The death of George Floyd, and his presumed murder by Derek Chauvin with the complicity of several Minneapolis policemen, was an iconic moment in today’s race relations, the most important event leading to the “racial reckoning” of the last few years. In late December of last year, I posted a movie, “The Fall of Minneapolis” (watch it here), and, after watching it and the included bodycam videos from cops that weren’t allowed into Chauvin’s trial, concluded that there was substantial doubt that Floyd had been murdered murdered, or that Chauvin had intended to do him in.
On December 28, after watching the film, I wrote this:
A few weeks ago I discussed the movie “The fall of Minneapolis”, which you can watch free here. The movie maintains that George Floyd was not murdered by racist cops, but died after he was arrested due to a combination of stress, use of dangerous drugs, and heart and lung problems. Here’s how I summarized the movie at the time:
- 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 [police] 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.
Earlier I put up a discussion between John McWhorter and Glenn Loury, both of whom had watched the film and were not only impressed with it but agreed with my take that the “Chauvin murdered Floyd” scenario was likely a distortion. (See also this post by Loury.) It was after this discussion that the movie went public and I watched it.
Now, in the video below, Loury backtracks in his opinion, and several readers have called this backtracking to my attention (including some uncivil ones who basically accused me of being credulous and daring me to post what’s below). But of course if I put out my opinion, and it’s shown to be subsantially weaker than I thought, of course I’m going to post the countervailing arguments.
First, excerpts from Loury’s new Substack post, “We were too quick to praise ‘The Fall of Minneapolis“. It’s accompanied by a short video (below) which will later be posted in full. When that happens, and the critic, Radley Balko, publishes all of his three-part critique, I’ll weigh in myself. For the time being, let’s withhold any judgment that Floyd was or wasn’t murdered by Derek Chauvin with complicity of other cops. Let’s wait for the evidence. But do watch the film; the links is above.
From Loury:
John and I helped bring a lot of attention to the The Fall of Minneapolis, a documentary by Liz Collin and JC Chaix which argues that Derek Chauvin is not responsible for the death of George Floyd and that Chauvin’s trial was tainted by perjury and manipulation of evidence. We discussed the film on one episode and brought the filmmakers on for a second episode. John and I both came away convinced that Derek Chauvin hadn’t gotten a fair trial and that he may well be innocent. But a couple weeks ago, the journalist Radley Balko published part one of what he says will be a three-part series debunking The Fall of Minneapolis. It was an unsettling read, one that I found so convincing that it’s led me to question my own earlier support of the film.
It was not wrong to call attention to the documentary, nor was it wrong to talk to the filmmakers. But I do wish I had not been so eager to accept their conclusions. I’ve spent years decrying the outsized reaction to the death of George Floyd, the riots and the antiractist mania that followed, and the superficial moralism of progressives who claim to find white supremacy at the root of even the most minuscule social infractions. When I saw a documentary that claimed to locate real, empirical corruption at the heart of the George Floyd case itself, I was primed to believe it.
I’ve had to take stock of my reasons for going all-in on The Fall of Minneapolis without subjecting it to scrutiny befitting the magnitude of its claims. Certainly I was ready to accept those claims, but at some level, did I want to accept them as well? I cannot be certain that my desire to strengthen my argument against George Floyd’s canonization did not neutralize the skepticism that should kick in whenever a shocking claim is made, no matter its ideological implications. The documentary’s counter-narrative fit neatly with my own, which should have moved me to seek further verification rather than accepting it at face value.
As you’ll see in this week’s clip, John doesn’t think we erred all that egregiously. But I do. I pride myself on remaining open to evidence and reason, even if they disconfirm something I had formerly thought to be true. I think I’ve succeeded in that where Balko’s critique is concerned, but only to the end of correcting an earlier failure. I sometimes describe myself as “heterodox.” That means looking on all orthodoxies with a critical eye, including the personal orthodoxies we develop over time. Without self-reflection and introspection, heterodoxy risks becoming orthodoxy by another name, a shallow rebrand that betrays its own purpose. As John is fond of saying, that won’t do. I may have fallen short this time. But, as I’m fond of saying, God’s not finished with me yet.
And a bit from the first installment of Balko’s debunking of the film. I’ll read all three parts and weigh in then. But again, realize that the film might have been edited to buttress an ideologue position: Floyd wasn’t murdered. Here’s Balko’s main conclusion in part one:
The documentary makes a lot of outlandish claims, but I want to focus mostly on the two that I’ve seen most often. These are also the two claims that [Coleman] Hughes spends most of his piece promoting.
