On May 25, 2020, George Floyd had a run-in with the Minneapolis police over his passing counterfeit bills, and the result was Floyd’s death. Four officers were involved in the altercation, and one, Derek Chauvin, was subsequently charged and convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter (with a sentence of 22.5 years) for apparently kneeling on Floyd’s neck, causing him to suffocate. Three other officers were also convicted of violating Floyd’s civil rights, and were given sentences between 3 and 4.75 years. In a civil suit, the city of Minneapolis settled with Floyd’s family for $27 million. Recently and unsurprisingly, Chauvin was stabbed 22 times in prison, coming close to death but surviving.
After Floyd’s death, there were not only violent riots in Minneapolis (downplayed by the mayor and the media), but, importantly, the “racial reckoning” began that continues to this day. Floyd’s death could be considered the pivotal act of not only this reckoning, but the spread of DEI activities throughout America. The man has become somewhat of a hero: a latter-day Martin Luther King.
A new 142-minute crowdfunded movie, “The Fall of Minneapolis,” takes issue with the Floyd narrative, and for the first time shows the bodycam video of the arrested Minneapolis police officers. It argues the following points:
- Floyd was not murdered by the police: he had serious heart problems, hypertension, artherosclerosis, COVID, and was high on near-lethal doses of fentanyl and methamphetamine during his arrest. He was also complaining about not being able to breathe well before he was brought to the ground by the police. Difficulty in breathing could easily be explained by both his heath condition and ingestion of serious drugs.
- The official autopsy found drugs in Floyd’s system, confirms the health problems mentioned above, and found no evidence from examining his neck that he died from asphyxiation.
- The bodycam videos were not allowed to be shown to jurors by the judge. They show that Floyd might have been restrained simply by having a knee on his shoulder, not on his neck. This method of restraint, called “MRT” (maximal restraint technique) is taught to all Minneapolis police recruits as a way to subdue resisting suspects. (There is no doubt from the bodycam videos that Floyd insistently resisted arrest and fought the officers.)
- The judge did not allow mention or a photo of MRT in the Minneapolis police manual to be shown to the jury. Further, the police captain, lying, denied that MRT was taught to all police officers.
- The police called for medical assistance within minutes of Floyd having a medical emergency when he was on the ground. They also tried to resuscitate him via CPR. This is inconsistent with the narrative that the officers were trying to kill Floyd.
- The judge, mayor, city council and police hierarchy all “conspired” to convict Chauvin and the other officers, buttressing into an official narrative that was likely wrong.
There’s a lot more—the movie is tendentious and doesn’t try to pretend it’s impartial—but there’s surely enough there to disturb the viewer about both the narrative around Floyd’s death and its aftermath±both the immediate rioting and the “racial reckoning” that still pervades America.
I watched the movie, and think that every reader should, too. Just make the time to watch it (it’s at the bottom as well as on YouTube). for you won’t be sorry. Now I wasn’t on the jury, but after watching the bodycam videos and the movie’s interviews and courtroom scenes, I think that at the very least George Floyd wasn’t obviously murdered by police. The point that Chauvin was kneeling on Floyd’s shoulder as per MRT, and not on his neck, deserves serious consideration, and the “murder” scenario is thus not beyond reasonable doubt. That makes Chauvin and the other officers innocent.
The movie was fairly successful in convincing me that there was no good ground to initially bring charges against Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. It also suggests how corrupt and duplicitous the mayor, judge, and city officials of Minneapolis were in ignoring facts to further a convenient narrative.
But I’m not the only one to react this way to the movie. Both John McWhorter and Glenn Loury watched the movie, too, and came to the same conclusion. Their 48-minute conversation about “The Fall of Minneapolis” is below, and some of it is transcribed in Loury’s Substack post given below that.
I suggest watching the original video (at bottom) first, and then listening to the conversation between McWhorter and Loury. But I’ve put them in reverse order if you don’t have time to watch the movie but want the précis. Seriously, though, given the impact of the Floyd death and the counternarrative of the movie, all Americans should watch “The Fall of Minneapolis” and come to their own conclusions.
Some people, of course, are impervious to fact, but there are enough facts documented in the movie, including nearly complete bodycam videos from the police officers, to raise serious doubts about The Narrative. I should add that the attacks on all Minneapolis police officers after Floyd’s death are frightening as hell. The mayor, who comes off as a subservient jerk, actually closed one police station and allowed it to be destroyed by the rioters.
