"I hope they stomp his ass" is the biggest takeaway I got from watching all the video footage, which I did in one sitting yesterday evening.

I saw many police officers, not just the four who delivered the sustained fatal beating, who appeared to think that beating down a suspect who had not cooperated to their satisfaction was the point. The retribution of a beatdown was the point.

What is it when three cops hold a man upright so a fourth cop can rear back and get his whole body weight into a punch? That's what I saw on video, and the answer is plain. It's retribution.

Racist? Well, the cops who delivered the savage beating and the cops who were clearly happy about the savage beating didn't learn their behavior in a vacuum. Violent retribution is deeply engrained in their culture.

And racism? How can it be anything other than racism when cops constantly target Black people and Black neighborhoods, when "pretextual" traffic stops overwhelmingly target Black drivers?

If traffic safety were the real goal, traffic stops would not look like this. This is what traffic stops look like when the system is designed to target Black men on the presumption that they are dangerous criminals who need to be kept in check at all costs.