The first claim is that when Chauvin put his knee on Floyd’s back and neck for nine minutes, it could not have been criminal assault because the Minneapolis Police Department has trained its officers — including Chauvin — to use that very technique.
The second claim is that Floyd’s official autopsy found that he died of a heart attack brought on by cardiovascular disease and drug use. Therefore, Chauvin could not have been responsible for Floyd’s death.
Both of these claims are false. The first claim is not only incorrect, the documentary engages in deceptive editing and convenient omissions to push it. In other words, the documentary is lying. The second claim is also incorrect, but the explanation is a bit more complicated.
The new (and truncated) 14-minute discussion between Loury and McWhorter is below. Both agree that the filmmakers were “dishonest in their depiction” of how Chauvin restrained Floyd. McWhorter asseverates that he and Loury were nevertheless within their rights to call attention to the original documentary, for to ignore it simply because the filmmakers were conservatives would be a mistake. The question was whether these filmmaker/conservatives were not honest actors. McWhorter, while not as convinced as is Loury that the documentary was dishonest and misleading, welcomes the controversy and, like me, will wait until the to-and-fro is over before issuing a conclusion. (Loury seems more worried about being thought of as “too credulous” and for having confirmation bias because he was too woke to be objective.) I suspect that the two filmmakers will themselves issue a critique of Balko’s critique.
To be fair, Balko is expert in investigating police issues, so I don’t feel as guilty as does Loury for taking the film’s assertions at face value. But this is how the truth comes out: evidence is presented on both sides, even if one or both sides are ideologically motivated, and then one can try to adjudicate the evidence without being tained by one’s own ideology.
My stand is closer to McWhorter’s. I assumed the filmmakers were working in good faith, and I didn’t have the expertise to judge all the claims. If those claims are shown to be bogus, I’ll retract at least some of my conclusions I gave above. For now, it’s appropriate to withhold judgment on the conclusion that Chauvin, in doing a “neck restraint” of Floyd, was acting according to Minneapolis police instructions, in which case Floyd was the victim of either homicide or murder. I still think people need to watch the film to see what the officers were dealing with: an uncooperative, doped-up individual who resisted following police orders and was taken to the ground because of that. But what follows after Floyd was on the ground is the major issue.
Balko’s part two is now up: https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-retconning-of-george-floyd-part
Rebuttal was always inevitable, however none of it can change the fact that George Floyd was a known criminal, high on narcotics, and committed the ultimate stupid act and that is refusing (continuously) to obey a police officers instructions and refusing to acknowledge arrest. If he had acted differently and obeyed instructions etc there is a good chance, notwithstanding his medical status, that he would be alive today. Plus, the world would never have had the misfortune to be aware of George Floyd.
Rule number one. Never argue with a police officer executing his duty, especially if he is armed with a deadly weapon.
Save that for later in the company of your legal representative.
Absolutely. Or as I put it, “when the cops show up, the drama is over”. That simple rule would prevent a lot of high-speed chases, armed and barricaded domestic abusers, and pointless squabbles with police who are simply doing their jobs. It would also reduce the tensions and mutual distrust between police and the public.
That’s all true, but non-cooperative subjects do not give law enforcement the authority to break the rules and or laws. At least, it shouldn’t. I’m not saying that in this case it is clear that they did, but it is certainly plausible enough that they did given what information is available to the public. Regardless of whether or not the police in this particular case acted improperly, law enforcement using excessive force is a very significant problem in the US and changes do need to be instigated.
The point is, it doesn’t matter whether a subject gives police a hard time or not. It’s a given that some will. What matters is if the police break rules or laws when dealing with it. This isn’t really about protecting the George Floyds of our society, at least not only. It comes down to what kind of society you want to live in. One where the police can injure and kill with impunity, or one where they can’t? At our current point in history in the US we are much closer to the former than just about any other western nation. For example, compare our law enforcement with the UK.
Agreed!
But your criminals are highly likely to have guns hidden on them or in their vehicles, Darrell. And even if they don’t, there is always a gun in the picture: the police officer’s. America is a violent society, parts of it anyway, the parts that encounter the police a lot. One way that violence is expressed (often aggravated by intoxication) is that trying to escape an arrest with violence is seen as a rational course of action. A violent society needs a lot of cops. If demand exceeds supply you may get more bad ones with poor impulse control.
