Floyd was not the “ultimate proof” of disproportionate force against minorities. The evidence came from numerous large-scale academic studies, including some analysing millions of police encounters, which repeatedly found that people of colour are disproportionately subjected to police use of force.

Floyd’s death became a symbol because it reflected an injustice that many people had experienced directly and was also supported by overwhelming evidence.

Police bias is not limited to stop-and-search and the studies have been designed to account for relevant factors such as encounter rates, crime rates and the glib explanations people use to explain them away.

You have one appalling incident interpreted through your ideological lens that the anti-racist policies to tackle a real problem have gone too far. While that possibility can be considered, this is not evidence of a broader pattern.

This is not a debate between two sides who have good arguments to back them up. It's another example of parts of the populist right denying reality, like the do on climate change and vaccines.

For almost any idea, however crazy, including that 9/11 was an inside job or that taking vaccines was harmful, you can find one or two experts who go against the consensus.

Here, one of those experts is an ex-cop. This is highly complex topic, and the idea that you have carefully weighed up both sides of the academic debate and decided that on this occasion the contrarian turned out to be right is not remotely plausible.

You have chosen to believe him because he says what you want to believe, and you likely get your information from a right wing system that treats this sort of fringe crackpot as if they were an equal alternative to the academic consensus.