An Alaska high school teacher has been placed on administrative leave after telling students that George Floyd would still be alive if he complied with the Minneapolis police.
In a 15 minute video Posted on YouTube last week, A masked teacher at Lethrop High School in Fairbanks is seen leading the discussion of high-profile police shootings of African-Americans. When the subject changes to Floyd, the teacher says that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin “abused his authority” and was “embroiled in the death of George Floyd.”
“But if George Floyd had it, initially when they would get him out of the car and put him in the police car, if he would sit in the car and drop it there, and put them in his foot, she would be alive today. , And you know that’s true, “she says.
Chauvin was convicted last month of second-degree unintentional manslaughter, third-degree murder and second-degree murder after he knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds during the last Memorial Day and fake There was an attempt to arrest him on the charge of passing money. .
“If the police come and they say, ‘I’m taking you to jail,’ then you put your hands behind your back, you take them away from you, you sit in the police car and you go and your Call the parents when they give you your phone call, “Teacher moves on.” That’s what you do for a living. Everyone, white, black, brown. I don’t care what color you are. It does not matter. You comply, you do what they say. “
The teacher, a self-described “old white woman”, says that if she was ever arrested, “I’m putting my hands behind my back and I’m going to jail and I’m calling my husband, when I’ll get there, and he’s going to call our lawyer. And I’m going to tell the police, I’m gonna say, ‘Yes sir,’ and ‘Sir, when you find me, you get one tied in my ankle. Going to find a gun, and I’m going to tell you about it now, so that you don’t know, you know, so that you can get it and be safe. ”
Later in the video, the teacher tells his students how to dress to avoid attracting the attention of the police.
“Look how you’re dressed,” she says. “You guys are wearing nice clothes. You don’t look like thugs, you don’t have your pants around your knees. “
Lethrop High Principal Carly Sven described the comments as “racially insensitive”. District officials have not formally identified the teacher, but she is referred to in the video as “Ms.” Gardner. “Letrop’s website lists Connie Gardner as a special education teacher. An email to Gardner’s work address by The Post request comment was not immediately returned.
The teacher is eventually challenged by a tutor named Liz, who says that she is a bit uneasy “about that insensitivity” that the way someone is dressed should get a greater response from the police … Police should be trained not to judge people based on those factors. If someone has their pants around their knees it does not mean that they are criminals. “
After the tutor says that “the police should not be trained to kill people even if they do not comply,” the teacher responds that “if people comply with the police, they have a lot of getting killed by the police Less likely… If you value your life and you want to live, you will comply with the police. ”
At the time, a parent who described herself as “a woman of color living in the South … … who was born and bred in the South, who first experienced racism, even when I was a child”.
The parents say, “Some of the things you are saying, I think you are very uneducated.”
Apparently stalking, the teacher finally says: “I’m not going, um, you know, this is a class -“
“No, you’re absolutely right,” the parents fire back. “This is a square, this is a square, and this is where it should stop. You should stop this conversation. Period.”
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