Floyd should have been executed for pulling gun on pregnant woman in robbery.
Yes, that would have saved us all a lot of aggravation, but he dodged that bullet so to speak.
But Floyd didn't have a gun when he was killed. He also was face down and *handcuffed* when Chauvin kept kneeling on his back/neck for another 8 minutes. If Chauvin and the other cops just picked him up and stuffed him into the cruiser after he was subdued, there would be no story and Floyd most likely would still be alive.
But Chauvin and the rest of the cops didn't do that. Once Floyd was faced down and cuffed, they stopped being police officers who "protect and serve" and turned into tormentors and possibly executioners as well. What Floyd did or didn't do up to that moment is immaterial. They also gave BLM a poster boy to hold up to demonstrate how bad cops are. Chauvin gave BLM exactly what they wanted and needed.
*That's* why the cops face charges and that's why Chauvin is in prison.
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clashwho (758)
3 years ago
They did try to put him in the cruiser. George Floyd fought it with everything he had, all the while claiming that he couldn't breathe. The whole thing is on video. What Chauvin was doing was supposed to be a SAFE technique for restraining someone who is being uncooperative and might injure himself by their own struggling. They were literally just waiting for the ambulance to arrive that they themselves had called for Floyd. It amazes me that the jury didn't think that the fentanyl in Floyd's system, three times the amount known to be fatal, was enough to raise a reasonable doubt.
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strntz (12467)
3 years ago
I just read that Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd's neck for three minutes after officer Kueng checked for a pulse on the unresponsive Floyd and "couldn't find one".
Floyd had no pulse - he was done resisting - yet no one let him up much less did CPR.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52861726
Regarding the fentanyl, the defense argues that 11 ng/ml is three times the amount considered fatal, but other medical authorities disagree. While the level that Floyd had in his blood was significant and could have been a fatal amount, a report says that 1/4 of those arrested for DUI have a level that high or higher, and they're still on their feet.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/04/16/fact-check-fentanyl-george-floyd-not-enough-to-cause-death/7239448002/
Look, I'm not excusing Floyd at all. He was a piece of shit and the world is a better place without him. Had he simply complied or not had drugs in his system or both, he probably would be alive right now assuming he didn't OD or get shot in a holdup the following week. But police can't act like that.
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joej2923 (3049)
3 years ago
Pulse readings can be inaccurate. The cops had called the ambulance after Floyd refused to get/stay in the vehicle since Floyd was clearly not behaving in a rational manner. Floyd was a danger to himself in his manic state so it makes to keep him immobilized until the medical professionals arrived. The article below shows that the maximal restraint position was taught to cops in the manual and it was used for handcuffed suspects who were a threat to others, themselves or property.
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/george-floyd/minneapolis-police-training-materials-show-knee-to-neck-restraint-similar-to-used-on-george-floyd/89-9f002e3f-972a-4410-86cb-50a1237fc496
The bodycam video shows that Floyd resisted going into the vehicle. The cops were trying to get him into the vehicle at the 4:30 mark and Floyd could not breathe while in the vehicle at the 7:54 mark. The knee on the neck was irrelevant if Floyd already could not breathe at the 7:54 mark. He is clearly having an epic meltdown during the video and that's why the cops decided to call the ambulance.
https://youtu.be/YPSwqp5fdIw * George Floyd video *
I do think it's unfortunate that Floyd died and wasn't able to turn his life around. He was using drugs and hanging out with a drug dealer on the day that he died. I'm concerned that recruiting cops will be more difficult if they can go to prison every time a junkie resisting arrest is injured or dies. I would like to see a law that protects cops from criminal/civil liability for injuries/deaths sustained by people who resist arrest.
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strntz (12467)
3 years ago
Fine, but when you continue to hold a guy face down after he's non responsive with no pulse and do so for another three minutes, you aren't protecting him any longer..
Chauvin had a lot of complaints on his record, far more than a statistical anomaly of revenge complaints can explain. Was he a racist? I doubt it. I think he was an equal opportunity asshole.
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joej2923 (3049)
3 years ago
As I said previously, pulse readings could be inaccurate. I just don't think it matters if Chauvin kept his knee on the BACK or neck for three additional minutes... It looks bad but it did not affect the final outcome. The cops are not just protecting the criminal. They are also protecting others and property from the criminal. They probably should have attempted CPR BUT I see no evidence that they tried to kill him.
