Chauvin, Lane, Kueng, and Thao were doing what they had been trained to do
Almost from the start, nearly everyone on left and right claimed that the video of George Floyd’s dying moments made it clear that Officer Chauvin was a murderer.
I found this to be a shocking assertion – not in terms of the left saying it, but the right, too? Murder, really? Surely those who remember previous videos that told an incomplete tale ought to have held back from making such charges. But only a few could resist jumping on that bandwagon.
An exception to the rule was commenter “j e” at this blog on May 28, very early on in the story:
Although the actions of the police may in this case look bad, experience of these matters should teach us that hasty and highly emotional reaction to stories constructed around snippets of video without proper context should be tempered by measured analysis based upon all the facts as they become available, The rush to rapid judgement by all on the left (and by some on the right) has been proven to be foolish indeed time and time again.
It was only a couple of weeks later that I discovered that the restraining hold used by Chauvin on Floyd was an approved one in Minneapolis. It has since been banned and the instructions are no longer available online at their site – or even referred to. Instead, now it says “5-311 PROHIBITION ON NECK RESTRAINTS AND CHOKE HOLDS (10/16/02) (08/17/07) (10/01/10) (04/16/12) (06/09/20) (D) Neck Restraints and choke holds are prohibited. Instructors are prohibited from teaching the use of neck restraints or choke holds.” In other words, “Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.”
But based on the original information I had found there earlier, sometime prior to June 20 (I don’t have the exact date I began it) I wrote a draft for a post (never published), part of which went like this:
That made me curious to learn what the rules for restraint by police are in Minneapolis, and it just so happens that they can be found online:
Because the test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is not capable of precise definition or mechanical application, its proper application requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, including:
The severity of the crime at issue,
Whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and;
Whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.The “reasonableness” of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of the reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.
The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments – in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving – about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.”
More:
Medical Assistance: As soon as reasonably practical, determine if anyone was injured and render medical aid consistent with training and request Emergency Medical Service (EMS) if necessary.
The following is clearly relevant. Not all police departments allow this, but apparently Minneapolis does, in certain circumstances:
5-311 USE OF NECK RESTRAINTS AND CHOKE HOLDS (10/16/02) (08/17/07) (10/01/10) (04/16/12)
DEFINITIONS I.
Choke Hold: Deadly force option. Defined as applying direct pressure on a person’s trachea or airway (front of the neck), blocking or obstructing the airway (04/16/12)
Neck Restraint: Non-deadly force option. Defined as compressing one or both sides of a person’s neck with an arm or leg, without applying direct pressure to the trachea or airway (front of the neck). Only sworn employees who have received training from the MPD Training Unit are authorized to use neck restraints. The MPD authorizes two types of neck restraints: Conscious Neck Restraint and Unconscious Neck Restraint. (04/16/12)
Conscious Neck Restraint: The subject is placed in a neck restraint with intent to control, and not to render the subject unconscious, by only applying light to moderate pressure. (04/16/12)
Unconscious Neck Restraint: The subject is placed in a neck restraint with the intention of rendering the person unconscious by applying adequate pressure. (04/16/12)
The Conscious Neck Restraint may be used against a subject who is actively resisting. (04/16/12)
The Unconscious Neck Restraint shall only be applied in the following circumstances: (04/16/12)On a subject who is exhibiting active aggression, or;
For life saving purposes, or;
On a subject who is exhibiting active resistance in order to gain control of the subject; and if lesser attempts at control have been or would likely be ineffective.Neck restraints shall not be used against subjects who are passively resisting as defined by policy. (04/16/12)
This article says that the police called for an ambulance after they cuffed him. So they may have complied with that regulation.
Did Floyd resist? However, if Floyd didn’t resist, you would think the criminal complaint wouldn’t say he did resist. But that seems to be what it says:
Police were trying to put Floyd in a squad car Monday when he stiffened and fell to the ground, saying he was claustrophobic, a criminal complaint said. Chauvin and Officer Tou Thoa arrived and tried several times to get the struggling Floyd into the car.
Chauvin eventually pulled Floyd out of the car, and the handcuffed Floyd went to the ground face down. Officer J.K. Kueng held Floyd’s back and Officer Thomas Lane held his legs while Chauvin put his knee on Floyd’s head and neck area, the complaint said.
When Lane asked if Floyd should be rolled onto his side, Chauvin said, “No, staying put is where we got him.” Lane said he was “worried about excited delirium or whatever.”
