Teacher Put On Leave After Telling Students George Floyd Would Be Alive If He Complied With Police
A high school teacher in Fairbanks, Alaska, has recently been put on administrative leave after telling students that if George Floyd had complied with Minneapolis police, he would still be alive today.
A teacher known as “Ms. Gardner” is seen and heard in a video uploaded to YouTube last week holding a virtual discussion with students about the high-profile shootings that have happened in America recently, including police-involved events involving black Americans.
When the discussion of Floyd came up, the teacher said that former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin “abused his authority” and “was complicit in George Floyd’s death.”
“But,” she said, “if George Floyd had, at the beginning when they got him out of the car and went to put him in the police car, if he had just sidled into the car and slid it in there, and let them put his legs in, he would be alive today, and you know that’s true.”
Chauvin was recently convicted of murder and manslaughter for the incident last May. During the arrest, Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes while Floyd stated that he couldn’t breathe.
“If the cops come and they say, ‘I’m taking you to jail,’ then you put your hands behind your back, you let them off you, you get in the cop car and you go and call your parents when they give you your phone call,” the teacher said.
“That’s what you do to stay alive. Everybody, white, black, brown. I don’t care what color you are. None of that makes a difference. You comply, you do what they say,” the teacher continued.
In another part of the conversation, the teacher discusses what kind of attire to wear to prevent being mistaken for “thugs.” by police officers.
“Look at how you guys are dressed. You guys are dressed nicely,” she notes. “You don’t look like thugs, you don’t have your pants down around your knees.”
According to the Daily Mail, the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District sent a letter to parents after the video surfaced, informing them that the teacher had been put on leave pending an investigation.
Officials reportedly did not disclose the teacher’s name but the outlet reported that “only one staffer with the same name: High school special education teacher Connie Gardner.”
It’s uncertain what sparked the debate in the first place.
During the debate, however, a woman known as “Liz” who claims to be a tutor for some of the students, speaks up to say she is “uncomfortable” with the discussion.
“Police should be trained to not kill people even if they don’t comply,” she added, noting that they “should be trained not to judge people” based on their skin color or clothing.
Following that, the person filming the footage, who characterized herself as a “woman of color,” and a parent of one of the students, stated that she does not believe the instructor is qualified to comment on the subject since she is white.
“Some of the things that you are saying, I feel like you are very uneducated on and I don’t feel like you are able to address these things that are going on today,” she said.