To say that United States is close(r) to being a society where the police can injure or kill with impunity just doesn’t ring true for this foreign observer.
Every cop knows that something like this can happen at any time:
https://www.mcall.com/news/police/mc-nws-route-33-state-police-trooper-shooting-video-released-20180706-story.html
I watched TFOM, watched Loury’s and McWhorter’s original commentary, read Coleman Hughes’ piece in The Free Press, and am a subscriber to Balko’s Substack. I await Balko’s third installment and the inevitable pushback from TFOM’s producers. For now, I’m provisionally in Loury’s camp.
What troubles me is that the proponents of Derek Chauvin’s innocence are depicting George Floyd as a stupid drug addict and longtime “miscreant,” to use Loury’s term in his original video, to imply that Floyd had it coming.
If we’re looking at Floyd’s criminal record, let’s not forget to consider Chauvin’s official record, which has eighteen complaints on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Chauvin
Respectfully, irrelevant.
If George Floyd had obeyed the instructions of the initial arresting officer, none of what followed would have happened. He would never had met Officer Chauvin.
Incidentally many police officers attract complaints, for various common interaction events. This does not make Officer Chauvin a criminal otherwise he would not have been involved in the arrest. He would not have been a police officer.
Respectfully, the police do not have any right to use excessive or deadly force just because a suspect disobeys them.
Exactly.
You miss the point. Police officers do not use force deadly or otherwise if instructions are followed without question. This is basic training for all police officers.
Disobeying the officers instructions and using force whilst disobeying escalates the risk of responding force use by the arresting officer. An arresting officer has the right to self defence dependant on the situation which can be very fluid and dangerous to the arresting officer and to the individual being arrested.
Example, An arresting officer confronted by a suspect armed with a deadly weapon has very little time to consider the risk when the suspect “disobeys” instructions. If the officer is armed with a deadly weapon, deadly force response may and often results. Respectfully. The police officer has the right to use deadly force.
George Floyd did not just disobey the arresting officers instructions, he used force to actively and continuously obstruct the arresting officer(s) Was the “ detaining force” excessive? According to the trial of Officer Chauvin it was and he was found guilty of murder. Many disagree and the final outcome remains controversial.
It still does not alter the basic fact. Resisting arrest is stupidity in the extreme.
Police officers should be trained to be able to deal with uncooperative and stupid suspects without murdering them.
This is what bothered me when I watched TFOM the second time, paying attention to the time counter: There was a gap in what the movie showed us of the arresting officers’ body cam video of about nine minutes between a still-struggling Floyd and a now-moribund Floyd being loaded into the ambulance where CPR starts. The two segments are separated by many minutes in the movie as it explores other parts of the story before it comes back to Floyd getting resuscitation.
Nine minutes. Where have I heard that number before?
The nine minutes includes the late actions that the jurors said caused them to convict Chauvin — the “lightbulb moment” —when they were split about whether his earlier actions met a standard of criminal behaviour. Pity the movie didn’t show us even a minute or two just before they put Floyd in the ambulance so we could see what the jurors said brought them to unanimity.
Nonetheless, even if Chauvin et al. are as guilty as sin, the response of the black community and their radical enablers and political cowards between the event and the trial was shameful. There is a huge problem here.
Yes. It’s not helpful to future relations between cops and the black community. That’s bad for both. Bad for the country as well. Good for trump and friends.
“… the response of the black community and their radical enablers and political cowards between the event and the trial was shameful. There is a huge problem here.”
I’m taking a wild swing with this comment :
1. (A quote) : “An SDS radical once wrote, ‘The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution! In other words the cause — whether inner city blacks or women —is never the real cause, but only an occasion to advance the real cause which is the accumulation of power to make the revolution.”
David Horowitz
Source: Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model (2009)
Which explains:
The Current Thing Did Not Take Place (after Baudrillard).
2. How The Pendulum Really Swings 10-20 min. podcast by James Lindsay : https://youtu.be/eGANSud0D7Q?si=5-_z62yv1glpnaaD – spoiler – Hermetic alchemy principles.
… knowing the operational strategy IMHO lets everything make sense. Swing the pendulum to destroy ; manipulate ; then repeat on the next target of many already set up in advance – leaving destruction in its trace.
Your target’s reaction is your real action
It’s best understood IMHO as a Transformational cult of Hermetic alchemy / Marxism. All the slogans and TLAs are mere details.
Good podcast by James Lindsay.
