70 thoughts on “The Amy Klobuchar Lie and George Floyd’s killer”

1. Nice post Greg. I like Amy also and think she has done a pretty good job in the Senate.

   As to whether Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, that well depend on the facts they uncover in the investigation. There is no question Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd. The question is whether the killing was intentional or by mistake. That is the difference between murder or manslaughter and we will have to wait and see what they charge Derek Chauvin with. My guess is it will be manslaughter – but that is just a guess.

   The question will come down to whether Chauvin intended Floyd to die (i.e. for example reached down and felt his pulse and said – still alive – I better keep kneeling on his neck until there is no pulse) or whether Chauvin realized Floyd was unresponsive and said – Oh Shit I hope I didn’t kill this guy (I paraphrase). I cannot mind read so we will have to wait for his words on this topic and the other officers stories to judge that issue. Until they figure that out they don’t even know what to charge.

   Anyway – there was no excuse for the hold Chauvin was using on a handcuffed person who was on his stomach on the ground. He could have kept control with a hand on the back, not a knee to the neck. George Floyd didn’t need to die and the police definitely did something wrong, which needs to be investigated and punished. More training is necessary – that is plain to see.

   Meanwhile – the looting and arson is inexcusable and needs to be stopped and the perpetrators prosecuted.

   It has been a very embarrassing week for Minnesota. Both because of the death of George Floyd by the police and then by the people’s behavior in rioting, looting, arson and vandalism. I thought we were better than that – but I guess we are no better than any other state. Bummer.

   I watched the Governor’s press conference just now and hope they get the situation under control, get the fires out and restore order.

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   1. There is some very good evidence that some of the perpetrators of the violence and looting are outside agitators and possibly even cops from a different jurisdiction.

      People getting frustrated with a life long of oppression at least have an excuse. These outsiders should have the book thrown at them.

      Something like that happened during the last similar series of incidents, some of the perpetrators were caught, and there was jail time. One might still be in prison, I’m not sure.

   2. I hadn’t heard that some of the looters were outside agitators and possibly even cops from a different jurisdiction. I will have to look for stories abut that.

      I saw plenty of video of people inside Target looting and also later that night throwing stuff on the 3rd Precinct fire, and shooting fireworks into the building, but couldn’t tell if they were locals or from outside the metro area.

      Very disheartening to watch people steal lamps and shopping carts of stuff after the death of a person. Very sad to see buildings allowed to burn because (I assume) it wasn’t safe to send in the fire department. The pharmacy in St. Paul was also a tragedy. It will be awhile before businesses decide to rebuild or locate to an area (or areas) where they can be burned down and looted without the police or fire department feeling safe to enforce law and order and put out fires. Then locals will then be irritated about having to leave the community to get their prescription filled – but you can understand why the owner(s) might just retire and give up.

      Very sad.

2. This video seems to be one of those that lends credence to the outside agitator theory.

   https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/who-is-the-umbrella-man-who-started-damage-at-autozone

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   1. dean

      I figure that from that video of a close up of face with respirator then that white guy will be recognised. The eyes have it, so to speak.

      Could be the typical failed state play out of using agents provocateurs to provide cover for repressive state action.

      This does not alter that fact that Trump has blood on his hands, again.

3. “It turns out that Chauvin and George Floyd knew each other They both worked as bouncers or security over a 17 year period at the same club. This is not the point of this post, but it seems important to note, though I’m not sure yet why it is important.”

   I can posit a number of reasons, even in view of how much (i.e., the details of their history together) remains unknown at this point:

   1. Chauvin and Floyd indeed did have a long history, and didn’t like each other. More precisely (for this can be – duh – “inferred”), Chauvin did not like Floyd. You don’t suffocate the life out of someone you like.

   2. First responders (EMTs and at least in Massachusetts, police officers) are taught a great deal about positional asphyxia. No one needs to strangle you – you can suffocate simply by improper positioning, which comes into play when a potentially violent (e.g., psychotic or inebriated) patient – or criminal “suspect” – must be restrained for his/her own safety or for the (perceived!) safety of the EMT and/or police officer. (As an admittedly bizarre aside, positional asphyxia is what likely killed Christ, even before the coup de grace of the Holy Lance.)