The conversation:
Loury’s Substack article; click to read:
What is most striking about the Loury/McWhorter video conversation is the conviction of both men that Chauvin was not guilty of murder and that all the cops were unjustly punished. While Loury tends to be excitable, McWhorter is quieter and often more thoughtful, and yet both men arrive at the same conclusion. In fact, McWhorter blames the rise of Ibram Kendi and his antiracist philosophy, which McWhorter denigrates, on the death of Floyd. And neither man sees Floyd as any kind of hero; Loury argues that the “racial reckoning” was “the excesses of a woke moral panic around racial issues that converted a miscreant. . . this is not a heroic figure; this is a flaky motherfucker.” But that is how convincing the movie is, regardless of the fact that it is tendentious and aims to further its own counternarrative. But it is not a “conspiracy movie”; it’s a serious examination of the Floyd incident and the trial of the officers.
Other quotes from McWhorter:
“The idea of [Floyd] as a hero is revolting. . . absolutely revolting. . . the man was an utter and complete mess.”
“This evidence is clear, but it will not be accepted. . . It will not be allowed that Derek Chauvin got a bad rap.”
“People are not going to listen to the facts. George Floyd is going to be seen as this crucial moment on the civil rights timeline when America woke up to certain realities because of the murder of this man. And nothing we say, nothing that documentary says, will change anyone’s mind.”
“It’s difficult to make the case for black equality when there is this kind of know-nothing denialism now. . it shouldn’t take people twenty years to admit that those riots were about something that didn’t happen.”
And a McWhorter quote from Loury’s transcript:
You know, Glenn, also, if you want to push it, if you think about what happened in the first half of 2020, also the whole racial reckoning and the grievous excesses that it’s led to that make people write books like Woke Racism, et cetera. I mean, frankly, we have to do it, we have to say it, and then we’re going to move quickly on. The elevation of Ibram Kendi really was sparked in large part by George Floyd. He was known before that, but him being a phenom whose counsel is attended to by people cowering in their boots becoming amoral people if they don’t follow it, that happens in the wake of George Floyd. And it was a lie. It was a lie.
I am still trying to grapple with the meaning of this. And so what it comes down to is George Floyd. He had serious heart disease. He wasn’t an old man, but he had serious heart disease, untreated. He had serious atherosclerosis, untreated. He was very high on both fentanyl and meth, which is a lethal combination. Very high on them, probably taking more while he was in the car to hide it from the cops. He opens his mouth in the footage, and you see he’s got something on his tongue. It’s not a Chiclet. He’s really, really high. He tested positively for COVID then. He had COVID. He smoked. He’s a very sick man.
And then all of this happens. He’s frankly out of his mind because of all of this. He couldn’t help it, but he was. And you know, he was upset. He was agitated, his heartbeat probably pumping harder. Now I’m going into a medical expertise I don’t have. But he was very agitated at being detained by the cops. And remember, they had a reason for detaining him. He was trying to pass counterfeit money. They were detaining him, and it got worse and worse. He couldn’t understand that he needed to just calm down, despite being told to by his friends. “Stop resisting, Floyd,” one of his friends said. And so, it got the best of him and his heart stopped.
But it wasn’t because he was asphyxiated. And the other thing is, there was no evidence in the autopsy report, which has not been shared with us until now—not the autopsy report that was suggested by George Floyd’s relatives, but the first one. There was no evidence of asphyxiation of any kind.
I find the autopsy report, which is shown in the movie below, to be pretty exculpatory. NO evidence of asphyxiation!
*********************
“[Floyd] had serious heart problems, hypertension, artherosclerosis, COVID, and was high on near-lethal doses of fentanyl and methamphetamine during his arrest.”
But that’s all from white supremacy dictating what:
• “near-lethal” is
• medicine is “drugs” or “legal”
• “problems” are
• “hypertension” is
• COVID is and how to cure it
• police do
… and preventing access, and insurance for, to any cures to only the privileged few, and when those things are supposed to work.
To say the least.
[ Robin DiAngelo, how’d I do?]
Well, satire should be apparent, and this is so realistic it crosses into the territory of Poe’s Law.
I haven’t had time to watch the documentary, or even the full Loury/McWhorter podcast, but I did read the Loury Substack piece the other day, and watch the associated clip. It certainly sounds like Chauvin was railroaded. At the very least one has to conclude that he didn’t get a fair trial and deserves a new one. The fact that the knee-on-the-shoulder was in training manual, that the defense wasn’t allowed to bring the manual in as evidence, and that a representative of the department lied about this being an approved tactic is absurd. That officer needs to be charged with perjury. It would have been a tragedy if Chauvin had been killed when recently stabbed (twenty-two times) in prison.
Once for each year of his sentence.
Thank you for drawing attention to this, PCC(E). You’re a good man.
Any chance The Innocence Project might be interested in this? And before anyone says, “Wrong race”, recall that Ex-officer Keung is black.