And here in the Twin Cities my husband and I know the names of the BLM leaders. We follow them. They were deliriously happy about George Floyd. They teach their community to always resist arrest. Now we’ve had more horrible resistance, and more killings, just recently.
George Floyd, high on drugs and suffering from Covid-19 did not present a threat to himself or anyone else. He was uncooperative and physically resisted the efforts of the officers to subdue him. As a result, they forced him to the pavement in a prone position and Chauvin held him in that position by applying pressure to keep him in place for nine minutes. During that time, Mr. Floyd’s life ended.
Is it reasonable to believe that Mr. Floyd would have died within those nine minutes had Chauvin had not applied pressure to his back/neck restricting his ability to breathe? Might Mr. Floyd have expired later that day of possibly within a few days? We’ll never know.
The jury decided that Mr. Floyd’s life ended as a result of Chauvin’s actions. That seems like a reasonable decision.
A large, muscular male criminal high on multiple drugs is a potential threat no matter how you stack it. Certainly with his enlarged heart and belligerent attitude toward the cops, he was a threat to himself. Your second sentence implies that he was a threat to the officers. Perhaps he should have been cuffed and tossed in the back of a car by force instead of restrained on the ground. But did Chauvin get a fair trial with so much evidence and video footage excluded from the trial and in the political/racially violent climate that was 2020? I doubt it, myself.
Slight quibble, they didn’t “force him to the pavement”, they were trying to force him into the back of a police car. He resisted that and asked to lie on the pavement.
Correct
I think you have it backwards. The question is “can the jury unanimously conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that GF did not die from any of his preexisting medical infirmities?” The issue is not whether it is “reasonable to believe” that GS would have died during those 9 minutes but for Chauvin’s actions. Seriously, how can any fair minded person let alone a unanimous jury conclude with the requisite degree of certainty that GS died
One correction–the police did not force Floyd to the ground. He begged to be placed there because he was feeling sick and “couldn’t breathe.”
Slightly off-topic, but I don’t understand why Chauvin had to keep Floyd on the ground for such a long time, regardless of whether or not it was technically murder.
I mean, there were several police officers on the scene in addition to Chauvin, right? Once Floyd was handcuffed, were they not able to pick him up off the ground and put him in a police car and take him to the police station? Nine minutes just seems horribly long to keep forcibly pressing someone to the ground, even if that someone is not crying out, “I can’t breathe.” What am I missing?
He didn’t have to. I suspect — guessing — he was playing the tough guy, showing off to the new recruits (the other cops) assigned to him to supervise.
They were waiting for EMS which had been called and dispatched earlier. Unfortunately EMS went to the wrong location prolonging the time on the ground.
I was wondering if Floyd wss “Playing the Victim” by whimpering and making repeated requests not to shoot him. “Playing the Victim” is a psychological manipulation :
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/toxic-relationships/201907/covert-tactics-manipulators-use-control-and-confuse-you
… the actual potential victim was the store owner, or the next person to accept the counterfeit money.
I wonder how such manipulation would play out in a scenario such as this.
TP. Good observation, We will never know.
A higher level to that interpretation might invoke the Karpman Triangle – the agitator plays up their target as the attacker (e.g. pulling them down on top of themselves and screaming), to bring favor of a rescuer to the agitator’s aid.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle
Here, Floyd has made himself the victim, the attacker ended up as Chauvin, and the rescuer – undetermined.
But that’s just all theoretical.
He yelled “I can’t breathe!”, the famous BLM slogan, and given how he died soon after, this really made him look like an innocent victim.
A police officer, however, should not be moved by that. It is typical for criminals to spout lies and threats (including threats to your life and your family) until they find themselves at a disadvantage. Then they will whimper before you, hoping that your kind heart will be your weakness. Of course, it’s not only criminals who behave this way (I’m sure we all remember someone), but I’d wager most of them do.
Yes, but the rebuttal maintains that Derek Chauvin contributed to Floyd’s death by using the wrong restraint method.
The next potential victim would have been the driver or pedestrian hit by a very high George Floyd as he sped away from the scene in the car.
Sounds like there are a lot of people in the comments who feel that police frequently use excessive force when they are dealing with someone who is uncooperative. I wonder how many of them have actually tried restraining a large, strong, combative man, and done so in a way that protected themselves (cops are people too) and with no risk of harming the person being restrained. It’s a lot easier to do from the comfort of your keyboard than in real life.
You are absolutely so correct. It is not easy,ever!
Yes, I have. I used to do it for fun.