   The details of this – which are both legally and medically complex – are well known in Massachusetts, though that’s not the major reason for the widespread outrage expressed by police organizations at the OFFICIAL level.
   https://patch.com/massachusetts/boston/boston-pd-commissioner-calls-george-floyds-death-damned-shame

   3. Furthermore, you don’t need your airway compromised to die from pressure on your neck. George Floyd complained of difficulty breathing, so obviously his airway WAS compromised. He was suffocated, in effect strangled. However, improper pressure on the neck [I’m not talking here about simply palpating a carotid pulse] can cause a lethal vasovagal reflex, as in autoerotic asphyxia. In other words, there are multiple, potentially synergistic, reasons why people are not restrained by their necks. Well, at least they’re not supposed to be.

   4. Derek Chauvin is either an EXTREMELY stupid man and didn’t know about any of this – in which case he’s guilty (at the minimum) of manslaughter.

   OR

   5. Derek Chauvin knew about these things but didn’t give a shit. Maybe he just intended to torture George Floyd (in full view of witnesses and a cellphone ‘film camera,’ no less) for a while, but not kill him. I suspect some variation of this argument might be used by his defense lawyer, since what he did to Floyd is not (ahem) the standard method of subduing a suspect.

   6. The main issue – from a focal standpoint (the lethal treatment of Derek Chauvin, in this incident by four uniformed police officers) – and from a systemic standpoint (systematic murder of black Americans by the very “peace officers” sworn to protect “US,” which yes, includes “THEM” whoever “they” might be) MUST NOT be lost sight of.

   If this egregious, evil incident winds up being spun into an inter-individual grudge match gone sour – as conservatives are likely to do, as more facts emerge – then it will go down in what’s left of our history as just the latest in a long line of lynchings, as opposed to the pivotal turning point for the better that, at the very minimum, ought to be George Floyd’s societal legacy.

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   1. https://twitter.com/AutumnMandrake/status/1266774798970966017

      https://twitter.com/AutumnMandrake/status/1266733271250948096

4. Re: Greg “When I pointed out these difficulties with the theory on a friend’s very long Facebook comment thread on this topic, my comments were deleted. ”
   =
   Many people respond to difficulties (or lies) pointed out to them by aversion — rather like our folktale vampires avoid the rays of the Sun. Deleting comments for this reason is the equivalent of a vampire throwing throwing his/her cloak over his/her face.
   = =

   Re: “… many, many police incidents that are not known to anyone because they are kept secret, and that is where we see the evidence against Kloub[u]char.”
   =
   And this secret information was known to this person how?

   The composition of the Senate is just as important as the identity of the President in many, perhaps most cases. We’ve seen the result of a Senate dominated by spineless Trump-enabler modern Republicans headed by Moscow Mitch McConnell. They have already done major long-lasting damage to the Republic, in establishing precedents and in packing the Federal court system on an ideological basis rather than a basis of knowledge and experience.

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5. https://twitter.com/i/status/1266921821653385225

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6. Do you have a link for a more detailed description of what happened with Floyd?

   I read that he refused to get into the squad car, then later it said they pulled him out of the car. No detail as to how they got him in, or why they took him out of the car.

   It appears to be Eric Garner redux, with an unhealthy person dying in response to standard procedure.

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   1. Video shows he didn’t resist mikeN. Don’t try to lie and defend the cops the way you did the nazi in charlottesville. (Note: these scum knelt on him for 8 minutes, three minutes after he stopped moving and saying he couldn’t breathe. The EMTs said there was no sign of life when they arrived.)

      “It appears to be Eric Garner redux, with an unhealthy person dying in response to standard procedure.”

      No, it doesn’t appear that way at all, at least to people who are honest. This is simply another case of cops killing someone and expecting to get away with it.

   2. He didn’t resist after the cops had him close to death.
      What happened prior to that?
      See Joseph’s explanation below for why I say it is Eric Garner redux.
      Though I think the cops here acted worse.

      You mention Charlottesville. Joseph’s description of how things will get worse under his scenario is what I thought might happen with that case. Luckily, the killer got a weak legal defense.

   3. “He didn’t resist after the cops had him close to death.”
      He didn’t resist before either. Stop ignoring facts just because you support people killing those you think are trouble makers.

   4. It’s not standard procedure to apply almost the entire weight of a heavy adult male for nine minutes directly onto the right common carotid artery of a man immobilised with handcuffs, and who was completely unresponsive and without a detectable pulse for the last three. If it is, please provide the police manual reference for this manoeuvre.

      This is deliberate murder. Stop apologising for aggravated, racist police brutality.