A couple of days ago I referred to a CNN interview with some of Derek Chauvin’s jurors. One described the lightbulb moment when they decided to convict Mr. Chauvin on the basis of his actions after Mr. Floyd stopped resisting. Was this also contradicted? Did they make that conclusion from the stories circulating pre-trial that “everyone knew”, or from the evidence presented to him?
Focusing out for international import, no one can be in favour of capital punishment after even hearing this story.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/10/29/don-lemon-derek-chauvin-trial-jurors-ctn-sot-vpx.cnn
Unfortunately this case gets even worse than mentioned because the one who heads up the Minnesota Innocence project endorsed Attorney General Keith Ellison’s book Beyond The Wheel about the murder of George Floyd and racial issues. You have to apply pressure to the front of the neck to choke a person, Dr. Tobin’s animated video in the court room shows George’s trachea (wind pipe) was not compromised in any way, he died of pulmonary edema but the dispute was how it happened, it takes twenty seconds to asphyxiate so why was it 7 minutes and 46 seconds, high does of opiates cause pulmonary edema, and wasn’t there sit ins in every major USA city of people on their stomach’s for 7 minutes 48 seconds to honor George and none of them died of positional asphyxia? One medical witness at trial said a healthy person would have died and George would have gotten up if the knee was removed and that is a lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. Most people have formed their opinion based on the deliberately deceptive video and it only. Every public figure in the USA said George was murdered but there is never consensus in a trial like this so you know many legislators were afraid of the mob and rightly so. There was also clear witness tampering and its a clear case of malicious prosecution which many public figures should be sent to jail for.
I watched the documentary and also Glenn and John’s discussion. They say it should take 20 years to admit this murder didn’t happen. Will it?
“And he doesn’t see Floyd as any kind of hero; McWhorter argues that the “racial reckoning” was “the excesses of a woke moral panic around racial issues that converted a miscreant. . . this is not a heroic figure; this is a flaky motherfucker.” McWhorter rarely makes a statement that forthright and strong.”
I think that was Loury speaking, rather than McWhorter. But agreed that McWhorter did get more impassioned than usual on this episode.
So, yet another one of the myths out of which the BLM narrative is woven turns put to be a lie. Is anyone surprised, really? Is anyone going to flip sides?
And even if Chauvin had been as guilty as many believed, it still wouldn’t have been more than one instance of “unfortunate petty criminal runs into ruthless cop,”, and it wouldn’t turn the claim of “racist cops are hunting and killing innocent blacks for sport” true overall.
I predict that even if it becomes widely recognised that Chauvin was railroaded *some* people will still assert that even if there was no crime it was still a ‘noble crime’. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.
Agreed. It will be grudgingly admitted that perhaps Chauvin wasn’t guilty, BUT….as a white cop, he certainly is representative of a group that did commit heinous crimes against innocent black men. In that case, he is the payback for decades of mistreatment that was never prosecuted.
Problem with that is..that’s not how our legal system works! We prosecute individuals for the actual crimes they commit. Individuals are not fungible tokens that are to be used interchangeably for crimes that other members of their “group” committed.
Well said. By the way, how is Mr. Stevens, the head of catering?
Ok but still having issues with the trays not drying properly…
And the other problem is that Roland Fryer (black economist at Harvard shafted by Claudine Gay’s cabal) and others have shown that white cops don’t, as a group, commit heinous crimes against innocent black men. That’s a lie, too. There is nothing to pay back.
I think you might have been reporting ironically on the views of the advocacy community. I don’t mean to be criticizing your own logic.
In every grappling between a cop and a unarmed (but often drunk or high and therefore un-Tase-able) suspect who thinks there is some payoff in going rebarbative, there is still a gun in the picture: the cop’s. If the suspect manages to get the officer’s gun (which is often the motive for the struggle in the first place, as in Ferguson, Missouri), either the cop is dead or there is another gun loose on the streets. He’s got to protect his gun first, subdue the suspect second. In extremis, the suspect gets shot, but only if the cop can retain the advantage long enough to draw his gun. And here is the bitter truth: if he is able to get an arm free and put enough distance between himself and the suspect to draw, the activists will say that proves his life wasn’t in danger. Another “unarmed black man” killed by the police.
“And the other problem is that Roland Fryer (black economist at Harvard shafted by Claudine Gay’s cabal) and others have shown that white cops don’t, as a group, commit heinous crimes against innocent black men…”
That may be true recently but I doubt that was the case in the past. Fryer’s research did not deal with what happened to black men in the early to mid-twentieth century, when our society was a quasi-apartheid state especially in the deep south. You think that cops were treating black people equally to whites in the era that produced the Little Rock Nine? Even a prominent boxer like Sonny Liston was often harassed by the police….once for driving too slow!