So it seems pretty clear that Floyd resisted getting into the squad car, and that’s why the extra police were there. But why did Chauvin pull him out? How was he acting in the car? There’s missing information there. And is that criminal complaint merely what the police said happened? Is it backed up by video evidence? The amount and quality of Floyd’s resistance, or its lack, could be very important.
The following is one of the most terrible parts of the video:
Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes, 46 seconds, including nearly three minutes after Floyd stopped moving and talking, the complaint said.
But having read the rules on Conscious Neck Restraint and Unconscious Neck Restraint, I wonder whether any of the behavior of these offices fit into those rules. For example, if Floyd was “exhibiting active resistance” in repeatedly refusing (physically) to get into the car, they might have decided they were justified in using Unconscious Neck Restraint “in order to gain control of the subject; and if lesser attempts at control have been or would likely be ineffective.”
Remember also that Unconscious Neck Restraint is considered a non-deadly force restraint, but it is designed to render a person unconscious. This seems inherently dangerous to me, although a medical person could say whether it ordinarily is or isn’t. The danger is that it would be difficult for an officer to know whether the person is merely unconscious or is in far more trouble than that, and I don’t see any instructions on how to make the distinction.
The difference between a Conscious Neck Restraint and an Unconscious Neck Restraint appears to be the amount of pressure used. That unfortunately cannot be gauged by watching a video, and I’m not sure there’s any way to ascertain it.
I want to re-emphasize that all of the research in the above quote was done by about three weeks after Floyd’s death, which is two months ago. And it wasn’t hard to do – it was all readily available online at the time. We know more now, of course – a lot more. And it all falls on the side of the exoneration of Chauvin and the others rather than their guilt.
I forget why I didn’t publish the post at the time it was written. I think it was because it was very long and unorganized (the above is only an excerpt), and so many dramatic events were happening at the time that I think it just got lost in the shuffle. But my point isn’t about me; it’s about how easy it was, early in the proceedings, to find out a lot that was relevant to the guilt or innocence of Chauvin and the others.
Very few people even tried. Their minds were already made up, either because the video convinced them or because it was ideologically necessary for them to spread the word that Chauvin was a cold-blooded murderer.
That’s all a preface to this new article by George Parry, a former prosecutor, which I read today. Here’s an excerpt:
As will be explained in detail below, throughout Floyd’s confrontation with the police, he was at imminent risk of death from sudden cardiac arrhythmia caused by excited delirium. So it was that these officers followed the MPD’s official procedures for how to properly and safely subdue someone in that life-threatening condition. In doing so, they were not only keeping Floyd in the prescribed “recovery position” to alleviate his risk of asphyxiation, they were also keeping an agitated and delirious Floyd from harming himself as they awaited the arrival of the ambulance that they had twice summoned to provide medical aid to him.
So where are these well-intentioned, well-trained, and dutiful public servants today? They are in jail awaiting trial on murder and aiding and abetting charges after having been universally condemned in the news media and used by neo-Marxists and opportunistic criminals across the country as a pretext to riot, loot, and burn. And, while they sit in their cells, not one Minneapolis official, from Mayor Jacob Frey to Police Chief Medaria Arradondo or any member of City Council, has come forward to acknowledge that, in subduing Floyd, these law officers were acting in meticulous accordance with the MPD training and directives designed to reduce the risk of harm to persons suffering excited delirium…
By their hypocrisy and cowardice, these blame-shifting public officials, desperate to preserve their political careers and places at the public trough, have tossed these police officers to the howling mob.
As I explained in my recent American Spectator article “Who Killed George Floyd?,” “the physical, scientific, and electronically recorded evidence in the case overwhelmingly and conclusively proves that these defendants are not guilty of the charges and, in fact, played no material role in bringing about Floyd’s death.”
Please read the whole thing.
George Floyd’s death has been used opportunistically as an excuse for the agenda of the left. The narrative of police brutality leading to a need for a complete re-organization of the country, the cooperation of so many elected officials and virtually the entire MSM and pundit class, and the sheer stupidity of many others who should know better but follow them blindly, is a profoundly depressing situation, particularly because the facts are available for all to study. But if our so-called leaders refuse to reveal them to the public and insist instead on propaganda, I just don’t see how the truth can be accepted.