7. This is essentially an addendum to my comment above about Derek Chauvin’s killing of George Floyd. I will have nothing (beyond my remarks in this paragraph) to say about Amy Klobuchar, as I am not a Minnesotan and am happy to defer to Greg’s preference that her optimal contributions will be as U.S. senator. From my distant perspective, either route – VEEP or Senator – it’s Win/Win. As for what to do about this particular conspiracy theory and the increase in other idiotic and sinister conspiracy theories and the lying liars who spread them [hat tip AF], I haven’t a clue. It is dismal and depressing, terrifying and demoralizing, and such a terrible loss – the United States of America, I mean. (We use this expression about people; why not countries?) My only, increasingly frayed hope is that rumors of our nation’s imminent death are greatly exaggerated [hat tip MT].

   My expertise and thus my focus will be on the medical aspects of Monday’s tragedy in Minneapolis.

   Please read my Reply above (Friday 5/29) and then this one – they pretty much go hand in hand. But this time I will venture out on a limb to suggest the terrible possibility – a tenuous hypothesis, but I have a pretty good track record for prescience on matters like this – that the police maltreatment of George Floyd provoked an acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) in a man predisposed to suffer one. And that they ignored what should have been (even to first responders at the police officer level of first-aid and CPR training) obvious medical indications that an immediate dispatch of a paramedic-staffed ambulance to the scene was warranted.

   Furthermore, multiple elements of their treatment of the suspect sped up the trajectory from M.I. to cardiac arrest to death. And not only were there no efforts to intervene medically until it was far too late, but Officer Chauvin’s knee and full body weight on Mr. Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes was either the proximate or accessory cause of Floyd’s death.

   Finally – and this is the most horrendous part of the scenario I describe – if the final Autopsy Report from the Office of the Hennepin County M,E. is equivocal about now-ex-officer Derek Chauvin’s role in causing Floyd’s death – that is, if it reaches no iron-clad conclusion that Chauvin suffocated him to death – then I shall imply that the offending officer and his do-nothing co-criminals-in-uniform will, at most, be sentenced to Involuntary Manslaughter and accessories to this crime, respectively. However, invoking Federal hate crime statutes, which I’d like to believe will be a sure bet, will substantially stiffen the penalties that Chauvin will face.

   But nothing about this whole ugly ‘show,’ so to speak, bodes well for racial relations in the United States. The bar has always been set pretty high for convicting white officers of murdering black folks, and we know the systemic and cultural reasons why this is so. Massive social outcry – especially given that POTUS’s sympathies clearly lie with white supremacists and their overt or proxy efforts to terrorize minorities – will be insufficient to prevent another homicidal white cop from going free, once the staid wheels of courtroom justice, admissible and inadmissible evidence, shades of voluntary versus involuntary manslaughter, and other legal point-counterpoint exchanges have run their course in the oak-paneled courtroom that will, let’s prepare ourselves, potentially acquit Derek Chauvin as it has most previous uniformed killers of defenseless black men.

   Well, enough of my little preamble. Now for my post, per se. I hope you guys find it at least a little bit interesting and maybe provocative as well:

   ______________________________________________

   WHAT THY EYES SEETH MIGHT NOT BE WHAT THOU THINKS THOU SEEST – DEREK CHAUVIN MIGHT NOT HAVE MURDERED GEORGE FLOYD

   As far as I’m concerned, there are five categories of facts which stand out in the all-too-fresh, all-too-raw news coverage of George Floyd’s “murder” by Derek Chauvin. If the evidence and speculations I present here turn out to be “true facts,” then the fallout from this tragedy will – painful as this is to even contemplate – be much worse than most of us are prepared to face.

   What really got my attention – not mere “red flags,” but more like bright orange flares lighting up a night sky – were these five paramount issues:

   (I) There was an unconscionable delay in obtaining emergency medical care for Mr. Floyd

   (II) Officer J. Alexander Kueng checked the unresponsive George Floyd’s radial pulse when urged to do so by bystanders, yet when he “couldn’t find one” there was no medical intervention, i.e., absolutely no rendering of first aid or CPR by the officers present. Meanwhile Officer Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly three more minutes

   (III) The preliminary autopsy findings showed no evidence of strangulation or traumatic asphyxia

   (IV) Officer Chauvin may not have murdered George Floyd

   (V) Societal implications

   ________________________
   To avoid semantic misunderstandings, here are three qualifications pertaining to the vocabulary I’ll use:

