This editorial was written by the editorial board of the Washington Post. It expresses my views.
THE FIRST witness the prosecution called in the trial of the former Minneapolis police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd was a 911 dispatcher who watched the arrest unfold in real time on a surveillance camera. So long did the restraint go on that she wondered if the camera feed had frozen. “My instincts were telling me that something’s wrong,” she testified, explaining why she took the unusual step of reporting the officers’ use of force.
Her instincts — as the world knows from its own viewing of video footage of the May 25 events at that Minneapolis street corner — proved to be terrifyingly and tragically accurate. Something is clearly wrong when an arrest for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill ends up with a 46-year-old Black man gasping for air, pleading for help — and dying. Floyd’s death triggered nationwide protests and questioning about race, policing and social justice. A jury in Minnesota now faces one specific question: whether to hold Derek Chauvin, the officer who pinned Floyd under his knee for more than nine minutes — nine minutes and 29 seconds, to be exact — criminally responsible. He is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, and he faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted on the most serious charge.
“You’ll be the judge of the facts, and I’ll be the judge of the law,” Hennepin County District Judge Peter A. Cahill told the 12-member, racially diverse jury Monday at the start of a trial that is expected to be one of the most closely watched in years. Court TV is providing live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the proceedings. It is fitting that a public that watched Floyd’s death can now witness whether there is a reckoning.
Jerry W. Blackwell, one of the prosecutors, played the video during his opening arguments to drive home how Mr. Chauvin did not “let up” or “get up.” Floyd said 27 times he couldn’t breathe, and a crowd that formed called repeatedly on police to get up because it was clear Floyd was in distress. “While he’s crying out, Mr. Chauvin never moves,” the prosecutor told the jury. “You can believe your eyes, that it’s homicide, it’s murder.”
Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer argued there is more to the case than the video, contending that Floyd’s death was caused by his underlying heart disease and drug use; he even blamed the crowd for posing a threat and diverting officers’ attention from Floyd. “You will learn,” said Eric J. Nelson, “that Derek Chauvin was doing exactly what he had been trained to do during the course of his 19-year career.” We hope no jury can accept that a police officer would be trained to be so willing to cause harm and so indifferent to human suffering.
Somehow the police in the most recent spate of mass shootings/slaughters were able to take the shooters into custody without killing them. But George Floyd was killed over a relatively minor offense.
One of the reasons so many people protested was that both black and white people felt this so-called arrest was cold-blooded murder. The look on Chauvin’s arrogant, cruel face was one of defiance. The outcry from bystanders had no impact on Chauvin’s actions. The prosecution will try to blame Floyd’s death on drugs or a heart condition, but for those of us that watched in horror, it was murder.
The Defense is helping to make the prosecutors case against Chauvin–“Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer argued there is more to the case than the video, contending that Floyd’s death was caused by his underlying heart disease and drug use.” Not knowing someone’s health history especially with a raging pandemic that causes breathing difficulty in some people or someones drug use legal or illegal is exactly the reason you don’t pin someone under your knee for 9 minutes.
exactly
This is that most unusual of criminal trials where evidence of manslaughter if not murder is right out there in public view.
Having read the defense opener, I suspect some of what we’ve heard will be contradicted by evidence: it sounds like Floyd was not ‘subdued’ in the car before being dragged back out on the pavement for further restraint. And he consumes drugs right in front of the arresting officers, raising the stakes beyond passing a phony bill. Plus, the seemingly ridiculous suggestion bystanders ‘distracted’ the police may not be about the small handful we hear in the video—more likely about an angry throng gathering during the car struggle, which conceivably could have heightened police sense of threat.
The discussion over cause of death is, I think, a weak point in the prosecution, because it leads away from the incident toward police training/ procedure: any member of public’s health could be compromised by heart or respiratory issues, which is a contra-indication for restraints to breathing or blood circulation– ever.
