Posted on 11/09/2020 3:19:17 AM PST by HarleyD
In the court of popular opinion, the officers in whose custody Mr. Floyd died have already been tried and convicted of manslaughter, if not murder. Fortunately for said officers, we have a judicial system in this country in which a jury of their peers—not public opinion—will decide their fate. I do not have any personal acquaintance with any of the officers or with the late Mr. Floyd, and I have never been either a law enforcement officer or a criminal (Mr. Floyd had been previously imprisoned for armed robbery and narcotics violations), so my interest in the matter is not personal; I am interested more in how the event has been reported and received (and with the consequences of those reports and how they were received).
In 1922, Walter Lippmann published Public Opinion, an influential book whose basic thesis was that people’s behavior is not influenced by events, but by the reports of the events; that our conduct is not merely the result of our actual environment, but by the reported environment, which he said was sometimes a “psuedo-environment,” anticipating what we now call in the 21st century “fake news” (and which Daniel Boorstin, in 1962, called “psuedo-events”). As a nation, then, we have had about a century of discussing the sometimes-imperfect relationship between actual events and reported events; I think we have an imperfect relationship here also.
Digital reports travel rapidly, without time for much investigation of background, context, and other details that might shape our understanding of an event. When rapid dispersing of reports is the primary consideration, there is no time for the previously standard journalistic criteria of who-what-when-where-why-how. Before television, news was slower, travelling in newspapers at a speed of twice monthly, once weekly, and then later, once daily. When unusual deaths occurred, there was no visual image of the deceased deceasing, and by the time the report was made public, ordinarily an autopsy had been performed which shed light on the unusual death. In Mr. Floyd’s case, many/most of us merely saw a six or eight-second video clip of Mr. Floyd saying “I can’t breathe,” while a police officer knelt on his neck. I assumed—and believe many others assumed—that he died of strangulation, that the knee cut off his windpipe.
When the autopsy (and, later yet, the nearly-30-minute bodycam footage) appeared, I revised my understanding of the event, because Dr. Baker (the coroner) declared that Mr. Floyd had not died of strangulation or asphyxiation; his respiratory system was neither blocked by a foreign substance nor was it collapsed. Indeed, in the bodycam of the event, Mr. Floyd said “I can’t breathe” even before he left his vehicle, and said it several other times before he was on the ground and before Mr. Chauvin arrived on the scene (the audio was imperfect, but I think I heard him say it eight times). At least from Mr. Floyd’s perspective, then, his breathing problem had nothing to do with anyone’s knee. By the time the knee was on his neck, “I can’t breathe” was a refrain he had repeated somewhat frequently. Indeed, what appeared on the 6-second video report as indifference by the police to his statement was more likely their “tuning out” something he had been repeating since even before he left his vehicle or had any physical contact with the police.
Mr. Floyd was obviously not in his right mind; viewing the bodycam, one would deduce either that he was mentally ill or high on something. He resisted putting his hands on the steering wheel, he resisted getting out of his vehicle, and he steadfastly resisted (physically) getting in the police cruiser, asking instead if he could “just lie on the ground,” which request the officers acceded to. Because of his state of mind, it is hard to determine why he kept saying “I can’t breathe;” perhaps he was so far under the influence of methamphetamene and Fentanyl that he didn’t even know what he was saying. There is another possibility.
Drugs.com says this about Fentanyl:
Mr. Floyd used Fentanyl “without a prescription.”
“Fatal” side effects can occur if one uses this “with other drugs that cause drowsiness or slow your breathing,” and Mr. Floyd had both cannabids and methamphetamine in his system.
“Fentanyl can slow or stop your breathing.” Whether a knee on the neck can stop one’s breathing or not is, I suppose, not yet medically proven; but Fentanyl can “slow or stop” one’s breathing.
“The autopsy revealed no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation,” Dr. Baker (Coroner) told prosecutors, according to the memo.
Floyd had an 11-level of Fentanyl in his system, and coroners have certified Fentanyl deaths with as little as a 3-level. The coroner (Dr. Baker) said that, if Mr. Floyd had been discovered in his home with this level of drugs, the death would have been certified to have been caused by an overdose. Only the altercation with police caused his office to consider other possibly contributing factors.
We have likely torn several cities apart because a lifelong drug addict swallowed a drug after he was already high on another drug (methamphetamine), in order to prevent officers from discovering him with it and charging him with a narcotics violation that would violate his parole terms and return him to prison. Mr. Floyd likely chose to risk death by taking one narcotic on top of another, rather than risk returning to prison. He likely killed himself.