   1. In terms of degree of certainty: “certain(ly)” > “likely” > probabl(y) > possibly.
   2. ‘Homicide’ and ‘manslaughter’ are used in the legal sense. ‘Murder’ and ‘kill(ing)” are used in the colloquial sense.
   3. I will be using a lot of EMS jargon, which I won’t explicitly define, though I will flag them with single quotes; double quotation marks are used conventionally. I will employ “EMS” as a generic term because the composition of an ambulance crew (EMT vs. Paramedic) varies from one jurisdiction to the next, and I don’t know the level of training of the ambulance personnel who responded to the scene and transported Floyd to the Hennepin County Medical Center. Most news outlets reported “paramedics,” and firefighters were also involved. However, among laypersons, the term “paramedic” is often used generically, and in all likelihood certified EMTs and Paramedics were both involved.

   My primary but by no means exclusive news sources were this BBC article and the redacted police incident report itself

   https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52861726

   ________________________
   (I) DELAY IN EMERGENCY MEDICAL ATTENTION

   “I can’t breathe,” “I’m claustrophobic,” “I am dying,” “Don’t kill me,” a sense of impending doom, a foreboding feeling of death – any competent EMT will recognize these as cardinal signs of an acute myocardial infarction. (Notice I’m leaving out “Please, the knee in my neck, I can’t breathe.”) Would you prefer to call these subjective ’symptoms’? Then how about ‘increased work of breathing’ – this objective sign alone is prima facie evidence of medical distress, noticed (per the official police report) yet either misinterpreted or deliberately disregarded by the arresting officers until far too late. None of us here knows Mr. Floyd’s medical history; official reports thus far reveal he “likely had” coronary artery disease and hypertension. He may indeed have had hypertension, diabetes, asthma, substance abuse, a seizure disorder, or any number of other health problems. If he appeared inebriated or otherwise ‘under the influence,” this (to a competent first responder) should heighten the ‘index of suspicion’ for a serious underlying medical condition that may be masked or mimicked by the person’s apparent intoxication.

   But Mr. Floyd was a heavyset man in the right circumstances (undergoing severe physical and emotional stress) and the right demographic (middle age, male, overweight, etc.) to be at elevated risk for a heart attack. His clearly verbalized complaints alone would have prompted any competent law enforcement officer to call immediately for urgent EMS assistance. Floyd was under already under custody and subdued – paramedics ought to have been at his side within 3-8 minutes, as ‘the scene was safe.’ Oxygen and if necessary CPR, defibrillation, and a gamut of intravenous and I.M. medications should have been administered immediately, before and during transport to the hospital. This is not advanced emergency medicine, let alone rocket science – it is S.O.P. under Minnesota Emergency Medical Services Patient Guidelines; every state has these.

   When EMS did eventually get there, if they thought their patient had any chance of life, then normally speaking they would be ethically and legally obligated to immediately commence defibrillation and CPR, on the patient right there on the ground – certain procedures being very difficult to do in a moving vehicle – even before lifting him onto the stretcher and moving him to the ambulance. Indeed, their failure (per news reports) to do so makes them potentially liable for severe civil sanctions, including loss of licensure. On the other hand, the situation may well have prompted their discretionary decision to forfeit an additional minute or two just to get him the hell out of there. This is something I will not second guess.

   The bottom line is that aggressive CPR should have started much earlier; see also (II) below. On the other hand, if George Floyd in the judgment of the EMS responders showed ‘presumptive signs of death,’ then this would have needed to be verified via ‘Online Medical Control’ – in which event, the body stays put until the coroner/medical examiner arrives. Under very few circumstances is a dead patient just picked up and flung onto a stretcher and whisked away (mechanical CPR was performed en route) – not even the police have the legal authority to order EMS personnel to do that. (Something smells very “rotten in the state” of Minnesota.) Mr. Floyd was pronounced dead “an hour later” in the hospital, after (unconscionably delayed) aggressive efforts to revive him were undertaken in the Emergency Department.

   At the outset of noticing his “apparent medical distress,” the police officers on the scene should have placed him in a ‘position of comfort.’ For a person in respiratory distress, this is usually the ‘semi-Fowler position.’ But keeping Mr. Floyd sitting up in the squad car awaiting an ambulance would have been medically preferable to laying him down (or more accurately, failing to support him despite the presence of multiple physically capable officers as he repeatedly collapsed to the ground, likely incurring physical trauma) – ESPECIALLY in a prone position. Placing an ailing heavyset person in a prone position (not to be confused with the modified lateral recumbent ‘recovery position,’ employed in specific medical circumstances) is the worst possible thing you can do. (We’re not talking here about a hospitalized COVID-19 pneumonia patient, whose respiration and ventilation can be monitored and corrected.) The pressure of abdominal organs, compromising diaphragmatic and circulatory function, worsen the hypoxemia caused by a heart attack and will certainly hasten cardiac arrest. This downhill progression was possibly underway even without the added pressure of Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck.