I’m also capable of looking at information from a variety of sources and assessing it in a reasonably fair way. In doing that it is hard to fail to notice how law enforcement in the US differs from law enforcement in other countries, particularly in training and in actual encounters with potentially violent and violent subjects.
I’m also capable of listening to what experts that have pointed out issues with law enforcement in the US have said, many of them law enforcement personnel themselves.
There’s a major distinction between two issues that should be kept in mind.
(1) Are then US cops often too aggressive and heavy handed? Yes, it seems so. (Though they have a difficult job, always on edge, wondering whether a suspect is about to pull a gun. And there are about 50 million interactions between police and the public per year, in the US, so the ones that hit the headlines are literally one in a million.)
(2) Is the above racial? Does Floyd’s death indicate a wider problem of hostility towards blacks? There’s no good evidence of this. Roland Fryer showed that the disparity in death rate (compared to population fraction) is entirely in line with the higher violent crime rate among blacks. It’s just that incidents hit the deadlines when it’s a black person killed but not when it’s a white person. (There’s been about 1000 times more attention to the death of Floyd than to the pretty similar death of Tony Timpa.)
“(1) Are then US cops often too aggressive and heavy handed? Yes, it seems so. ”
I’m not sure that is entirely unexpected – I think of the uncertainty about guns in an ordinary red light violation – by state…
That alone might explain a lot of the discrepancies with other countries that have fewer guns on the loose.
‘Course now I’d need to look in databases, .. like Wilfred Reilly would…
Roland Fryer analyzes the data. I highly recommend reading his published literature. (He had to have armed guards for him and hus family for while. Of course the Woke are only: “puppies!” “kittens!” “flowers!”)
Oh, that guy!
+1
“near-lethal doses of fentanyl and methamphetamine during his arrest.” I see this stated frequently-as a physician who deals with these drugs in my practice-they were beyond lethal doses.
Not necessarily for an addict.
Even so couldn’t that raise a reasonable doubt that the officer was responsible for murder. It did seem like conviction was a foregone conclusion.
Near lethal is not accurate-death caused in many addicts and non addicts with his levels. In the original autopsy it was pointed out that if he had been found dead anywhere else his death would have been ruled an OD.
I agree with them on this.
I’ve recently heard many commentators online saying how strong the case against the conviction of Chauvin is, based on this movie. Mainly, I was sent off to look into it by Glenn and John’s first podcast. I respect these guys and thought, hey, they must be onto something.
I listened to a couple of podcasts with the film makers. I read They’re Lying by Liz Collin.
The book has FAR too much anti-left and anti-Democrat (large D) screed for my taste it readds like a MAGA polemic, I’m afraid. I was well prepared to like it; but didn’t. As I said to my wife, “thin soup.”
However, all that said, there are two (well, three) issues that seem entirely real:
1. The “Maximum Restraint Technique” “MRT” WAS in the MPD training materials! They had trained to it for years (decades?). The image in the training slide looks EXACTLY like what Chauvin did to George Floyd! And all the cops on the scene were referring to it by name “should we use MRT?” (This is in the body cam footage that wasn’t shown to the jurors.)
And this was not allowed into evidence at the trail. It was requested and refused. The justification was ” he couldn’t prove he’d been trained to that exact slide. (!!!) Really: They’d been training it for years. Senior cop, yeah, he knew nothing.
AND: The MPD higher-ups took the stand in the trial and LIED about it not being in the training.
2. Floyd was COMPLETELY wasted. If you view the (lengthy; now released, long held back) bodycam footage, you can see this. He was complaining about being unable to breathe long before he was placed into the (MPD trained) MRT position.
He also exhibited “wooden chest syndrome”, apparently, a symptom of fentanyl + meth overdose.
3. The autopsies. First one found NO INJURY to Floyd’s neck. Second “autopsy” (review of data and a few tissue samples), not performed by the medical examiner’s office, made different conclusions and these were the ones that were publicized. (I personally think the ME office was pressured to label the cause as homicide.)
4. (4th book in the trilogy): The full bodycam footage was not shown at trial. If it had been, the fury would have seen that for much of the time, Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s back/shoulder, not his neck.
IMO, Item 1 invalidates the conviction for M2. I still think an M3 rap would be justified; but just for Chauvin.
And: None of this absolves Chauvin. As I’ve said all along, he grossly failed in his duty to protect the life of George Floyd, and certainly deserved punishment. But the facts simply don’t fit M2.