And further, although Fryer’s research did not find disproportionate killing of black men by cops in the years he surveyed, it did find that non-lethal force was still being used disproportionately against black men.
“Heinous crimes” was what you said, not roughing them up while putting them in the police car, which yes Fryer did find happened more often to black suspects being arrested by white cops. Racism? Or more obstreperous black suspects? Who knows? Deaths are easier to count accurately.
You “doubt” that the police didn’t commit “heinous crimes” against black people in the past. Absent evidence, I can doubt that they did. Stopping a black boxer for driving too slowly is not a “heinous crime”, especially if he was driving 20 mph on the freeway. And the Little Rock insurrection didn’t involve any crimes (heinous or otherwise) by police against the persons of black people. Perhaps there were pogroms in other places.
I’m not trying to bait you. I’m just trying to be clear what we are talking about. The whole ethos of post-Ferguson BLM, stoked (literally) after Floyd’s death, is that the modern-day police are the KKK. The police are so disproportionately likely to kill black people they arrest that black children, boys especially, need to be taught to shoot (or make a grab for the officer’s gun) instead of submitting to handcuffs. And that disbanding the police will save more black lives than will be lost to crime.
I’m glad you agree that railroading Derek Chauvin and his three colleagues, if that’s what did happen, is not justified by whatever grievances black people might harbour. So I’ll leave it at that.
Fryer also addressed whether black men were more likely to be killed once police had arrested them, but did not consider whether there black men are disproportionately likely to be arrested in the first place (they are)
Loury : “What was this for?”
Answer : the Revolution.
2) also, where is ANY evidence that Mr. Chauvin and the other officers were motivated by bigotry (aka “racism.”)?
This is relevant, considering the incident was seized upon by Woke to wage a race war.
Not only that, but one of the four cops was black and the other Asian!
Acting white, then.
Chauvinism
It looked to me like George Floyd was trying to get rid of drugs when the cops approached. He was moving around and throwing out all kinds of verbiage to try and confuse and bs the police. Keep in mind while this is going on for all the cops knew he could have pulled out a gun and those officers could have been dead in a split second. And the left made that guy a martyr? Same with Michael Brown, remember him? I thought for sure after this crap that Donald Trump would be reelected in 2020. And who knows, maybe there were irregularities in the vote count in Atlanta, etc.. The illiberal left has proven that they can’t be trusted. And neither can Trump. That throwing out all kinds of verbiage I mentioned is something he does as well. He uses it to keep questioners off balance, just like George Floyd.
Your mention of Trump made me wonder what he might do with this wrenching film. He might try to use it to rile up his base. He might use it to climb back into power. Errrr…
Re “The idea of [Floyd] as a hero is revolting. . . absolutely revolting. . . the man was an utter and complete mess.”
Without (until now) doubting the basics of the accepted narrative, I’ve still chafed at turning Floyd into a hero and icon. It’s just so transparent and false.
It’s one of the problems of our current era, it seems: Making heroes and villains of the wrong people, just because it fits someone’s political narrative.
I am shocked, shocked! that viewing of this film about the George Floyd incident has not been banned by the innumerable DEI offices and committees we enjoy
in academia, public agencies, and private companies. Since the great moral reckoning of 2020 helped empower these virtuous offices, this film does the obvious harm of making DEI officials feel unsafe. Why, we Progressives in the Northwest might even have to scrap our plan to rename the former Huxley College of the Environment; we had hoped to name it the George Floyd College, but now we may have to just name it after Robin DiAngelo instead.
The only thing I know to do at this moment is to bow my head and pray for the officers and the (entire force). Also for the family members on both sides. It was really hard to watch the raw emotions of the officers being interviewed it was heartbreaking. Also knowing that there leaders (police departments, city officials, bystanders and United States turn their backs on them so easily. So they could advance their careers. They should have to answer now, and be held accountable for the lies and misleading public information and not having the balls to do the right thin, To save their hide or for their few minutes of fame. I do know there will come a day they will stand in front of the all mighty lord and have to answer.
