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Did Derek Chauvin Kill George Floyd?
If there is one thing that we all know, it is that, on 25 May, Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis Police Department killed George Floyd. This is what the newspapers say, and this is what we are told on television news. The only thing that seems to be in question is whether Chauvin is guilty of second- or third-degree murder.
Ordinarily, in the past, journalists took care to distinguish allegations from facts, but not in this case. They stuck to their claim that Chauvin had killed Floyd even when the medical examiner of Hennepin County issued a preliminary coroner’s report indicating that the latter had died of “cardiopulmonary arrest” – which is to say, a heart attack – and not asphyxiation; that he suffered “arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease”; that he was at the time of death hopped up on fentanyl; and that he had recently used methamphetamines. On National Review Online, on 4 June, the LAPD veteran who writes under the name of Jack Dunphy pointed out the obvious implications, but no one in the mainstream media bothered to note that drugs of this sort can cause shortness of breath and cardiac arrest and that Floyd may have died of a drug overdose.
We now know more – thanks to a fuller coroner’s report and thanks to footage from the body cams worn by two of the officers involved in Floyd’s arrest. We know that he had consumed more than twice the dose of fentanyl apt to be fatal, and we know that he had the Wuhan coronavirus. We also know that Floyd, who was 6’ 4” and weighed in at 220 pounds, resisted arrest; that the four officers involved had a difficult time subduing him; that they recognized that he was hopped up on something; and that they called an ambulance and urged that it come as quickly as possible. On 3 August, John Hinderaker laid out the evidence on the website Powerline. But, to date, no one in the mainstream media has addressed the implications.
There is no reason to think Chauvin guilty of second or third-degree murder. Indeed, there is every reason to suspect that he is not in any way legally or morally responsible for George Floyd’s death. It is, moreover, possible that he and his colleagues did everything by the book. Eventually, if and when there is a trial, we may learn the whole story. In the meantime, I doubt that we can expect any help from America’s professional journalists.
Published in Policing
Chauvin’s lawyers should use the coronavirus defense. He was already compromised.
Also, Floyd was positive for methamphetamine and fentanyl.
Chauvin = excessive force/manslaughter?
No-there is absolutely no evidence of that.
The medium article cited above claims the police were following the department’s protocol for excited delirium-since deleted from the web. If true the cops should be acquitted. Additionally, it states that excited delirium patients have died d/t the exertion of resisting restraints after being properly restrained.
Watch the body cam videos- Floyd was making all kinds of complaints some of which are demonstrably false- that’s part of the problem. He wasn’t acting rationally that is why they called for an ambulance. The situation isn’t nearly as clear as initially claimed by Ellison.
Or when they are in an excited delirium.
Which is what he was demonstrating.
Expecting the police to diagnose him as having a cardiac event is beyond their job.
The left wants cops to also have PhDs in social work after finishing their psychiatry residency. So rookie cops will be 35 years old- base pay $250K plus
There are different degrees of “causation.” It’s not unreasonable to ask whether Floyd would have survived the encounter had Chauvin not done what he did.
The escalation to second-degree was pure politics by Ellison, and hopefully he will pay a price for that. But the original third-degree charge was reasonable, although not proven.
Perhaps-but it is more reasonable to conclude that the police were not guilty because there is more than a reasonable doubt they are NOT primarily responsible for his death
Floyd has his cardiac episode whether the police show up or not. I think the evidence supports this. What happens if the police were never called, and Floyd drives away? Does he have a heart attack while driving, putting the lives of pedestrians at risk? Does he black out at the wheel and plow through a crowd?
Oh, yeah. They know something’s wrong and it scares them badly.
I don’t agree. Chauvin’s conduct was extreme. I’m not saying that this is a slam dunk either way, and it seems clear that Chauvin should be able to mount a good defense. But I need to hear more to absolve him given the seeming lack of necessity for pinning Chauvin for 8 1/2 minutes no matter how “agitated” Floyd was.
Extreme? You need to watch the video of four policemen trying for ten minutes to subdue the man. Pinning him down did not cause the heart attack. His resistance to arrest and the fight that followed may have set it off. But it is a reasonable guess that it was already underway when he first claimed that he could not breathe. Keep in mind that the cops had called for an ambulance and asked that it come as quickly as possible. They kept him pinned down because it made no sense to get him up and try again to get him back in the car. They were waiting for the ambulance. Watch the fight. Consider the ambulance on the way. And ask yourself whether being pinned down is apt to kill a man or even push him over the edge. The third-degree murder charge is ridiculous. The only real question is whether the cops did everything by the book or not. And if they didn’t, did it make sense to bend the rules. Ask yourself, what would you have done in the circumstances?
How about if he was following department policy? Because that is what is the article at medium cited earlier claims (written before the body cam videos were leaked)? Interestingly, the policy has been deleted from the department website since Floyd’s death.
I disagree. I don’t think that there was ever solid evidence of cause of death, a required element of
ohboth murder and manslaughter charges.I’m not a trained officer and am thoroughly unaware of the options involved. I think that it’s telling that those supporting Chauvin seem reluctant to use the words “eight and one-half minutes.” We have trials to establish whether “reasonable guesses” are fact. To me, it’s a reasonable guess that Chauvin’s extended pinning of Floyd was at least a contributing factor in Floyd’s death. I have no problem with letting a jury decide, although I acknowledge the difficulty in finding an impartial one.
This is so unrealistic. I don’t understand your desire to condemn the officers. The only reason that I can think of is a reluctance to admit that your original conclusion of guilt was wrong. This should not be a problem, because you were misled by bad reporting.