I agree completely. And this event is an excellent example of how important it is, even in this age of bystanders with smart phones + internet, to realize that the information available to the general public is very unlikely to be sufficient to accurately assess what has happened.
This “problematic” is what the UN will – or already is – using to justify control of the varieties of “information” in the world. It is the number one priority in 2024 (see the UN agenda).
Excellent, succinct statement of the issue.
(And especially if officials are holding back information, as in this case, that doesn’t conform to their narrative. Where were the calls for “release the bodycams!”?)
TFOM unquestionably presents a biased view of the George Floyd case. However, the issue raised by the documentary is not really whether or not one can prove that Chauvin’s actions did NOT contribute to Floyd’s death, but rather, whether Chauvin received a fair trial and whether the information about MRT training that the defense was not permitted to present would have changed the jury’s verdict.
Even if one accepts all of Balko’s arguments and evidence, it remains true that Chauvin applied an — admittedly excessive — form of MRT. Balko also fails to discuss the fact that the police called for EMTs very soon after Floyd was finally subdued, and they had every reason to expect the EMTs to arrive quickly.
At the same time, the fact that Chauvin continued to have his knee on Floyd’s back or neck for several (I think it was 4) minutes after Floyd became unresponsive is disturbing. But did his actions really warrant a murder conviction, given that MRT WAS a recommended police procedure and that EMTs had been called and that Floyd had been very difficult to restrain and that Floyd had so much drug in his system. That does seem to me to be a stretch.
Chauvin was convicted by his look of sheer boredom as he kneeled on the man and patiently awaited the ambulance. It comes across as depraved indifference.
I wonder what my own expressions would be if junkies, resistance, violence, and vile people were part of my daily work experience.
All of the above indicates one thing for certain: it was not only possible, but likely the jury would have had ‘reasonable doubt’ if they had been aware of all the evidence. The correct move now would be to declare the conviction unsafe and order a new trial. We all know that will not happen, and why.
+ a large number. This is the actual key point.
Requesting permission to over-comment:
I started looking at this topic – firearm death rates by state (U.S.) – e.g. Wikipedia :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_death_rates_in_the_United_States_by_state
… just a thought – I said above that law enforcement has to anticipate weaponry. Perhaps this varies by state – and police training might be designed around that – by state. Minnesota is really low at rank 43 on the table (8.1 gun deaths per 100,000), so not really a clear picture with N=1.
Thanks.
In the Chauvin trial and Tou Thao, trial, perjury, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, contempt of court, and conflict of interest, have all been confirmed as committed by the prosecution and don’t think there will be any massive protests about that and most don’t know the facts well enough to know that. One of them is or was an elder in their Christian church. Isn’t it strange that the autopsy revealed George had bruises on his shoulder from the alleged 90 pounds knee on the shoulder but when it came to 90 pounds on the neck, no bruises. 90 pounds on the neck causes tissue damage okay, okay. What do people not understand about that and the prosecution doctors knew that but said nothing. If someone offers you 10 million dollars to put 90 pounds on your neck even for a second, decline flat out decline because of the severe damage it will do and show up on a medical image. You cannot choke someone on the back of the neck and leave no bruises. Not possible and you may have to break their neck because the cervical spine(neck) bones protect the trachea (wind pipe). Pressure has to be applied to the front of the neck to asphyxiate. George’s autopsy showed he had pulmonary edema which was caused by heart disease, drug over dose on fentanyl, or asphyxiation by choking. Maximal restraint technique does not involve choking. The video showed George with a pill in his mouth in his car and spit out pills in the police car after a second forensic examination. I wonder what that does to a person who is already super high on Fentanyl? Think hard with an unbiased opinion. Plain and simple, George swallowed the drugs like a previous over dose, he lied about being high, the ambulance got the location wrong, severe heart disease, probably a candidate for triple bypass surgery and significant physical exertion while super high are what killed him. When you have three blocked arteries to your heart, don’t do what George did. His family is hiding something but I don’t know what. Pulmonary edema (foam in the mouth) before he got in the police car means he was in perilous condition. He stumbled at the car which is stiffness from a fentanyl overdose. That was a kangaroo court and a sham for all four innocent officers.
Sorry again – but this paper will be of interest :
Prone restraint cardiac arrest in in‐custody and arrest‐related deaths
Wheden, et. al.
J. Forensic Sci. 2022 Sep, 67(5): 1899–1914
“Here, we will discuss arrest‐related deaths which involve restraint in a prone position and without other obvious explanation of death.”