When something like this happens – and it’s happened quite a few times before – it’s not unusual for the facts to emerge in a courtroom and for the accused officers to be acquitted or to be convicted of extremely mild charges. That infuriates a public that’s been fed on lies for so long. And that’s part of the plan of the left, too – the riots and rage that ensue at the thought that justice has not been done when in fact it has.
I wish I had a solution. I don’t – except the hope that enough people still have enough common sense and good judgment that they will see through what’s happening in time. But do they, and will they?
A small light in the darkness: The prosecutor who immediately charged the officer in Atlanta with murder lost his primary yesterday. I hope that officer at least may soon be released from legal jeopardy.
Of course it’s all hooey. The public premise of Black Lives Matter was hooey from the get go. Anyone familiar with descriptive statistics on police killings knows that. Again, all of this is a function of status competition and the most vicious political gamesmanship. Not only do the perpetrators of this pseudo-controversy deserve to lose, they deserve to be driven from public life completely.
The prosecutor who immediately charged the officer in Atlanta with murder lost his primary yesterday.
His successor is a woman who worked in his office for 16 years. Let’s hope she’s not even worse.
She reportedly campaigned promising to wait for evidence before charging people. She might be better; we’ll see.
Kate:
“Wait for evidence” – what a novel idea.
Here is a link to that police policy before the prohibition on neck restraints. Might want to grab a screenshot before it disappears. https://web.archive.org/web/20200527123248/http://www2.minneapolismn.gov/police/policy/mpdpolicy_5-300_5-300
I will assure you…firsthand witness here…the lie of murder in fact lapped the world while the truth was still finding its pants.
The next phase of the Soros-riots will be to die for.
Lord have mercy.
A police officer can use approved restraint methods a hundred times and those arrested will suffer no real injury.
The problem is when the arrestee has some sort of pre-existing condition, in which case the normal, approved methods of restraint prove deadly.
But how are officers to know if the person about to be arrested has such conditions??
And what if the person to be arrested does not know that he has, say, atherosclerosis or other not obvious medical condition and experiences a heart attack- and dies – or a stroke – and dies , during the arrest?
After all, it’s not all the unusual for a “healthy” male to suddenly drop dead from heart attack.
I have no idea how to get around this problem, esp. if the individual to be arrested actively resists arrest.
Everybody on the Right as well as the Left shouted “murder” on seeing the Chauvin-Floyd video.
Everyone.
“I can’t breathe” does not and cannot result from lateral neck compression. As Neo’s diligent researching around today reveals. But I cannot remember what her initial reaction to the event was. I know what mine was.
Cicero: “Everybody on the Right as well as the Left shouted “murder” on seeing the Chauvin-Floyd video.”
Pretty much on the money. Judge Jeanine did a segment on her show that was so over the top about what a monster Chauvin was that I couldn’t believe she had once been a judge. Hannity went on and on about neck restraints and how he knows all about MMA and neck restraints and how wrong Chauvin was to do what he did. Even Dan Bongino was willing to say that Chauvin was out of bounds, although he didn’t say he was guilty of murder. The video evidence was just that powerful. I admit to thinking that Chauvin was a cop who had lost the ability to empathize after nineteen years on the force. The transcript changed my mind. The video solidified that. Thanks to Neo and her need to know the facts, we here know the truth.
In all these so-called police brutality cases, resisting arrest is most often at the center of the acts that lead to the death of the suspect. Heather McDonald has done the research on it and the data shows that police brutality or a police vendetta against black men is a myth. But it’s politically useful. BLM, ANTIFA, and the other Marxists will continue to use it
“I wish I had a solution. I don’t – except the hope that enough people still have enough common sense and good judgment that they will see through what’s happening in time. But do they, and will they?” neo
If Trump is reelected, then yes currently we do. If not and in the main it’s an honest count, then no the majority will have voted for tyranny. At that point armed resistance will be the only remaining recourse to that predictably certain tyranny.
J.J. and Cicero: That was pretty much my reaction as well. First it was “Great! thanks a lot you idiot. You are going to fry”. Then once that ambulance chasing private pathologist showed up I suspected it was BS. I saw the Judge Jeanine segment and Hannity too and I figured those guys were being measured for their caskets so to speak. Pretty revolting all in all.
Chauvin & Co. = Innocent
Rolfe & Co. = Innocent
Flynn = Innocent
Simple solution: violently resist arrest get a double tap to the solar plexus. Problem solved.
Geoffrey Britain:
Harris’ agenda is to get elected. So is Biden’s. Other than that, their agenda is the left’s agenda. Period.
