On May 25th George Floyd of Minneapolis, Minnesota, was killed by police officers. Police were responding to a call from a convenience store regarding a disagreement over a possibly counterfeit $20 bill. After confronting Floyd, hand-cuffing him behind his back, and forcing him facedown onto pavement, Officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes. Floyd clearly verbalized that he could not breathe. Three other officers either stood by or helped Chauvin forcebly restrain Floyd. George Floyd was pronounced dead by paramedics around 9:25 PM. Anger and frustration over George Floyd’s killing has spread across the United States in the form of peaceful protests, destructive rioting, and in some instances, looting of private businesses. In countless cases the police response to protests and connected violence have been similar to their response to George Floyd: aggressive, unjustified, and brutal.
In September of 2019 I moved to Santiago de Chile to teach English as a second langauge and hopefully conduct research on education inside Chile. In October of 2019 Chile erupted into mass protest, rioting and in some cases looting. The manifestaciones, as they are referred to as in Latin American media, amounted to a social uprising; an insurrection lead by people that have been pushed too hard, for too long. The protests in Chile are focused on a complex, but interconnected set of grievances: economic inequality, lack of services in health, education, and transportation, unfair pricing of common goods, privatization of public utilities, the land and civil rights of indigenous peoples, and police brutality. What began as a collection of fare-jumping protests against a planned metro ticket hike, quickly escalated, then spiraled out of control when the national police force, The Carabineros, began injuring students with the use of tear-gas, pellet guns, water-cannons, and blunt weapons — all hallmarks of the repressive dictatorship the people of Chile peacefully voted out of exsistant more than 30 years ago.
My research on the Chilean education system has never gotten off the ground, but my teaching experience has been the saving grace of my time here; a respite from the weeks and months of police brutality. I have seen police beat people with metal batons. I have witnessed a police officer racking a shotgun to scare away protesters. I have had tear gas canisters shot in my direction and felt the sting of the canister’s effects. I have watched a looted supermarket burn, only to learn hours later that a man died inside. If the man had been able to escape the market he would have very likely faced armed police officers prepared to complete what the fire did not. Three dozen Chileans have been killed, hundreds more have been permanently blinded by rubber bullets, and more than 10,000 have been injured in the months long ordeal.
The current massive outpouring of police violence in the United States is mirroring what occured and continues to occur in Chile. In the wake of George Floyd’s killing and the responding protests Police across the US are pushing, tear-gassing, beating, and shooting non-violent protesters. In August I will return to the US and I fear I will be returning to a country in the same grip of anger and violence as Chile — anger and violence not from protesters, but from a police force acting out of unfounded fear, learned aggression, and systematic bias against black, brown, and poor people.
Bevacqua 