Im going to end on this note the city official that stated they needed to state in the streets protesting and get even more aggressive with their actions while protesting to make sure the verdict of the trial would be guilty. I would like to know the vandalism, burning buildings, car jackets, shootings what did that solve? She encouraged.shouldn’t she be prosecuted. That’s what we are doing now to our former president because he’s accused of encouraging the rioters at the capital. racism works both ways but even as I sit here, and say this, the officer at the end that was being interview who is sitting in prison was asked how is he handling all this his response was taking it day by day and stated what is done is done and the most humbling voice that I’ve ever heard when he could’ve have been bitter and angry. He never once blame anyone or ask any questions.I took it as he wanted to use this learning and healing process. we are all human. We all make mistakes. We all can ask for forgiveness and we can forgive others. until we quit blaming culture, race, religion, and many other issues or belief’s that are different within our society. we will never grow and walk on the right side of history. We will just continue to repeat issues. These are simple words that we all need to live by “treat others as you would want to be treated “ and trust in our Lord. #praying for the officer and there freedom
Watched the video, it was pretty damning. The body cam footage, the official autopsy, and the police training material is set against a strong public desire for a different story.
Seeing the riots regularly referred to as “righteous anger” even by people in authority makes the excuses given to Hamas’ conduct on October 7th more comprehensible. It fits together.
Were the cops intentionally sacrificed by the judge, mayor and chief of police to prevent further rioting in Minneapolis?
Interesting question
From day 1 of this tragedy I’ve maintained that Derek Chauvin did nothing wrong. For me, even from the witness footage it was plainly obvious that Chauvin couldn’t have put enough weight on Floyd to cause damage, let alone to actually kill. Floyd’s health issues and drug problems where just the cherry on top that proved Derek Chauvin’s innocence to me. Then there was also the trial, where they didn’t even try to find a jury that wouldn’t be biased against the man, and the autopsy report.
I wasn’t aware of this movie. Thanks for letting us know. From your review, it sounds like I’m aware of most of the information in it, but I still want to watch it. See how different people interpret things.
We need better heroes than George Floyd, and more culpable “criminals” than Derek Chauvin. I’ll try to watch the movie, though am hesitant, this is upsetting stuff.
Megyn Kelly (Devil May Care Media) had a segment dedicated to this movie and the movie makers, I believe the latter were ‘cancelled’; the interview with the movie makers was interesting.
“Why Megyn Kelly Says This New George Floyd Doc Will Completely Change How You Think About The Case”
Here:
https://youtu.be/WGIVkzQq9bk?si=3s6a8Q09KzAoWOUp
DEI is a curse.
I hadn’t intended to watch the movie, but will now have to.
Not being an American, I mostly ignored the trial, but saw some of the claims listed in the post made several times in conservative blogs before and during the trial, and thought there would be considerable reasonable doubt as to Chauvin’s guilt, and problems with finding an unbiased and unintimidated jury. It’s somewhat surprising that Loury and McWhorter, who seem generally open-minded and well-informed, appear to have been so unaware of them.
Sorry, what?
I mean, maybe I don’t understand what “murder” means in the USA (No irony there, maybe I truly don’t). But… Floyd died as a direct result of the police officers actions, and this was not murder because he was this, or was doing that, or had whatever?
I am just amazed.
No, you don’t understand. If someone has a heart attack because they’re resisting arrest and the cops are restraining them, that is not murder, which is an assault with a deliberate attempt to kill, usually with premeditation. It’s amazing to me that you don’t understand that murder is not the death of someone with a preexisting condition, when the police were simply trying to restrain him.
And you needn’t be so snotty with your “Sorry, what?” You could have looked up the definition of murder online.
Jose,
To fit the definition of murder, the act has to be “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.” Intent to kill must be present. I’m sure the same definition applies where you live.
It shows how deficient your justice system is then, if evidence can be ruled out. I have seen enough US TV series that involve trials, to see how frustrating this is even in fictional situations. Similarly in the UK innocent people can be denied early release if they refuse to admit guilt – & this has happened to those later shown to be innocent. But this is about race in America, so there is a huge burden of history involved, & clear divides where contentious evidence will be ignored. Presumably this film will not provide grounds for appeal though…?
Why wouldn’t it provide grounds for appeal? A high-ranking police prosecution witness testified under oath to something that seems not to be true. That ought to be grounds for appeal right there. If he starts a GoFundMe I’m donating.
At best they seriously botched the arrest. Heck even Rodney King was justified in being arrested, but boy did they botch that one!
Regardless, the odds are they didn’t handle it well.
I would WATCH the arrest before you say that. It didn’t seem botched to me. They started off just trying to get him out of the car, and he refused (probably trying to hide drugs), and you can see from the video how totally uncooperative Floyd was.
In retrospect, I seem to have been duped by lies of omission, which buttressed the narrative of the “oppressor” and the “oppressed.”
Warning: long comment (though I hope worth reading).
I saw the film as soon as it was released. I then bought and read the book from which the film was derived, Liz Collin’s “They’re Lying: The Media, The Left, and the Death of George Floyd.”
I can’t recommend the book. It’s even more one-sided than the movie, and the author spends huge chunks of it venting her spleen about personal grievances.