Cicero; J.J.:
I never shouted “murder.” I thought it was probably negligence, but never murder. Here was my guess from my first post on the subject:
The question for me was whether the police actions contributed to his death or not, if something like a heart attack was the actual cause. I never saw it as murder, although initially I did think they were almost certainly at fault. But then when I read the autopsy and drug report, and also learned that the hold they were using was a permitted one, it occurred to me that they might be entirely innocent of wrongdoing. When I read the transcript later on, it seemed even more likely that that was the case.
Why did so many people see it as murder? Because it looked very bad. But looks can be very deceiving. It’s weird to think that videos can mislead so badly, but they can. And in that sense they are dangerous, because they lead people to believe they know more about an incident than they really know.
After reading the transcripts I came to wonder how often perps played “stupid” by pretending to be mentally ill or whacked out on drugs. It seems like an effective way to resist arrest.
For some reason, I never believed in the Duke lax hoax. I followed it closely and, no matter how flimsy the case was, flimsier than the day before, and worse the next day…..nobody changed their mind. Even when the whole thing was pitched overboard by the state AG, the usual suspects were still believing. Or acting as if they did.
How many times has this happened? Freddy Grey in Baltimore. Nick Sandmann of Covington schools in DC. Aka CNN’s highest-paid employee.
Trayvon Martin.
UVa rape hoax.
Jussie Smollett.
Having done some martial arts, I doubted this as well. And the public uproar was a major tell. Nobody was in the streets over Philando Castile, who had the carelessness to be killed by a hispanic cop. Still, a black man was dead at the hands of a very bad shoot….. Nada.
The convenience of this case was an enormous gob of suspicion.
Now, let’s see what happens when the facts contradict the righteous, self-satisfied, public outrage.
I suspect, from people I know, that a good many will believe the facts but be outraged as if they don’t. And believe their outrage is justified.
Said it before, some people believe both but resist the truth being mentioned. Strange But just as useful in promoting violence.
Oh, yeah. A real Duke student was really raped at a real Duke fraternity house. Even the U admin could barely be moved to mention it. See Katie Rouse.
And before everybody got fired up about the UVa hoax, there was a female student named Graham who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered. Yawn.
I don’t know if “hypocrite” fits the situation. Hypocrites know they lie. The folks I refer to…..lie on purpose but ……are sincere or something Hypocrisy doesn’t seem to fit.
It’s all so sad. Like another John Brown or something.
Kate, that’s an interesting development. Thanks for keeping up with it.
I was certainly thinking along with everybody else that Chauvin had gone too far, though I don’t believe I thought it a murder case, at least not solidly. I hope I didn’t commit to saying that out loud anywhere if I did. Neo, your work has been amazing on the subject. I wonder if your contributions might end up playing some kind of indirect role in the trial. You probably wouldn’t want that, and I would hope you can avoid an overabundance of attention. And yet – people should see this stuff.
Philip Sells:
Thanks – but unless Chauvin’s lawyer is utterly incompetent, he or she will pick up on all of this and more, because it’s all in the record.
I was withholding judgment, waiting for fuller understanding. But I was flabbergasted at how horrible Floyd’s death looked.
Even then I was skeptical that it was racism. It’s just not 1962 anymore. Unless a KKK uniform is found in Chauvin’s closet or something, I’m not sure how one would even prove racism beyond the new syllogism: If white, then fragile and racist.
In all the recent cases of the police killing blacks I can think of, the blacks are resisting arrest or the police are playing out some war-on-drugs-raid idiocy. Which may be wrong and stupid, but not necessarily racist.
Nonetheless, isn’t Chauvin a suspicious name? Clearly he’s a chauvinist.
If the glove don’t fit you must acquit. Again. That case was so discouraging, payback for Rodney King and the media suing video without context.
Now, again facts don’t matter, only media and ideology matter?
“Even then I was skeptical that it was racism. It’s just not 1962 anymore”
And then it turns out that Officer Chauvin knew Mr Floyd personally from having been security guards together. Even more evidence that is was not simple racism.
But for Dems, it will always be 1962 …
It’s weird to think that videos can mislead so badly, but they can. And in that sense they are dangerous, because they lead people to believe they know more about an incident than they really know.
Perspective anomaly can be mitigated with multiple independent sources. Also known as signal diversity in communications, which aids recovery of information from a noisy or corrupting environment.
