。他們認為Floyd吃了某種東西(禁藥)說他的行為不穩定。Lane猜想或許Floyd所呈現的狀態就像在訓練課程中的一個範例一樣，人一旦在藥物的影響下，會顯得非常有力，對警官或社區的其他人，都是一種威脅。
“Should we roll him on his side?” Lane asked Chauvin, who said no.
” just worry about excited delirium or whatever” Lane said.
“Well, that’s why we have the ambulance coming:” Chauvin replied.
Lane 問Chauvin，「是否該把他的身體翻過來」，Chauvin說不必。Lane說：「就只是擔心他有興奮譫妄或其他的症狀。」Chauvin回答說：「喔，那正是為什麼我們叫來了救護車呀。」
Thao tried to manage the small crowd of witnesses that was starting to form along Chicago Avenue. Around the corner on Thirty-Eighth Street—more than 150 feet away from Floyd and with their view obscured by the police cruiser —Hall and Hill could hear their friend’s cries.
Thao試著維護沿著芝加哥大道聚集的人群的安全。在150英尺外38街的角落Floyd的朋友Hall 和Hill 聽到他的哭聲，但因為被巡邏警車擋住所以看不到。
A parks officer, who had been tasked with watching them and the blue Mercedes, stood between Floyd’s friends and the action. They asked him what was going on, but they were told not to move because they were being detained. When the parks officer asked Hall for his name, he simply made one up: William Ricardo. Hill’s mind turned toward her granddaughter and her daughter, the latter of whom was trying to get to work. She figured that the police were just “roughing Floyd up,” as they were known to do. Then she stopped hearing him. Hill figured he had calmed down.
有位公園的管理員，他的任務就是看管他們及藍色的賓士車，他就站在Floyd的朋友和警方的行動之間。他們問到底發生什麼事，公園管理員告訴他們不要動因為他們被留置了。當公園管理員問Hall叫什麼名字，他胡謅說叫William Ricardo. Hill 的心思轉向她的孫女和女兒，而當時她的女兒正要去工作。她認為警察只是對Floyd粗暴一點而已，因為警察一向如此。之後她不再聽到Floyd的聲音。Hill認為他應該是終於冷靜下來了。
Floyd was not calming down; he was dying. His cries grew more strained as he expended the last of his energy.
Floyd並不是冷靜下來，他是在垂死邊緣掙扎。他的哭聲愈來愈緊，耗盡最後的精力。
“Please, I can’t breathe. Please, man. Please.”
“I’m through.”
“Oh my God.”
「我求求你，我無法呼吸。我求求你，警官。我求求你。」
「我完了」
「我的天啊」
“You’re doing a lot of talking, a lot of yelling,” Chauvin said. “Takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to say that.”
「你的話還真多」，Chauvin說，「那會耗掉很多的氧氣啊」
Floyd’s voice had lowered by this point, his cries growing faint.
“I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe.”
“They’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill me. I can’t breathe.”
“Please, sir. Please.”
“Somebody help me.”
“I’m claustrophobic. My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Everything hurts.”
“They’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill me, man.”
…
Floyd這時候聲音變小，他的哭聲變弱。
「我無法呼吸了。我無法呼吸了」
「他們會殺了我。他們會殺了我。我無法呼吸了。」
「求求你，警官先生，求求你。」
「誰來救救我。」
「「他們會殺了我。他們會殺了我。天啊。」
……
美國的警察在執行公務的時候，有很大的自由度。而美國的黑人一向的感受，就是美國警察(尤其是白人)，對黑人嫌犯的執法，往往過當，因為被認為是一種種族歧視的問題。
喬治·佛洛伊德拘捕過程的影片在網上瘋傳的時候，引起美國黑人社群的強烈反彈，舉行了示威遊行。
美國的媒體記者，在輿論上予以支持。也有頗多的美國的白人，對黑人受到的歧視亦表同情。
有識之士，以為民氣可用，就推出限制警方執勤的法案，為了紀念喬治·佛洛伊德 ，草案的名稱就叫做“George Floyd Justice in Policing Act ”。
先講結果，草案在眾議院通過了，但是在參議員的兩黨協商中觸礁，法案可以說是胎死腹中。
查了一下維基百科，主要的問題是：
…the parties were unable to agree about the fate of qualified immunity for police departments and officers and that Republicans were unwilling to agree to a national database to track police misconduct.”(~Wikipedia)
……民主和共和兩黨都不同意去除警政單位和警官執法的免責權，其次共和黨不同意去建立資料庫來追蹤警察執法不當的事件。
…qualified immunity is a legal principle of federal constitutional law that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from lawsuits for damages unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known”…(Wikipedia)
所謂免責權，是賦予政府人員在執行公權力時，對造成的損失不必負民刑事責任，除非原告可以證明該人員明顯違反法律或憲法所規定的權利，而且那種權利是一般正常人都知道的。
美國的黑人社群認為，美國的警察就是因為有這項免責權，因此往往在執法上對黑人嫌犯過當，以強力執法之名，行種族歧視之實。
美國人是可以合法持有槍枝的。在美國的社會，當警察臨檢你的的車輛，絕對要把手放在他們指定的地方，要讓他們看得到，如果自作主張去掏撈東西(如文件)，警察感到威脅把駕駛射殺，也不是沒有的事。
我有一位台灣的警察朋友，他說他絕對不開槍，因為傷亡了嫌犯是很麻煩的。根據台灣的〈警察職權行使法〉，第三條第一款「警察行使職權，不得逾越所欲達成執行目的之必要限度，且應以對人民權益侵害最少之適當方法為之。」這是很大的限制。台灣可以如此，或許跟一般人是不會持有槍械有關吧！
美國在開發西部時，就幾乎每人一槍。美國人認為擁槍自衞是天經地義的事，因此美國的軍火商生意興隆，也得到共和黨人的死忠支持。既然槍枝「氾濫」，警察就變成十分風險的行業，給警察執勤的免責權，也在保護警察。
造成George Floyd死亡的警官Chauvin後來被判刑22年6個月，如此看來，美國警察的免責權也是有一定限度的，只是傷亡已經造成，也再度撕裂了美國多元社會和諧的外衣。
美國吸引全世界最優秀的人才，成為各種種族的大融爐，當然不是件容易的事。對黑人及其他少數族裔的歧視問題，是不是必要之惡呢？我不知道。
*：Robert Samuels & Toluse Olorunnipa, “His name is George Floyd,” 2922, WP Company LLC
2024/2/8 His name is George Floyd Damakey
