Editorial: Justice certainly needed, not riots

The brutal restraint of George Floyd ending in his death a week ago at the hands of Minneapolis police seems to have broken through the floodgates of racial tensions, unleashing torrents of angry protest in urban uprisings across the nation, continuing through Monday.

It is only the latest blow, culminating weeks of racially tinged shootings. A woman in Louisville, Ky., and a male jogger in southern Georgia were killed. And the fact that all this is happening in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic, which also has ravaged minority communities most cruelly with fatal illness and financial ruin, merely makes the wound of this tragedy even more painful.

Every city has responded differently, responses running the gamut from the small but fervent expression of solidarity in Honolulu’s sign-waving event, to the mammoth marches in metropolitan centers from Atlanta and Washington, D.C., to Seattle and Los Angeles.

Overall, the organized daytime demonstrations unfolded peacefully; but as night fell, the protest gave way to looting, vandalism and violence, fires burning, businesses wrecked.

It’s impossible to extricate the violence from the lawful protests in the minds of many Americans. This, too, is part of the tragedy. They are two different facets of social upheaval that should be considered separately. The righteous cause of the demonstrators — the striving for social justice — does not excuse the criminality of the opportunists taking advantage of the chaos.

The violence is something law enforcement needs to head off. Various city efforts to do so through curfews ultimately failed, with firepower and force sometimes turned against the marchers rather than the marauders. The nation hopes that it won’t witness that play out repeatedly as the protests persist.

But that mayhem must not obscure the real importance of the quest for social justice. The black community, joined by a diverse contingent of supporters, cries out to get the assurance of fair treatment under the law.

There surely have been gains in racial equality in the past 50 years, but from the vantage point of 2020, that progress appears pathetically weak. African-American men in particular still get disproportionately harsh treatment.

Floyd died with his head pressed to the pavement, the police officer’s knee on his neck for more than eight minutes, past the point when he was unresponsive.

All four police officers at the scene as Floyd was suffocated must be prosecuted to the fullest extent. All have been fired, and charges, including murder in the third degree, have been filed against Derek Chauvin, the former officer who aggressively subdued Floyd.

The police in Minneapolis and elsewhere must be pressed to reform the way they interact with the communities they serve. Honolulu Police Department has its own challenges, but its police officers generally share the same socioeconomic makeup as that of the public. That is a key asset lacking in many other cities.

And at this time in particular, America needs to hear voices of calm and reason — traditionally the role of the president. Sadly, President Trump so far has adopted a wartime footing, on Monday pledging to call on the military to “dominate the streets” at future protests. Hawaii’s governor and top leaders on Monday afternoon rightly rejected this “arming up” playbook, vowing instead to work collaboratively with U.S. military entities here to resist stoking heated, divisive rhetoric.

Law and order, while necessary for every community, won’t be achieved without a measure of empathy. These grievances simply won’t heal without addressing poverty, educational disparities and the racial bias that persists in American society.

These are people who deserve the certainty that they will receive the promises of “justice for all,” that they are ordinary citizens — not enemies to be subdued.