“Even then I was skeptical that it was racism. It’s just not 1962 anymore”
Yes, there was no evidence that diversity (i.e. color judgment), let alone rabid diversity (e.g. racism), was a motive.
Unless a KKK uniform is found in Chauvin’s closet or something
To establish a diversity motive, they would need to demonstrate disparate treatment (e.g. affirmative discrimination) motivated by a color attribute (e.g. skin, sex). Furthermore, to establish elective abortive intent, they would need to demonstrate that Chauvin is a Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic quasi-religious/moral (“ethical”) zealot.
When I first saw the video, I thought an officer had gone to far on a suspect. I didn’t even begin to see white cop vs black man. Then I began to question where the officer’s body cam was and why were we seeing spectators video and not theirs. I am still questioning all of this.
Signed, Retired police officer’s Wife
For me the vital element of the video was “eight minutes and zero attempts to save the suspect’s life.” Even after he clearly stopped breathing. The facts never supported a charge of willful murder… but they did, and I think still do, support a charge of “depraved indifference” murder against Chauvin — ie, actions that are not intended to cause another’s death, but have such a high risk of causing death that committing those actions indicates a “depraved indifference to the value of a human life.”
“Anyone familiar with descriptive statistics on police killings knows that.”
Math is hard. Thinking is hard. And the left likes it that way.
“clearly” stopped breathing. He might have quit gasping as things settled down, or seemed to. I doubt “clearly”.
And you don’t try to save someone’s life unless they’re obviously dying.
Apparently, he said he’d ingested drugs one way or another. That would mean to an experienced cop that a number of things might be happening, some life-threatening unless control was close.
To presume the cops should have started some kind of anti-OD protocol in the middle of a fight is going to be a stretch.
To return to earlier hoaxes and the True Believers: Mobs surrounded the house in which the supposed offense had occurred. Sign calling for castration were around campus and the “pot bangers” had demonstrations. EIghty-eight faculty members signed an accusatory letter–called a “listening statement”.
One prof was sued for grade retaliation against a laxer.
At UVa, much of the same happened along with vandalism of the fraternity house in question.
I wonder, no I don’t, how much finding out they were wrong affected The Mob in one place or another. Self-righteousness is a great feeling when, I suspect, you have nothing else going for your self-image.
Chauvin is no more a clean cut outstanding law officer than Floyd was a model citizen. But ever since Rodney King’s beating, the media has decided to hide facts. And with Obama the Race Mongering President, it’s been “Hate The Pigs!” all the time.
I’m riotously angry at the Hate America First Left and their stooges everywhere. If I had just one magic button to make them disappear, I would push it to Save The World. Bring back sanity. Make life good again!
Hey. Could “Make It All Good Again” be a fitting 2024 campaign slogan? Quick — hurry and own those web sites….
About a month ago I was sitting outside, per Covid regs, in the patio of my home cafe when a disturbance broke out at the McDonald’s a couple blocks down. Several police cars appeared on Central with lights and sirens, then parked.
Something was going on, but who could tell from the patio. About fifteen minutes later a raggedy black young man appeared across the street from us with the police in close pursuit.
Soon enough he was pinned down on his back on the sidewalk, hands-up, facing the guns. He pleaded, “I’m black. Don’t shoot!”
The police advanced methodically and took him into custody. A passerby walked over to film with his cell phone. The police moved a police car over to block view from the easy vantage points.
I still don’t know what happened that morning. The police took the black guy away alive. We went back to our coffees and chit-chat. It was a George Floyd moment.
Keith Ellison and Paul Howard = Two depraved and not-so indifferent perps.
A few months back I read Marcia Clark’s book on the OJ Trial; recall that she was the lead prosecutor in the OJ trial.
My take away from the book is if the jury is “a priori” convinced that a suspect is innocent or guilty , they will see all evidence contrary to their predisposed view as fake, a lie, a put up job, planting of evidence, etc. etc.
That is, no amount of evidence will sway their view.
Analogous to those who believe the moon landing’s took place in Hollywood or the twin towers was ordered by Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and the Mossad.
All evidence presented , in their minds, is just more proof of the validity of their opinion.
If the prosecutor in the Chauvin case is adept at picking a jury, Chauvin will be found guilty, irrespective of the evidence or facts.
Chauvin had best hope his trial venue is moved out-of-state and that the jury is not all black.
