The problem is, I have read numerous posts by people claiming to be medical examiners and/or MDs. All of them concur, that there are multiple situations where cardiac arrest exists, that you CANNOT say definitively post mortem, what particular item caused a person's death by cardiac arrest.
That means anyone attempting the "he DIED of drugs" is up the creek.
That in and of itself, does not make "The Cause of Death"™ the policeman all by himself -- by default, as it were.
But the reason, that isn't enough to clear the policeman either, is two fold.
One is that both the state's coroner, and a coroner retained by the family, (remember, the guy's dead. The coroner is an agent for the state; the state stands to get sued bigtime if a state agent is partially culpable for the death; the family could be accused of just wanting to sue, but maybe they just want to make sure if the ex-policeman did kill their relative, he doesn't just walk, "the principle of the thing" and not money.)
That means, both coroners could reasonably be suspected of ulterior motives, in opposite directions.
But BOTH of them concur, the policeman's knee on the neck at least contributed.
So if "both sides" (the state and the family) have coroners agreeing on that, it's gonna be really hard for a defense attorney -- who by definition only wants to get his client off -- to overrule both of them on his own medical examiner's authority.
That's not sufficient; I'm not saying it is. Time out for a detour.
The emotions in this case, got all wound up (as you say), by people jumping to conclusions from past cases. "We're sick of people lying about "Gentle Giant" and then the REST of the video comes out" "Reginald Denny" "He has a violent past!" "The policeman has 10 (or 17 or 18 ) excessive force complaints against him!" "He's a druggie!" None of those apply to me. I didn't hear about the case through the press.
Some of those don't apply to this case: nobody claimed the decedent was minding his own business.
But the initial claims by the police were that he was vigorously resisting arrest, and that extreme measures were necessary to subdue him.
The POLICE are the one's whose initial claims were repeatedly refuted by independent, no-axe-to-grind, 3rd-party videos.
That is the opposite of the model used by the knee-jerk "oh god another false police brutality claim" people.
One video shows the police trying to pull him out of his OWN car. If they'd put chocks on the wheels so he couldn't drive away, and waited for him to come out to go to the bathroom, there would have been no need to try to pull him out of his car.
Another video shows him calmly handcuffed, seated against a building; the police firmly helping him to his feet and all of them walking across the street into the middle distance on the camera about 1/2 block away.
Another video shows him partway in the police cruiser, and one of the policemen leaning in and the vehicle rocking side to side somewhat.
None of those videos support either police brutality or -- layman's term -- forceful resistance. Nobody's hair is messed up, nobody's clothes or uniforms are wrinkled or ruffled, nobody is panting or sweating.
The next video is nine minutes long, uncut, as far as we know released in its entireity, taken from about six feet away, and shows the policeman with his knee on the neck of a man lying on his stomach in the street, who is also wearing handcuffs.
This was cited not by the press but by the Statement of Probably Cause.
The element of depraved indifference, comes because on that uninterrupted video, you see a man in custody (at which point the police are his "custodians" hence the word), with someone's knee on his neck. (A still shot from across the street shows two of the policemen on his legs.) The knee continues after the man says he can't breathe--this is NOT "hands up! don't shoot" because it is uninterrupted video, and during the course of the video, the guy does in fact pass out, one of the POLICEMEN (not Geraldo Rivera three weeks later) says he doesn't have a pulse,...and the policeman in question, doesn't even double check for a pulse, or perform CPR. He keeps his knee on the neck of a man, lying down, with two cops holding his legs, in handcuffs, and without a pulse. That's "unreasonable force" since a man without a pulse does not get up, grab your gun, and start shooting bystanders. It's also unreasonable force since he had not been even accused of a crime of violence for his arrest, but passing a bad $20, which is not an imminent threat to life or limb. And finally, because multiple independent videos show that the decedent became compliant once the cuffs were on...let alone when he passed out...let alone when he went into cardiac arrest.) The "Depraved Indifference" comes about because a 19-year veteran first responder continued to hold down by the neck (there are multiple other cases from all over the country, and expert opinions from police, police trainers, and criminology professors saying that holding someone down is dangerous all by itself. Continuing to do so, after another COP tells you to your face, the guy has no pulse, and you keep your knee on his neck instead of even going through the motions of CPR... no jury in existence is going to say, Oh, that's ok because the guy was convicted of a violent home invasion 5 or 7 or whatever years ago 1000 miles away in another state.
If there were drugs in his system, then the police had even more of a duty to treat him with kid gloves, being trained in how illicit drugs may potentially affect the heart and lungs -- it does not give them the right to kneel on the neck of a guy they know to be in cardiac arrest.
“””””””””But BOTH of them concur, the policeman’s knee on the neck at least contributed.”””””””””
The prosecutor....The nice young man who was turning his life around did not die of a heart attack, meth or a fentanyl intoxication. He died 100% due to the cop holding him down.
The defense......http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDmGhethEoQ
The jury can see all evidence provided by both sides and make a decision.
It occurs to me the simplest way to clear the policeman of causing his death is to get a volunteer to submit to 9 minutes of a knee on his neck. Or even better, multiple volunteers.
Once it is demonstrated that keeping a knee on someone's neck won't kill them, then the cause of death must move on to something more substantial, like having a heart condition while taking Meth and Fentanyl.
If the knee didn't kill him, it must have been something else.