Still, overall, I think the facts presented in both the book and the documentary come closer to the truth than the trial verdicts and the received wisdom. From the day I first saw the bystander video, I couldn’t make sense of how Floyd’s death resulted from what was shown.
FWIW, I’m a physician, so I have some reasonable understanding of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems—though I hasten to add that I’m in family practice, with no special training in pathology or forensics.
If you’ll indulge me in a bit of verbosity, my conclusion is that Floyd’s death cannot be attributed to any one thing. Rather, it took a confluence of factors, each contributing an unknown percentage:
(1) His positioning on the ground.
(2) His fentanyl level.
(3) His pre-existing heart and vascular disease.
(4) His agitation and physical exertion.
As for (1): My hunch is that this is the single factor without which he would not have died. But it has nothing to do with Derek Chauvin’s knee. Rather, it’s simply the fact that he was face down, in handcuffs.
You can easily demonstrate to yourself that this significantly compromises breathing. Just lie down on a hard floor with your hands together behind your back as if you were handcuffed, and turn your head to the side with one cheek on the floor. If you’re like me, you will immediately notice a meaningful increase in the difficulty of breathing. Keep it up for a minute or two, and you’ll probably find that the difficulty worsens. You might even find yourself thinking, “I can’t breathe.”
The book and movie emphasize one photo from the officers’ training materials, which seems to roughly match Chauvin’s position with respect to Floyd. It’s outrageous that this was disallowed as evidence at trial.
But the same page (a slide from a presentation) has this text: “OK they are in handcuffs, now what? …Place the subject in the recovery position to alleviate positional asphyxia.”
By “recovery position,” they mean to roll him onto his side. If you’ve tried my floor breathing experiment, roll from that position to your side, and I think you’ll find it quickly makes breathing easier. This is the crucial thing that the officers failed to do with Floyd. Of course I can’t prove that events would have had a happier ending if they had done so, but I think it’s a strong possibility.
As for (2), I’ve read several medical journal articles about fentanyl intoxication, trying to figure out for myself whether Floyd’s 11 ng/mL was enough to cause his death all by itself. My conclusion: I doubt it, but it’s not impossible. It’s at the lower end of reliable reports of the range of fatal levels. I think it could cause death in an opioid-naïve person, but Floyd surely had some substantial opioid tolerance built up over the years.
On the other hand, one of the most damning (for the prosecution) pieces of evidence in the book and movie is the detectives’ notes from their interview with the coroner immediately following the autopsy, before the autopsy report had been written: “if found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes, this could be acceptable to call an O.D. [overdose].” So the medical examiner, Dr. Baker, thought the fentanyl level was high enough that he would have been willing to state it as the cause of death, were there not other surrounding circumstances.
For what it’s worth, Dr. Baker is the author of one of the prominent papers on ascertaining fentanyl levels at autopsy, so his opinion on this point carries some weight with me. See Thompson JG, Baker AM, Bracey AH, Seningen J, Kloss JS, Strobl AQ, Apple FS. Fentanyl concentrations in 23 postmortem cases from the hennepin county medical examiner’s office. J Forensic Sci. 2007 Jul;52(4):978-81. (I do not know whether this issue was explored in Chauvin’s trial.)
Even if a level of 11 would not have been enough to cause Floyd’s death all by itself, it certainly would be expected to cause decreased respiratory drive in his brainstem, further exacerbating his hypoxia.
My best—yet still uncertain—conclusion is that Floyd’s death is best classified as accidental. I think the officers had no idea that leaving him in that prone position, handcuffed behind his back, could so severely compromise the mechanics of his breathing. Could it be considered negligent? Yes, if their training really was to reposition him onto his side, as the manual appears to recommend. But if that was not emphasized and was not part of common practice in the department, it’s hard to hold them morally and legally accountable for having forgotten one line in one slide in one presentation.
This was definitely not murder, by any rational definition of the word. I don’t think it even rises to the level of manslaughter, though perhaps I could be persuaded that it did, depending on some facts that I don’t know (like whether the repositioning thing was repeatedly taught and usually practiced by others in the police department). I think there could well be civil liability for that failure, but I don’t believe any crime was committed by either Chauvin or the other three officers.
+1
… the original “viral video” shows Floyd somewhere between chest-down and chest-sideways.
We are all indebted to Dr. Woolley for this comprehensive and informative post.
+1
Indeed very interesting, however in my opinion the single cause for Floyds death was from the initial police address to the very end his absolute and deliberate failure to accede to any of the police instructions, ever! If he had just quietly carried out the police officer(s) instructions he would still be alive. He had no intentions of going quietly, he resisted every single attempt at multiple police officers arrest. Even his companions in the vehicle were telling him not to resist
Why anyone resists armed or unarmed police officer instructions and or arrest is beyond comprehension. If you think the arrest is improper or mistaken there is plenty of time at the arrest interview to make your viewpoints. Furthermore being black, white , yellow, pink or any other colour is no good reason to resist arrest.