The claim of murder is more a claim of probable cause. While others may think a simple claim is sufficient to jail the officer; I’m sure most of your readers think it means sufficient evidence to call into question and prosecute in a court of law (rather than a simple IG investigation). And approved methods of restraint doesn’t prevent murder. Morphine is a prescribed drug, but if you give too much, it will kill a person. And if you intentionally give too much, is that not possibly murder?
It shouldn’t take three minutes for 4 officers to restrain an unconscious man. Most medical personnel can tell you that 30 seconds without oxygen is survivable, but you start getting into 3 minutes, and the number of medical personnel that think CPR will bring a person back starts going down.
neo,
This is excellent reporting, as were the other post(s) you did on this subject. Imagine if CNN, Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS and the major newspapers had staff as objective and diligent as you? All Americans should be educated in the importance of innocence until PROVEN guilty in a court of law. It is a linchpin of our society and the fact that journalists and reporters disregard it is immoral.
Even when the whole thing was pitched overboard by the state AG, the usual suspects were still believing.
Prof. Sally Deutch at Duke certainly did. The leftoids pushing it mostly fell silent and pretended the whole travesty never happened. That’s what they do.
The knucklehead SoCons who invested in it had a variety of responses to learning it was all hooey. One of them was to shriek and snarl that, well, maybe they didn’t commit any crimes but they got what was coming to them. What came to them was hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in legal expenses and having their reputations trashed for a period of a year (as well as their schooling interrupted). (Noto Bene, Michael Nifong knew bloody well by 10 April 2006 that the three young men in question were innocent and he secured indictments of them anyway). And what did they do? One of them arranged for a pair of strippers to give a performance at a raunchy house party (a performance he himself did not attend). The other two were present for all of four minutes while these women performed; what was known of these two young men as individuals suggests they just happened to be there and that this wasn’t their thing; one of them had had the same girlfriend since junior high school; the other was personally involved in Catholic apostolates.
If you don’t mind a personal note, the Duke case persuaded me of a couple of things. One is that gliberals and leftoids will quite reliably turn random individuals into depersonalized objects of contempt and hatred, and will work to persuade themselves and others that said individuals are condemnable as the evidence mounts that they aren’t. (The Martin-Zimmerman case demonstrated this in spades). When the case falls apart, they don’t admit error. Ever. Normal Americans merit protection from these people and the damage they do. Another thing of which it persuaded me was that some people in the SoCon subculture (to which I subscribe) are jerks in signature ways.
My take away from the book is if the jury is “a priori” convinced that a suspect is innocent or guilty , they will see all evidence contrary to their predisposed view as fake, a lie, a put up job, planting of evidence, etc. etc.
A general practice attorney of my acquaintance (who’d had much trial experience) had this to say, “You don’t convince a jury; the jury makes up its mind in five minutes. Your job, as a lawyer, is to give your side on the jury the arguments they can use to defeat the other side”.
Clark had her critics. One was Steven Brill, who said she spent days questioning witnesses on whom she should have spent an hour. Another was Steve Sailer, who thought she was clueless about the visceral reaction the black women on the jury would have to her being paired with Christopher Darden.
“Clark had her critics. ”
One of them is Alan Dershowitz and he wrote a book on the OJ trial which I have. Dershowitz didn’t say anything nice about Clark.
https://www.amazon.com/Reasonable-Doubts-Criminal-Justice-J/dp/068483264X
I’ll repeat myself. We don’t know a lot, still. When the EMTs arrive, they take Floyd’s pulse. But they do not act with urgency. They take time getting him on the gurney and into the ambulance. Did he still have a pulse, at that moment, only to go into arrest inside the ambulance?
Related—popped up on Instapundit earlier (and shows, big time, another reason why Trump must be reelected):
https://www.dailywire.com/news/judge-denies-blue-state-ags-attempts-to-deny-college-students-due-process
Defund the Minnesota and Georgia AGs.
It is very difficult to prove criminal intent where the officers complied with the procedure established by the department for restraining someone under these conditions.
Chauvin is no more a clean cut outstanding law officer than Floyd was a model citizen.
Come again?
1. Floyd was a violent felon who’d spent five years in a state penitentiary. IIRC, he had at least four ba*tard children. At the age of 46, he was unmarried and had among his hobbies the use of street drugs. To be sure, he had some other irons in the fire and (like all but a few of us) people who were fond of him. By and large, he’d spent the previous 30 years making the world worse.