Hopefully the prosecution will be able to sweep aside these issues and put the focus where it belongs, on the actions of Chauvin. If, e.g., it’s substantiated that he kept the suspect under pressure for an additional 3 mins [mins 6 to 9] after advised that Floyd had lost consciousness (or alternatively I’ve heard, lost pulse), that is not “reasonable” behavior (as emphasized in this opening statement). It goes to manslaughter at minimum.
Floyd showed no signs of any distress prior to Chauvin choking the life out of him. I hope the jury ignores the red herring of drugs or heart disease.
Probably should wait until the defense presents their case, which will include bodycam footage that the prosecution hasn’t presented.
You are right, FLERP– really I was premature in passing along either detail. I’ve only heard (not seen) there’s footage showing the cop car rocking back & forth with the struggle to subdue Floyd. And so far I haven’t found any thing to support the claim there was a growing angry crowd (other than the prox 10-12 seen in onlookers’ video (altho php that qualifies in a cop’s mind). What I should have said is that so far I haven’t seen/heard anything to change my mind that the focus should only be on the 9-1/2min action by Chauvin.
Passing a fake $20 bill should not result in a death sentence by cop. Whatever happened in the police car does not justify the murder of George Floyd. Four cops surrounded him. He was supine on the ground. He was not resisting. There are photographs that show the “crowd” to be about 10 bystanders, none of them menacing the officers. One of them was an EMT, who wanted to give life support to Floyd but the police refused. Another was an off-duty firefighter who told the officers to stop choking him. Chauvin pointed his mace can at anyone who criticized his actions. If this was not murder, I don’t know what murder is.
What “murder” is depends on the elements of the relevant statute.
I haven’t watched this closely (trials are boring!), but I’d urge people wait to see more than the prosecution’s case before they make up their mind. But I can’t force people to do that.
If you watch the painful 9-minute video of Chauvin’s knee of Floyd’s neck, including three minutes in which Floyd is unconscious, it is hard to see this as anything but murder. Do you think this would have happened if Floyd were white? I don’t.
It’s impossible to say, but I have no reason to think that a white man in the same circumstances wouldn’t have met the same fate. For what it’s worth, and I don’t know what it’s worth, more white men are shot by police each year than any other group.
Since there are far more white men than black men, that’s not surprising. I can’t recall ever hearing of this kind of police brutality towards a white man.
They don’t get as much media attention. I’ve seen some horrifying videos.
The top homicide detective in Minneapolis just testified that it was “wholly unnecessary” for Chauvin to keep his knee on Floyd’s neck. He was handcuffed and not resisting. The detective said this was not part of Chauvin’s training.
I just watched the defense attorney’s racist examination of Donald Williams. I guess that if one gets upset watching the cold-blooded murder of an unarmed, nonresisting black man and one happens to be black, then one is, according to people like this attorney, an example of “the angry black man” type from white racist fear and fable.
So freaking infuriating.
The only relevant fact is that Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, including three of which Floyd was non-responsive. Anyone wanting to make arguments about drugs or heart disease should be willing to prove that a healthy person not on drugs could survive 9+ minutes with a knee on their neck – using their own neck.
Exactly. Nailed it, Dienne.
Its interesting in this vid https://youtu.be/xRoqSyIi-98
The guy fails to explain what he explained here
Which basically amounts to the fact that you can literally hold your breath until you’re dead when you’re on dope like fentanyl. You also would never need to announce you couldnt breath let alone in a suspicious emotionless monotone. This floyd thing looks scripted and rehearsed.
And lets not forget what happened next, the death was used by racists to launch a race riot.
There’s two ways for the queen’s honor guard to get paid. One of them is to do stupid sht for the camera for a kickback from newspapers.
Heres what happened. A black guy commits suicide by cop with his buddy he works and shares lines with so his family can get a lawsuit and the cop can get a kickback. The death was used by enemy subversives to incite race riots and radicalise leftist sympathizers who deal them both the cheap drugs they both use.
https://deplorablefeed.com/u-s-soldiers-punished-under-obama-admin-for-blowing-whistle-on-afghan-muslim-pedophiles/
Btw, i tracked this deplorablefeed group to bulgaria. But pretty sure it’s all legit.