“he had serious heart problems, hypertension, artherosclerosis, COVID, and was high on near-lethal doses of fentanyl and methamphetamine during his arrest. He was also complaining about not being able to breathe well before he was brought to the ground by the police. Difficulty in breathing could easily be explained by both his heath condition and ingestion of serious drugs.”
So, is the argument that Floyd would have died, anyway, if he had just been left to sit in his car?
I find the attempt to minimize Floyd’s police “restraint” laughable. He was already in the squad car when they pulled him out, hands cuffed behind his back, tossed him on the ground and sat on him for 10 minutes. Three cops. Generously, that’s 450 pounds.
Try that at home. At a party! Get cuffed and have three friends sit on you, one kneeling on your neck, while shouting “Don’t move!” and if you so much as twitch you’re “resisting arrest.” See how long you last.
Murder, maybe not, but killed him for sure.
The argument is that Floyd wasn’t murdered by Derek Chauvin. And if you don’t think he resisted arrest, you don’t have eyes. And did you note how many times he said “I can’t breathe” before he was on the ground?
>So, is the argument that Floyd would have died, anyway, if he had just been left to sit in his car?
Well, he might have, in fact, if he’d been alone with no one to give him naloxone.
But No. The argument is that resisting arrest in a manner that requires escalating lawful appropriate use of force because you are high on drugs and way too old for this shit is hazardous to your health. You might even die. But sure, if the police had left Mr. Floyd in his car (which he was too impaired to drive safely) he might not have died that day. Unfortunately the police do have to arrest criminals now and then instead of leaving them alone to do their thing in case they die stoned in custody.
Besides, everyone is focusing on the force used to subdue him. You don’t need to bother. The jury didn’t buy the prosecution’s argument that the use of force was both excessive and causative of death and that’s without their seeing the suppressed maximum restraint manual. They knew they had a moral duty to find Derek Chauvin guilty of murder and were scared crapless that God-dammit they were going to have to acquit him on the murder charges. And that turd of a mayor would have been very very cross at them.
How do we know that’s what the jury was thinking? It’s in the “Lightbulb Moment” interview they gave with Don Lemon on CNN. We knew we had to convict him somehow but the prosecution’s theory didn’t remove reasonable doubt in our minds. Whatever were we to do? The segment still on CNN’s website begins after the jurors explained how afraid they were of not convicting and how blessed the lightbulb moment was, so it comes across as this noble way to avenge Mr. Floyd’s death, Don Lemon beaming at them. But it was actually a cop-out.
I am still trying to find the longer version which I saw only a few weeks ago but can’t remember where. I also want to remind readers that the movie doesn’t show any of the “viral video” taken by the bystander (which I could never bring myself to watch), a startling omission when you stop to think of it.
I find McWhorter’s comments of particular interest here, as he mentions “the murder of George Floyd” many times in his book Woke Racism. I enjoyed the book for the most part, but found it vexing that he appeared to have accepted the prevailing narrative that it was a murder.
Looks like this is the “viral video” : https://youtu.be/CEZh0C-pmaw?si=-9tQtT9edUNKyYIk
If that was all I had seen, I might have concluded the cops were evil. Chauvin appears to be adjusting the grip.
… I still don’t understand when or where Floyd died. He’s fully able to complain while pinned down.
I read it was at the hospital.
IANAL though other that frequently comment on this site are. Possibly one of them can help me.
I have always been confused by, and often take exception to, the statement that having not been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt is equivalent to being innocent. As far as I know, juries do not determine innocence. They don’t even determine guilt. They determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Those seem to me to be three different things. OJ was found not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I don’t know anyone that things he was innocent.
I hope Biden watches de documentary and pardons the cops, but I’m not sure he’s a lot less corrupt than the judge, the mayor, and the chief.
A presidential pardon could remove the federal civil rights violation conviction (to which Chauvin pled guilty, if memory serves), but wouldn’t touch the basic state criminal conviction.
Unfortunately, despite the powerful evidence that this documentary presents, I highly doubt that it will change the outcome of the case. Imagine what would happen if it resulted in a new trial and a verdict of innocent for Chauvin. Very good chance that this would spark an entirely new round of violent rioting and looting. Millions of dollars of damage, injuries, and perhaps a death or two.
The media outlets that supported the narrative of Chauvin as murderer and Floyd as hero would not issue mea culpas….rather they would double down on their narratives.