   (II) PALPATING A RADIAL PULSE? AND ONLY DOING SO 3 MINUTES AFTER A WITNESSED LOSS OF CONSCIOUSNESS? WTF?!!!

   The American Heart Association trains more than 12 million Americans in CPR annually. Minnesota police officers are CPR(-AED) trained, with required periodic recertification. The second or third step of the ‘Basic Life Support’ CPR algorithm is to check for a carotid pulse. NOT the radial pulse, as Officer Kueng did. The radial pulse is lost when one’s systolic BP drops below 80 mm Hg, whereas a palpable carotid pulse is maintained over and above 50 mm Hg (and sometimes much lower, as in cases of hypothermia, etc.).

   And, again, you don’t wait 3 minutes after the patient “becomes unresponsive” – meanwhile applying your knee and full body weight to the victim’s neck for almost 9 minutes – before checking the carotid pulse and commencing CPR. Mr. Floyd’s carotid pulse ought to have been palpated once it was ascertained that he had no radial pulse, but even this step should have been taken, as I am repeatedly emphasizing, immediately upon his loss of consciousness. There have been lots of unorthodox resuscitation techniques endorsed throughout history; kneeling on the patient’s neck was never one of them, nor is it in the American Heart Association CPR training manual.

   (III) PRELIMINARY AUTOPSY FINDINGS

   Sometimes an external examination of the body and x-rays are sufficient to establish the probability of strangulation or traumatic asphyxia. Hyoid bone fractures, tracheal/laryngeal injury, petechiae are just a few classic physical signs. But especially given the nature and direction of the knee-to-neck pressure that Officer Chauvin applied, it is not surprising that these physical signs may have been missing. (It also takes relatively less pressure to indirectly obstruct the airway in an obese OR thin individual.) Furthermore, a fatal vasovagal reflex may leave no postmortem signature.

   Blood chemistries, molecular biological assays, and other time-sensitive tests are usually required. Even with these, some suffocation deaths go undetected, and circumstantial as opposed to hard physical evidence has the final say. There are ‘degrees of certainty’ involved in many postmortem assessments of cause of death, even though you will never obtain a more thorough physical exam than the one you’ll get from a thorough forensic autopsy. [I know this from my medical training but also from painful personal experience. My little brother was murdered. I read his final autopsy report, because I was the only one in my family up to it. He was the picture of perfect health. Except, that is, for the bullet hole through his left ventricle.] Do you really want the gory details of what George Floyd’s body is presently undergoing?
   https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5711979/

   The Floyd family quite understandably does not trust the Hennepin County M.E. Office and has reportedly retained an independent pathologist to conduct an independent postmortem examination. This is totally understandable. But procuring permission for a rigorously conducted independent autopsy – which I for one would certainly support, given the Floyd family’s wishes and what’s at stake in terms of public perceptions – might face obstacles in a case like this, and may or may not provide additional, let alone reliable, information.

   However, I have never known medical examiners to be anything but truth-seekers – which does not mean that they lack human biases, or that all of them are persons of integrity. Are they sometimes “pressured” (by DAs, by police departments, by local political authorities and/or cronies)? Yes, oh yes. But the forensic pathologists who actually perform the autopsies are made of very stern stuff, fortified by years of training and experience [they don’t assign newbies to high-profile cases like these]; they possess a sophisticated arsenal of laboratory tools and a physician-cum-detective mindset. They are primed not to give in to public outcries, nor rush to judgment when cautious scientific deliberation is required. Very rarely are they participants in cover-ups or conspiracies to hide the truth. “Fake autopsies” – deliberately covering up or inventing an alternate cause of death – are, in this country at least, more the stuff of Hollywood fiction than of real life. In real life, too few autopsies, let alone thorough ones, are even done. This one, you can bet, will be thorough.