Cops need to be hardasses by the way. It's a shitty job that I wouldn't want to do. Are these complaints against Chauvin from drug dealers, prostitutes, thieves and domestic abusers? Chauvin could certainly avoid complaints by parking in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot or playing basketball with kids at the court. Chauvin appears at the 7:10 mark of the video and I believe he yells at Floyd at the 7:20 mark. The other cops were nice to Floyd for three minutes but he wasn't getting in the vehicle. Hardass Chauvin showed up and Floyd briefly got in the vehicle before wriggling his way out. They should have had a paddy wagon available for Floyd since he was being difficult. I don't have police experience but I believe difficult perps were hogtied and put in the back of a paddy wagon. That's probably the only way to deal with someone who is big and under the influence or insane.
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strntz (12467)
3 years ago
They didn't need an accurate pules, they just need a pulse. If one doesn't get a discernible pulse, the *prudent* thing to do is investigate why. If a pulse can't be detected by ordinary means, it's because it's either not there or shallow at best. Either would seem to indicate some sort of action be taken.
I'm a big police supporter, and shed no tears for a career criminal POS like Floyd (the world is far better off without him), but in an age of videos from 10 angles recording everything these days, police have to at least *pretend* to care. The cops in this case didn't even do that.
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stickman38 (3358)
3 years ago
I think generally speaking, most police officers try to do good work but there are some that can go over-board after they put that badge on. Wearing that thing can change people and it makes them think they have ultimate power over others. Reminds me of that movie 'The Captain' which is about a WWII German soldier that becomes a war deserter but he stumbles upon a dead Captain's uniform and decides to put it on and then procedes to commit some pretty horrible crimes. It's a good example of what people are like when they get a little power.
Not sure if this is exactly what happened in the Floyd case. Was Chauvin just flexing his muscle per say or was he following police protocol? I think maybe it was a little bit of both. It's just a shame the guy died and the only conclusion we can come up with is Chauvin is now a murderer. Had Floyd survived, not likely we see the riots that followed.
The other guys were just listening to Chauvin and following commands, they were fresh out of the academy and probably didn't want to disobey orders of someone that was of a higher rank. I didn't watch their trial so I can't say for sure but this whole thing probably could have been avoided by simply turning Floyd over, and letting him catch his breath or hell, if Floyd just didn't resist arrest, or pass a phony bill, he would still be alive today.
Anyhow, was it worth 2 billion in damage and killing over 2 dozen people? Fuck no!! but this is what happens after the media screams "racism" for 4 years straight. And this is what happens when you teach people that the cops are out to get the black man.
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strntz (12467)
3 years ago
I totally agree with your last paragraph. I'm a black American and do NOT think Chauvin was a racist (I have a pretty big bar to leap to get there), he was just a jerk with a badge. If George Floyd was white, I think Chauvin would have acted the same way and no one would have heard about it.
That's why I have no sympathy for Chauvin. He was a jerk with a badge who gave BLM and Antifa the ammunition they need to spread their lies and hate to lemmings.
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stickman38 (3358)
3 years ago
I hear ya, strntz.
Chauvin screwed up but it's hard to claim he's "racist". He actually married an Asian woman. So, I don't know how far this would go in saying he's not racist but it is something to consider.
I've heard some other stories about him helping inner city kids and whatnot. I don't know if they're accurate but again. It's hard to pass judgement on someone based on a 10 minute video clip.
And this is another thing the media does, they play a 10 second audio or video clip and then turn it into some big racial event. The media has got to stop doing this, it's causing a lot of damage to this nation.
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clashwho (758)
3 years ago
Just look at the way they edited George Zimmerman's call to 911: "This guys looks like he's up to no good. He looks black."
Here's what was said between those two sentences:
Zimmerman: "This guys looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about."
Dispatcher: "Okay, and this guy, is he white, black or Hispanic?"
Zimmerman: "He looks black."
It's like our mainstream news organizations are trying to stoke racial conflict.
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clashwho (758)
3 years ago
Isn't turning Floyd over more likely to interfere with his breathing? He was already foaming at the mouth due to the fentanyl. Putting him on his back could asphyxiate him. Just imagine the travesty of justice if Chauvin really thought he was keeping Floyd safe by immobilizing him in that position.
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stickman38 (3358)
3 years ago
I've seen some police training manuals that actually instruct officers to put people in the prone position if they think they're overdosing on drugs but they also say to turn them over too. So, to some extent, Chauvin probably thought he was doing the right thing. Fact is, he wasn't trying to kill Floyd and that's why they didn't charge him with 1st degree murder.
