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Originally Posted by Commander Wallace
You are also free to believe as you choose. I'm fully aware that not everyone will feel the same regarding the outcome of the the Derek Chauvin trial. That being said, the D.A's office filed the charges they felt were appropriate given the circumstances and also the charges they believed they could prove at the time of the trial.
The line up of medical experts, who have a better understanding than you or I testified that Floyd died from having his oxygen supply cut off. I heard further medical testimony in which it was stated that a healthy person would have died under the same circumstances. I have not the faintest Idea why you can't seem to grasp that.
Therefore, it's irrelevant that George Floyd had drugs in his system. It's irrelevant that George Floyd had medical conditions. Did it not ever occur to you that the vast majority of the general public has one health condition or another ? Decent police officers know this and deal with it on a daily basis. How many times did George Floyd say that he couldn't breath ? Any decent human being would have backed off at that point.
Why did it take 4 officers to hold down a suspect with his hands handcuffed behind his back ? Why couldn't George Floyd have been handcuffed and sat on the ground with his legs straight out ? Try putting your hands behind you and getting up from the ground in a seated position.
You have said that there is no premeditation. Chauvin and Floyd had both worked together in security for a nightclub. It was never mention at trial as it wasn't deemed relevant. How do you or anyone else know that Chauvin didn't have it in for Floyd and that this wasn't an elaborate setup ?
I don't think Chauvin or Floyd are poster boys for the cream of society. That being said, everyone should enjoy the same protection under the law. While Floyd may or may not have been cooperative, This does not give police departments discretionary rights to act as judge, jury and executioner. I fully expect to see Chauvin file an appeal.
An appeal isn't necessarily filed because the defense doesn't like a decision.The defense will have to cite an error in the process to prevail. It appears to me that the judge and prosecution went to great lengths to make this difficult.
Again,your opinion is in the minority.
Consider this bill that may be enacted into law by Congress.
H.R.7120 - George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-...ouse-bill/7120 |
I understand what you are saying. I disagree that the drugs and heart condition are irrelevant. I might have missed it in the reporting, but I don't think that the prosecution experts you are referring to were challenged on their assertions that a healthy person would have also died, in light of the video showing knee on shoulder vice neck. *That's* the important distinction. I tend to believe the video showing knee on shoulder rather than neck, in light of past experience which shows that video evidence is misconstrued *specifically* because of camera angle, light conditions, and parallax.
So - a healthy person would *not* have died as a result of a knee in the shoulder or back, whereas someone with a compromised cardiovascular system who had lethal levels of drugs that further depress the cardiovascular system would. And they, in fact, would be more likely to have difficulty breathing regardless of physical position. Floyd kept complaining that he was having trouble breathing before he was proned out. That he was carrying on claiming he couldn't breath, that he was going to die, etc. etc. from the moment they asked him to step out of his car is something that police officers have seen over and over again from suspects as typical stall tactics to try and avoid an inevitable arrest, leading them to believe that his later complaints were more of the same. I also expect that, had the other 3 officers not had to have performed crowd control to avoid attack from a mob, they could and would have been able to monitor Floyd's condition and identify that he was actually in distress and not continuing stalling his arrest.
Again, an unfortunate situation all around, but nothing in their actions meets the definition of murder on the MN statutes.
The bigger question is how to deal with a portion of the populace that thinks it is acceptable to resist police officers enforcing laws. The police might not even agree with the law, but they are doing the bidding of the citizens whose duly-elected representatives enacted the laws. The thought experiment needs to consider where we would be at if criminals doing criminal things didn't do additional criminal things when caught...