2. The only disagreeable things you know about Chauvin are that
a. He’d received one citizen complaint per year during his years on the force, of which one or two generated official sanctions. How that compares with other officers you don’t know; since he dealt with disagreeable people every day, to an ordinary person it’s unsurprising there are complaints.
b. You also know the State of Minnesota is contending he’s a tax cheat; since they’re claiming he and his wife generated $75,000 a year in income from off-the-books employment, you have reason to take the state’s contentions with a grain of salt (for that reason and for the reason that you know bloody well they’ve been lying their tuchus off when accusing Chauvin of other crimes).
c. You also know he’s childless and he doesn’t make a hobby of landscaping. OTOH, you also know he was willing to provide for and supervise another man’s children.
George Floyd’s autopsy showed he was seriously chronically ill, with an enlarged heart due to hypertension and coronary insufficiency, and also impaired kidneys. Plus, of course he had fentanyl and another “recreational” drug aboard. Fentanyl is a respiratory and also mental depressant, kills thousands in the US yearly due to “nodding off” followed by gradual respiratory sluggishness and thus death.
That fentanyl all comes from our good friends and trade partners, the Chinese communists, who could arrest its manufacture in a few minutes, literally.
The Chinese are out to destroy this country.
And George Floyd, a revolting human devoid of redeeming features, has indirectly caused what? maybe >$100 million of riot damage, the rise of BLM and other lawless groups, and perhaps even the takedown of the USA if the evil Democrats win in November.
Keith Ellison – The poster face for “Minnesota Nice”
These techniques are relatively new and for a reason…
They were invented to allow a 120 lb woman to hold down a larger male..
they were designed to try to equalize the power differential between men and women… women have a very hard time handling men who dont cooperate and the forces and others are not allowed to recognize it (as so many dead women and other incidents would clearly show). the force had to try to come up with a solution that the ladies could apply AND the men as you could not say one had to do X and the other had to do Y as that would also show they were seeing the innate differences which of course did not exist.
With the Floyd thing and Google politics, its impossible to find old documents that would illustrate reasoning… ie. its been scrubbed..
there was a reason that such techniques only appeared later in the game and for a long time (over 100 years) were not used… they became possible only because of the idea that the police had to be safe over citizens unlike the old male police in which the men were expendable…
Art Deco,
Regarding your lessons learned from the Duke Lacrosse case; I had a close friend throughout grammar school. His one, major flaw was that he would never admit he may have done something wrong. He seemed incapable of self examination and would create lies to cover for situations where he was obviously in the wrong.
His profession as an adult is as a Democrat, political campaign manager.
Almost from the start, nearly everyone on left and right claimed that the video of George Floyd’s dying moments made it clear that Officer Chauvin was a murderer.
You should clarify that as “nearly every public figure on the left and right.” A lot of us private citizens, myself included, took a more skeptical attitude, especially after the Trayvon Martin/Michael Brown/Eric Garner cases. But pundits and politicians seem to be clinically unable to prevent themselves from making pronouncements before real evidence is in regarding what actually killed Floyd.
Jimmy:
I’m sure there were indeed people who were withholding judgment. But the vast majority – and I mean vast – of even people on the right who comment on blogs were calling him a murderer. I was surprised at how few seemed to be saying “let’s wait.”
Re the true believers and their intransigence: in most of these cases my attitude toward them has been: “you’re rushing to judgment, wait till you see all the evidence,” and so forth. Which was also generally my attitude toward the cases themselves, because there were always at the very least two sides to the story, and reason to doubt the most sensational leftist view. In the Trayvon Martin case, for instance: I could believe that Zimmerman was at fault to at least some degree, but not to the point of believing he committed murder, legally speaking. Hence was not surprised when he was not convicted of same. (A fanatical friend of mine still likes to say that Zimmerman “murdered a child.”)
So the really eye-opening instance to me was the Covington Catholic incident. Here was a case of rush to judgment, followed by extensive video which made perfectly clear that the reporting of the incident was almost completely false. And yet when I pointed this out to another fanatical friend (I have several), her reaction was that she didn’t care about the damn video, that because the boys were white and privileged and the Indian “elder” was not, the condemnation of the former was correct. I had never before seen such a direct refusal to acknowledge plain facts.
It really has come down to Lenin’s “who-whom” for some people. I don’t know how many but too many.
Leland:
Seems you didn’t read my post. I wrote:
Note also from my comment here, I wrote “But even if Floyd died of a heart attack or something of that sort, the police can be held responsible if they were acting wrongly.”