Mr. Floyd’s death is a tragedy; but it is not the tragedy that most Americans think it is. The “court” of public opinion believes whatever it wishes to believe; a criminal court protects accused people from such speculation, and requires evidence that proves the charge “beyond a reasonable doubt.” I don’t know how the prosecution can possibly convince a unanimous jury that Mr. Floyd’s death was due to a knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck, since this was a method of restraint taught in the Minneapolis Police Manual. The method would not have been in the manual if—by itself—it was regarded to be potentially fatal. An officer employing the method can hardly be convicted “beyond a reasonable doubt” of murder when the subject had both methamphetamine and a lethal dose of Fentanyl in his system, any more than an officer could be convicted if an arrested person had a heart attack after being maced (which sometimes happens also).
Some time in April (if not before), either the charges will be dropped (or severely reduced in a plea bargain) or Mr. Chauvin will be exonerated. The rioting, looting, and killing will begin again, because the public—or at least a portion thereof—does not care what really happened. Part of our public does not care that only a very small number of people (about ten) die annually in police custody (out of 10.5 million arrests), and part of our public does not care that those one-in-a-million deaths also happen when individuals physically resist arrest, and they don’t care that just as many white people as black people die under those circumstances. Their narrative of whites systemically abusing blacks is so precious to them that no amount of competing facts will shake their confidence. Those who like rioting, looting, and burning will have an entertaining Spring. The rest of us will be less entertained.
As for the other cops I'd vote not guilty on every charge lodged against them...and I'd do so in a heartbeat.
This is all about a filthy moslem whore (Ellison) who has political ambitions way above Minnesota.
I think Ellison is going to be Creepy Joe’s AG. Yikes.
I understand your feeling, but it amounts to us wanting to punish Chauvin for having a punchable face and a clear lack of empathy. But if he truly did nothing that was against his training, or that contributed to “a death foretold,” there is no good reason for him to serve time other than that it makes us all feel better about that video.
“I don’t believe that he intended to harm the guy or that he knew he was harming the guy.That cop is guilty of some form of...some degree of...negligence. Nothing more.”
If he didn’t intend to or know that he was harming Floyd then where’s the negligence? Was he doing something outside of the cops’ rules of conduct?
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/the-george-floyd-killing-a-police-officers-view/
Scroll down the piece for the bit about eggshell victims.
re: Floyd death:
The article you refer to has this:
“Yes, there came a point when Floyd ceased to struggle and should have been brought to a seated position”
Thanks for the enlightenment. I do remember that Floyd was held on the ground for a long time.
However, I also remember a video of a suspect being very peaceful when talking to a cop until the cop said something and then he very suddenly became violent.
Whether Derek Chauvin is a creep or not, his lawyer needs to demonstrate IN the courtroom that the knee on the neck did not kill the man. If his lawyer is not a old fat dude like Nadler, he could be ‘Floyd’ on the floor.
My wife and I simulated the scene on the hardwood floor of our dining room (yeah, I used a thin throw rug to lay on.) she’s about 130#, and I’m 185# but also 66 yrs old with a thinner neck than Floyd’s, that has been abused in the past by nasty spills off of horses, dirt bikes, and collisions in football. (Chauvin is reported to be about 6’ tall and 167#. Floyd was 6’ 6” and about 230#)
It would have helped me to have tied my hands behind my back because holding them there made the task harder. But I don’t have any handcuffs. I had looked at pics on the web, and noticed in a few that Floyd was raising his right chest off the pavement a bit. I realized that the only way to do that was to bring my right knee out and up, maybe half way to my hip laterally. That gave me the leverage to take the pressure off my right chest, and also reduced my neck twisting. (A few days later I simulated being cuffed to see if I could bring my right hand up close to my right chest to take some pressure off of my chest. I saw in some pics that he had done that. It definitely helps)
This went on for maybe three minutes, but we didn’t think to have a clock nearby. I had asked her at the start to put more weight on her left knee to offset the fact that she is not as big as Chauvin. When I asked her to increase it more, it didn’t take long for me to say stop, so I wouldn’t need to visit the chiropractor.
Breathing wasn’t that tough. I’m convinced that I could have gone quite a while if I wanted to. If I was younger with a stronger neck I would gladly do a video with a man bigger than me putting his knee on my neck for 15 minutes just to prove the point. But the commies would probably come and burn my house down with me in it.
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