Posted on 03/11/2021 7:47:12 AM PST by Kaslin
It's a story of hard streets, difficult decisions, heightened tempers, and hard drugs. It's a story about human beings, our duties, our failings, and our weaknesses.
Jury selection for the trial of Officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd began this week. Despite how it’s been portrayed by activists and most reporters, it’s been a difficult process precisely because Floyd and Chauvin’s story isn’t a tale of good or evil. It’s a story of hard streets, difficult decisions, heightened tempers, and hard drugs. It’s a story about human beings, our duties, our failings, and our weaknesses.
If you think it’s hard to watch the final eight minutes of the infamous video, try watching the whole thing. Bodycam footage leaked in August showed officers in a rough neighborhood alternating between frustrated curses and gentle assurances as they dealt with a man whose fear of police interaction was heightened to a sometimes-sobbing paranoia, triggered by having been shot in the past and spurred on by the active effects of drugs on his mind.
Floyd was a big man, and the childlike state of mind officers found him in is hard to square with the sudden bursts of reality when he exerted clear physical strength and resisted. He begged them not to shoot him — and 39 seconds after an officer pulled his gun, he holstered the weapon he no longer worried he’d need. But no matter what the police said or did, from the start Floyd’s state of mind was stuck in one gear.
“He got a thing going on, I’m telling you, about the police,” Shawanda Renee Hill, a woman who was with Floyd, told officers on the scene. “He have problems all the time when they come, especially when that man put that gun like that.”
As officers brought him toward their SUV, Floyd appeared unwilling to stand up, and began to hop and repeatedly yell “please!” Anyone who has been far, far too drunk in his youth, those out there who might have gotten too high, or even those who have suffered a panic attack can sympathize with Floyd’s paranoid state, barely responsive to outside inputs. Likewise, anyone who has had to deal with someone in these states, as a family member, teacher, or maybe just a friend, can sympathize with the police, who were called to investigate passing counterfeit money — a federal crime.
Officers said they would crack the SUV’s window and promised to stay with Floyd, who at that point in his psychosis — six and a half minutes into wrestling with arrest from multiple officers — said claustrophobia was making it difficult to breathe and didn’t want to be left alone. As one policeman circled around to pull him into the back seat, Floyd began to scream — and scream he couldn’t breathe in the SUV — yelling he would rather lay on the ground instead, and kicking his way back out onto the street.
At that point, it had been nearly 10 minutes since the interaction began, and nearly nine minutes since officers and Floyd had begun physically struggling. “I can’t breathe,” Floyd repeated, hyperventilating while officers assured him he was “talking fine” and needed to breathe deeply.
After a few more minutes of rolling and yelling, Floyd went limp. Chauvin’s infamous pin to the neck wasn’t removed as the police waited what seemed like forever for an ambulance, and Officer Thomas Lane, who had been present the entire time, asked if Floyd should be rolled onto his side. Lane was worried about “excited delirium,” a state that can result in resistance, aggression, and “superhuman strength” — but also lead to death.
Most of us are familiar with this last part of the video, although few likely saw Lane follow Floyd into the ambulance and perform chest compressions once EMTs realized he was in cardiac arrest. Even more of us know Floyd died that day and that the coroner listed the cause as homicide, although few know the report cites fentanyl in Floyd’s system and “recent methamphetamine use” as notable contributing factors to his fatal heart attack.
But it’s been nearly 10 months since that day, and seven since the longer recording was leaked. Why relive any of this now?
Because jury selection for the murder trial of Chauvin began this week, with proceedings set to begin this month. Because lawyers and advocates for Floyd’s family have told news cameras there’s no justice without a murder conviction. And because a country as divided as ours sometimes seems incapable of seeing anything but good and evil, black and white.
None of the above is to convince anyone that Floyd is guilty or Chauvin innocent, but to illustrate just how sad, murky and complicated that day in Minneapolis, Minn. was. May 25 didn’t tell a story of heroes or villains, and the whole 30 minutes don’t fit neatly into any political cause, even if eight minutes seem to.
As the trial of Chauvin begins, and tensions once again run high, let us pray for the soul of Floyd, for all who are involved, for Minneapolis, and for our country. We all need it.
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There will be justice, but no peace.
It’s the story of a filthy junkie felon who,like so many such punks (black...white...brown...yellow...and red),resisted arrest and paid a heavy price for having done so.
The people that don’t figure out how not to be on this jury want to be on this jury. Probably say you don’t support BLM and head for the door. This trial will be lit with a virtuosity of signaling and righteous wokeness. This will be a look at America in 2030.
Chauvin will be proven guilty until not white.
It’s the story of a loser who lost one time too many, eventually throwing his own (loser) life away.
America won't be told that..........
The cops could have dressed Floyd in a new suit and sat him on a park bench with a milkshake and he still would have died from the amount of fent in his system.
I think if you lined up every single cop from Minneapolis with ten years of experience...they’d all tell you they dealt with a dozen cases like this each year. Some lived...some died.
Low info Americans knows only what you the domestic terrorists blm and antifa and the msm tell them. If they say George was Comparable to Jesus Christ dying on the cross, the that is the “New Truth”... and yes, a judge had to order that George not be compared to Christ during the trial apparently. Someone e posted an article yesterday about that
Correction, he paid a heavy price for overdosing g, not for resisting arrest. The ambu.ance could likely not have gotten there any quicker. The cops likely called the ambulance right away when they confirmed he was likely overdosing. The store owner called the cop on George because he was acting like an overdose g drug addict, and the cops came on the scene and found out he was, and likely called right away.
There will be a verdict. Whether or not that is justice will depend on which side of the issue you are on.
He called the police on Floyd because he tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill.
Exactly. George was dying when the cops rolled up on him. Heck, he was dying even before that, which is why the store owner called the cops on him, because he was acting extremely bizarre. Her video describing the event can be found online. George killed himself
Neah.
He paid a price for his drug use.
Floyd was dying before the officers ever got there. He had about twice the lethal dose of Fentanyl in him.
The officers actions had nothing to do with his death. There was nothing they could have done to save him either.
The Interview with the perso. After the person said George was acting really whacked out. You can find it online. I watched a ton of videos ad heard a lot of audio in this case. George was dying when the cops rolled up on him
Actually it wasn’t the store owner, but a clerk that called. The store clerk said
“He is awfully drunk and he’s not in control of himself,” the caller said.
“He’s not acting right,” the caller added later
Chauvin set himself up for this by his prolonged knee to the neck.
They jury will focus on that and not the real cause of death.
Will take some expert medical testimony to clearly point out that the drugs did it not the neck pressure...
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