It would be a disaster, and no one is going to risk that for some white cop.
Perhaps not. And so Minneapolis can go to Hell. The much smaller police force can attract recruits by promising them that they will not have to police black neighbourhoods who will be left to police themselves. Presumably the gangs will step in to keep order. Like Gaza.
As ever Leslie your are spot on. The whole episode is a travesty from start to finish and the taxpayers can foot the bill!
If the police captain and police training expert both lied about the MRT being part of the police operational manual then that would suggest that they knew that the judge and prosecution & defense lawyers would play along otherwise they would be really nervous that maybe someone at the hearing e.g. Chauvin’s defense lawyer would show the operational book page on MRT or call a witness to testify that it was standard procedure ( then they would be sacked). The defense lawyer could even have asked the police captain to explain what the nearest correct procedure to MRT was or in what way the technique used by Chauvin differed from the approved procedure. It would be surprising if the judge & lawyers didn’t already know of MRT.
Maybe if the authorities had released the full police body cam videos at the start then the mob hysteria wouldn’t have taken off. But what percentage of people in the area would have watched through the videos ? Sure looks like those 4 officers acted in a decent way and at most contributed to the death by accident. Did they have an option just to write off the case as minor and not bother trying to arrest him ?
Robert Woolley at December 11th 5.35 makes good points, [ The death took a confluence of factors, each contributing an unknown percentage:(1) His positioning on the ground: My hunch is that this is the single factor without which he would not have died. But it has nothing to do with Derek Chauvin’s knee. Rather, it’s simply the fact that he was face down, in handcuffs.
You can easily demonstrate to yourself that this significantly compromises breathing. Just lie down on a hard floor with your hands together behind your back as if you were handcuffed, and turn your head to the side with one cheek on the floor. If you’re like me, you will immediately notice a meaningful increase in the difficulty of breathing. Keep it up for a minute or two, and you’ll probably find that the difficulty worsens. You might even find yourself thinking, “I can’t breathe.”
The book and movie emphasize one photo from the officers’ training materials, which seems to roughly match Chauvin’s position with respect to Floyd. It’s outrageous that this was disallowed as evidence at trial.
But the same page (a slide from a presentation) has this text: “OK they are in handcuffs, now what? …Place the subject in the recovery position to alleviate positional asphyxia.”]
At 15:41 in the movie, it says that Floyd is under arrest for forgery—however, I don’t think I heard any of the officers telling him that he was under arrest?
I’m not convinced it’s worth my time watching the documentary, because it doesn’t raise any points that didn’t come up at trial. Chauvin had his knee on EITHER Floyd’s neck, OR IMMEDIATELY ADJACENT to his neck, but on his shoulder, but too close for onlookers standing just a few feet away to be able to distinguish. Regardless, though, what IS evident is that even Chauvin’s own colleagues observed that Floyd was immobile for a substantial amount of time BEFORE paramedics arrived, and raised concerns to Chauvin about “excited delirium” (which is really a misleading “copspeak” euphemism for “positional asphyxiation”), and asked Chauvin if the suspect shouldn’t be rolled onto his side. But Chauvin dismissed their concerns and kept Floyd prone on the ground under his bodyweight. Again, that poses a clear positional asphyxiation hazard, and unjustified force to apply to a suspect no longer resisting.
The jury heard and saw all these facts. So I find it laughable that people believe this documentary is going to permit them to come away from the case with a better informed judgement than the jury did.
The jury did not see the bodycam videos, was denied the evidence from the training manual about restraint, and hear the chief lie about that information. And you, who haven’t seen the video, don’t thik it’s worth your precious time.
I don’t mind dissent, but I do mind arrogant dissent, and that’s what we see here. People have been wrongfully convicted by juries, you know.
They also called the paramedics almost immediately. I’m not saying the video is 100% correct, but it does raise troubling questions about reasonable doubt. The jurors didn’t see the video, did not have all the information shown in the video, but you conclude that the JURY HAS TO BE RIGHT. I call that arrogance.
Not sure if anyone keeps reading comments a month and a half after the original post, but Radley Balko has written an extensive analysis of the arguments in TFOM and in his characteristically thorough style, convincingly argues that it uses deceptive editing and obfuscation to push its own set of lies:
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-retconning-of-george-floyd
What Chauvin did was not MRT, and officers testified as to why, but this part of their testimony was omitted in TFOM; MRT is intended as a temporary, brief hold to be used while applying hobble restraints, which were not applied; MRT requires at most moderate pressure, not half of the officer’s body weight. The training slide, which Chauvin actually wasn’t trained on, explicitly warns about the risk of cardiac arrest, but TFOM didn’t show that part of the slide.