Saunders on Floyd killing: No union contract is a shield for police brutality
As an African American man who lived through the 1960s and now has two sons and three very young grandsons, the specter of systemic racism keeps me up at night. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called my sons during the past week — just to know where they are, to hear their voices, to make sure they are safe. Unless things change, my sons will have the same conversations with my grandsons when they are older. There should be no controversy in declaring that the lives of my sons and grandsons matter. Black lives matter. And as a union leader, I know the agony so many police officers feel when yet another senseless tragedy occurs. In denouncing the murder of George Floyd, Sgt. Jeffrey Reimer, who leads 2,000 AFSCME-represented police officers in Connecticut said, “What happened to Mr. Floyd was an absolute misuse of force. It never should have happened. The Minneapolis police officers involved in this heinous action put the rest of us at risk. There is no justification for what they did.”