On your specific questions: he wasn’t fighting while he was held down. He had no way to resist in that position. The video showed that he had been forcibly resisting moments earlier, while in the cop career. The cops had every reason to expect that he would go back to resisting if released. So they were holding him down, probably gently, until the EMTs arrived.
I’d need to see the policy as written. According to the article
That’s a very broad comment and I suspect that there may be qualifications on the use.
I don’t think the amount of time that Chauvin placed his knee on Floyd’s neck is relevant.
Floyd was adequately restrained when he was in the back seat of the car. The officers cannot leave a suspect, high as a kite, lying down on his own, handcuffed or not. That’s dangerous. Floyd can get up and run, kick, etc. The unpredictability of drugs needs to be considered when applying restraint.
I also don’t see how the knee to the back of the neck does anything outside of causing discomfort. A knee to the front of the neck would cause asphyxiation. A knee to the back could cause a broken neck if significant pressure is applied, but that was ruled out in the autopsy (and never claimed to begin with, I’m just throwing the possibilities out there). From all that we know so far, the knee was used to keep Floyd on the ground. I’m not trying to play tough guy here, but this knee narrative needs to end. I’m seeing far too many TV talking heads completely aghast that a knee was used, like it’s a magic bullet. I doubt any of these people have ever been in a violent situation, or they would know better.
Eight minutes, thirty seconds is nothing. They were waiting for the ambulance. How can being pinned down contribute to someone’s death. The likely alternative was a renewed fight. That might do it. If someone in your family had a heart attack, would you stand that person up or tell them to lie down until the ambulance came?
Think. Put yourself in the situation of the cops. It took you ten minutes to subdue the men. He put up one hell of a fight against four men, and they had trouble succeeding. Now you have him pinned, and the ambulance is coming.
This is a mischaracterization of what happened in the Ahmaud Arbery case. I covered the issue at length here, almost 3 months ago.
There is an important lesson here. You cannot trust the media to accurately report things. This is very annoying. To form a well-grounded conclusion about an event, you need to dig in to the details from the original documents. This is a special problem in incidents supporting the Wokeist narrative — I would say most particularly the race-based BLM narrative, but it also applies to MeToo-style sexual assault claims, and others.
Any jury will fear for their lives if they acquit. And I don’t mean that they will worry about the future, that someone will find out who they are and come after them one day. I mean within minutes of a not guilty verdict being read, they will fear that they will be killed. Who will protect them? The bailiff? Anyone who tries will be branded as racist cop pigs. Who would shoot the peaceful protesters storming into the courthouse? No one will have any confidence that law and order would be kept, and therefore an objective verdict is impossible.
I have a minor correction to Prof. Rahe’s post. He equated “cardiopulmonary arrest” with “heart attack.” I think that this is a common thing to do, colloquially, and I did so myself in my initial post on the George Floyd incident (on May 29, which was very early – he died on May 25). On investigating further, I corrected this in my second post (on June 1).
Technically, a “heart attack” is a “myocardial infarction,” which refers to the death of heart tissue due to a blockage of blood flow. This can then cause “cardiopulmonary arrest,” which (I think) is synonymous with “cardiac arrest.” However, there are other causes of “cardiac arrest,” such as arrhythmia and drug overdose (including fentanyl overdose).
Sorry, we will have to disagree. I don’t regard almost nine minutes as “nothing,” nor do I regard Floyd’s conduct as a literal “get out of jail free” card for police actions to follow. In subduing Floyd, the officers should balance concerns for their safety with concerns for Floyd’s health, and continue that balancing throughout the encounter . . . .from minute one to minute eight. There were four officers present to assist. It’s appropriately up to a jury to weigh these facts, and it’s appropriately up to a judge to decide whether the charges should even stand. They are the determinants of what was “reasonable” or “likely.”
Ansonia (View Comment
The problem for the prosecution is that a reasonable guess isn’t enough to convict- it has to be BEYOND a reasonable doubt. I don’t dispute your reasonable guess-but I couldn’t vote to convict based on it. If the department policy wasn’t violated (at this point it isn’t clear if it was or not) then I think an acquittal is likely-obviously we haven’t seen all the facts. The body cam videos that were leaked do not make the police look bad & it is very suspicious they were withheld from the public while many many statements were made by officials that were prejudicial against the officers. I am certain if the videos were incriminating that Ellison would have released them promptly. Usually if the body cam video supports the police they are quickly released to decrease the chances of violent protests-but not in this case- it smells.
Thank you.
I’d like to hear from members with real training in police (vs. combat) prisoner restraint and management. I read comments from our current and ex-policemen members, but if any of them have explicitly described their training then I missed it.
The very little ad-hoc training (from a senior Corpsman) I received long ago was explicit on this point: do not place your knee on the prisoner’s neck. You may kneel over his neck, trapping it under your ankle.
It was a big enough deal that it was the first thing that hit my mind when I saw the image of Chauvin with his knee on Floyd. It didn’t look to me like Chauvin was particularly bearing down, but my first thought was “that policeman is not competent to do that.”
So, Ricochet policemen: Is this a thing? Is it mentioned in your training?
JosePluma
No-there is absolutely no evidence of that.
A few, but entirely too few, people have been pointing that out from the very beginning of the controversy. The entire premise of nationwide rioting has never had any evidence at all to support the premise.
This is not correct. Mr. Floyd was black, and something bad happened to him. That is evidence of a racial motive.
You think that I jest. I believe that this is, quite literally, enough to provide a “prima facie case” of discrimination, for example in the employment context. These are the civil provisions of the law, I think, and I’m not a specialist in discrimination litigation.
It amounts to a presumption of discriminatory motive. In common culture, the presumption is what we lawyers call “irrebuttable.”