I think the problem lies in the fact that he would not move Floyd even after they didn't get a pulse. It just appears to be excessive use of force. Even if he wasn't intending to kill Floyd, it still looks bad. And with so many people watching and filming the damn thing, he should have had the sense to go ahead and turn him over, in an attempt to make it look like he's doing something.
Floyd might have died either way, he was thrashing around in the back of the police car and having a major panic attack and that's why they took him out of the car. Some other poster got this wrong when he (or she) said Chauvin randomly took Floyd out of the car. There actually was a reason for doing this.
It's quite obvious that anything above the shoulders should be banned from police training. This isn't the first time a man has died in police custody from being held by the neck area.
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Ranb (9779)
3 years ago
They didn't try hard enough. They had Floyd in the police cruiser then took him out so Chauvin could kneel on his back for nine minutes. What kind of sense does that make? Why not just leave him in the police car and drive him to jail?
Remember what the medical experts said about opiates and user building up a resistance to them? If you didn't cherry pick the evidence presented, then perhaps you would understand the situation better.
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joej2923 (3049)
3 years ago
Floyd was a big guy ( 6'5" 230ish) so they were having problems getting him into the vehicle. Floyd claimed to be claustrophobic so they spent three minutes trying to get him in the car and he freaked out in the car. At the 4:30 mark of the video, they start trying to get him in the car but he is peacefully resisting. Floyd can't breathe at the 7:54 mark of the video and that is when he is in the vehicle freaking out. Floyd also wriggled out of the vehicle during his meltdown. The cops did call an ambulance to come since they could tell he was not acting like a sane and rational person.
https://youtu.be/YPSwqp5fdIw * Floyd body cam video *
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Ranb (9779)
3 years ago
Four officers decided not to use other less lethal methods to get him into and keep in the car. Kneeling on his back in the street was a poor decision.
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clashwho (758)
3 years ago
Why should we assume that Floyd had built up a resistance to fentanyl? That's the equivalent of saying that it's better to convict an innocent man, rather than let a murderer go free. That's not the way or justice system is supposed to work. Floyd having an amount of fentanyl in his system that is three times the amount known to be lethal should have been enough for reasonable doubt.
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Ranb (9779)
3 years ago
Because doctors said so? So you're saying that the minimum lethal amount is gong to kill all people all the time? Good luck finding any doctor who supports that claim.
Do you understand that Chauvin took Floyd out of the police cruiser, then knelt on his back until they couldn't find a pulse then continued to keep kneeling on him for another 2-3 minutes? Why don't you think Chauvin's actions would have not killed a normal healthy man?
Why would anyone continue to kneel on a perp who stopped moving other than to ensure he was dead? Did Chauvin think Floyd had faked an absence of a pulse just so he could go all hulk on him later on? Probably not.
Perhaps you think Chauvin should have been tried for abusing a corpse instead?
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clashwho (758)
3 years ago
It wasn't the minimum lethal amount. It was three times the minimum lethal amount. And no doctor testified that George Floyd had developed that much tolerance. They just said that it was possible.
As for the rest of your post, you're basically saying that Chauvin deliberately killed Floyd. I find that scenario hard to believe.
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Ranb (9779)
3 years ago
So are you saying if a person as any amount, of any substance in them, that is known to be able to kill other people at that level, it is okay to kill them because the presence of that substance is grounds for reasonable doubt?
So why would Chauvin continue to kneel on a man who was not moving and without a pulse? The only rational explanation I can see is that Chauvin wanted to ensure Floyd was dead.
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clashwho (758)
3 years ago
George Floyd's autopsy showed no signs of windpipe constriction that would cause asphyxiation. In the absence of physical evidence of violence, of course the presence of a lethal substance should raise reasonable doubt. As for why Chauvin continued to kneel on Floyd, he wasn't the one taking Floyd's pulse. Maybe he thought Floyd was faking and would start thrashing around again as soon as he took his knee off of him. Maybe he thought the knee was preventing that from happening and keeping Floyd safe from injuring himself or others, because that's exactly what that hold is for. That's why police officers are trained in how to use it and instructed to use it for people behaving exactly like George Floyd was behaving. You seem to want to err on the side of condemning an innocent man to years in prison.
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Ranb (9779)
3 years ago
Are you claiming that the person (Kueng) taking Floyd's pulse did not tell Chauvin?
The windpipe does not have to be obstructed to asphyxiate a person. There is evidence of violence on the video made of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's back.
What is your evidence that police officers are trained to keep their knee on a person's back for a long time and keep doing so after they can't find a pulse?
I'm not erring on the side of condemning an innocent man.
Perhaps Chauvin should have risked taking the stand to explain why he had to kill Floyd.
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