In other words: of course one can use a recommended method improperly and be held responsible for the consequences. That’s for a jury to decide, and they need expert witnesses to testify as well.
It is also important – as several people have pointed out – to remember that we don’t even know what the EMTs found. Was Floyd alive when they came?
Passing out and becoming unconscious is not the same as going into cardiac arrest, although the latter certainly includes unconsciousness. But these holds are not designed to precipitate a cardiac arrest. I see no reason to suspect that the officers thought he was in cardiac arrest when the EMTs arrived.
Alberta is about to erupt:
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/corbella-attack-by-five-sheriffs-against-teen-farmer-must-be-investigated
“The difference between a Conscious Neck Restraint and an Unconscious Neck Restraint appears to be the amount of pressure used.”
The amount of time the pressure is applied is critical. Once the person is unconscious, the pressure should be released. Once the blood flow is stopped and oxygen deprived, it doesn’t take long for unconsciousness.
After that, depriving oxygen starts potential permanent damage.
Looking at the video, it was the length of time Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s neck that led me to believe he caused Floyd’s death. If he wasn’t applying enough pressure to cut off oxygen, then Floyd died of something else.
These techniques are relatively new and for a reason…
They were invented to allow a 120 lb woman to hold down a larger male..
they were designed to try to equalize the power differential between men and women
…
the force had to try to come up with a solution that the ladies could apply AND the men as you could not say one had to do X and the other had to do Y as that would also show they were seeing the innate differences which of course did not exist
For the sake of social progress, they endangered female officers, elevated liability for male officers, placed society at risk for “protests”, and did no favors for alleged perps. Not a wicked solution, not even close; but, a poorly considered choice, nonetheless. Diversity (e.g. sexism) is dysfunctional and normalizes adversity.
Brian E.:
I think it’s fairly clear that Floyd died of something else – a fentanyl overdose combined with a serious heart condition. We will find out more, though, as time goes on, and whether and how the neck restraint may have contributed to his death and if so how much.
More on neck restrains and their use in Minneapolis here:
So the question is whether the hold was used properly, and what role it may or may not have had in Floyd’s death. We don’t know the answer to either of those questions, and the video cannot tell us.
The “unconscious neck restraint” hold has apparently been used 44 times in Minneapolis in the past 5 years. The conscious version has been used a lot more often than that.
We also don’t know whether Chauvin was trying to apply an unconscious neck restraint, or whether he was just using the conscious neck restraint and Floyd passed out from other causes. We also don’t know whether he was actually still breathing when the EMTs arrived, or not. You can be unconscious and breathing.
Factors that should also be taken into account (if they haven’t already been):
– Knowledge deficit: IIRC, according to the transcript, the officers, suspicious about Floyd’s erratic behavior, continually asked him if he was “on” anything (i.e., any drug) and Floyd continually denied that he was. (Conceivably, if they had known about the Fentanyl, they may have responded differently. At the same time, Floyd likely believed that it was not in his interest to reveal this to them.)
– Floyd’s panic attack inside the police vehicle and self-injurious episode and claims of being unable to breathe, causing him to be removed from the back of the vehicle and placed on the ground. Presumably to assist him (together with calling in the EMT).
– The size and weight differential between the Floyd and Chauvin. (Floyd was huge and very strong. And delirious. In short, a potential threat. Conceivably, if he had been smaller—and presumably, if not necessarily, more manageable—he might not have been treated the way he was and thus would not have succumbed; though the huge amount of Fentanyl in his system and his existing medical weaknesses might—perhaps even likely—still have been fatal.)
All speculative; but there seems to have been significant amount of not-illegal AND exculpatory behavior by the police along with a lot of combined “bad luck” involved here.
To be sure, the not-illegal and exculpatory behavior HAD TO—NECESSARILY—Be IGNORED AND HIDDEN by Ellison (because this is WHO/WHAT HE IS) and also by the MSCM.
At that point armed resistance will be the only remaining recourse to that predictably certain tyranny.
This is where you are actually wrong. You are several decades, as well as several density layers of enlightenment, behind.
You are utilizing the “old war standards” to assess what is going on. The new fate energies create a very different battlefield. I am sure none of this makes any sense to you, as what I see and detect has always been veiled.
You have around 2024 to figure all this out on your own. If you continue to fail to, you can request me to be at your Life Review, when this body of yours expires. And if not, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time (1000 years) to re educate yourself.