1/ Lynching is defined by historians as a murder committed in public, by three or more perpetrators, for the purpose of “administering justice” or punishing an alleged crime without trial. This was a lynching, pure and simple.

2/It was premeditated, as they dragged George Floyd out of the car. It was committed flagrantly, in broad daylight, before an audience, by four men, acting in the name of justice. These murderers must be arrested and charged.

But that won’t be enough, because the very flagrant nature of this murder shows how pervasive the problem is. Is there an answer short of abolition of the police? If so, what is it? Body cams and video didn’t stop them. Trainings and protocol, apparently, didn’t teach them.

It’s true that were officers of the state, in uniform. And as in Screws v. US (1945), this was therefore state action. But I would argue that in essential ways, the phenomenon is the same.

The element of publicity - the performance of terror for an audience, both in person and on video, takes this out of the realm of the ordinary police beating a black man to death and into the realm of terrorism. State-sponsored terrorism.

#RIPGeorgeFloyd