   But even the most thorough autopsies have limitations. And there’s not necessarily a straight arrow from postmortem medical findings to probable (let alone certain) cause of death to legal culpability. Plus there’s this whole messy issue of proximate causation. Most of us – excepting perhaps folks who get their heads blown off or die in airplane crashes – will die “from” but not necessarily in any meaningful sense “because of” cardiac arrest. Floyd died from a cardiac arrest. And yet – especially if what I am only hypothesizing to be a heart attack began in the squad car – then his eventual death was not a foregone conclusion. Indeed, a ‘witnessed cardiac arrest’ in a major metropolitan area with the best medical treatment in the world should have maximized his prognosis. Rapid initiation of life-saving measures by EMS, timely cardiac catheterization, administration of a clot-busting drug, and treatment with stent and/or CABG – the gold standard for white men – might have saved his life … Or maybe not.

   In any event, delayed assessment of his cardiopulmonary status and Officer Chauvin’s knee-to-neck maneuver guaranteed his demise.

   IV. DID OFFICER CHAUVIN KILL GEORGE FLOYD?

   As should be clear from everything above, this depends upon your definition of “kill.” I myself would say of course he did. But did he “murder” him? Ditto – it’s a definitional thing – but I will also claim that he did just that.

   From here, however, things get messier. Restricting my comments to EMS law in Massachusetts, which probably (per ‘NREMT’ standards) also applies to first responders in Minnesota – these police officers did not fulfill their ‘Duty to Act.’ They are also guilty of ‘Negligence’ – Chauvin et al. had a legal and ethical obligation to care for the person in their custody, and hence their actions fit the very definition of ‘Breach of Duty.’ Chauvin in particular is guilty of ‘Damages’ – another component of legal negligence. And, what’s more [this remains to be determined by the M.E.’s final report], of ‘Proximate Causation’ in causing Floyd’s death. Here, the devil lies in the details of that final autopsy report, and also what is learned of the two men’s prior relationship, which will speak to Officer Chauvin’s motivation (over and above his evident history of racism, use of excessive force, and being a bad cop) in maltreating Mr. Floyd the way he did. In any case, ‘res ipsa loquitur’ and ‘negligence per se,’ ‘gross negligence’ – all apply.

   While from an ethical standpoint what Chauvin did (as a sworn police officer and as a human being) is beyond reprehensible, we all know of reprehensible persons in positions of power. This being said, the violations I listed in the previous paragraph are in part but not altogether sins of omission – justification for losing (forever, let’s hope) employment as a law enforcement officer. Furthermore, they are certainly robust grounds for civil litigation and other action under tort law. They are not criminal offenses, however, and this policeman will spend no time behind bars for them.

   What about sins of commission? Or in legal as opposed to theological terms, criminal offenses? Assault and battery come to mind, as does aiding and abetting the commission of a felony, violation of civil rights (itself a felony by legal definition) – but I’m no lawyer, I’m just one among probably a billion people who watched the video of one Minneapolis policemen kill a guy while three of his colleagues stood by, effectively twiddling their thumbs.

   (V) SOCIETAL IMPLICATIONS

   The best thing for American social progress overall, and for redressing the ongoing lethal police abuse of power against black citizens, will be for Derek Chauvin to receive a fair trial and a proportionately stiff sentence for taking George Floyd’s life. But this might not happen. If the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office fails to determine that what Chauvin did was the proximate cause of Floyd’s death, then despite everything I’ve written above – and because of everything I’ve written above (which at this juncture is fact-cum-speculation) – the court will be adjudicating voluntary versus involuntary manslaughter, at most – and if past is precedent in this kind of crime, a good defense team might even get Chauvin acquitted. And needless to say, if this happens – given the long and especially recent dismal history of racist lynchings by uniformed law-enforcement personnel in this country – we will all have hell to pay.

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   1. But did he “murder” him? Ditto – it’s a definitional thing – but I will also claim that he did just that….

      I am in no doubt that it was deliberate murder.

      No police officer without murderous intent targets the right common carotid artery with his knee for nine minutes without knowing that they’re killing a man.

      No police officer without murderous intent would lock his upper leg by pressing his hand on his thigh so that he applies maximum upper body weight behind the targeting knee.

      No police officer without murderous intent would continue applying maximum body pressure to the right common carotid artery of a man who was completely unresponsive for three minutes, and who had no detectable pulse for that time.

      There is deliberate murderous intent. Second degree murder.

      And if George Floyd was actually removed from the vehicle so that he could be manoeuvred to apply that killing force, there is a strong case for premeditation – first degree murder.

      https://gregladen.com/blog/2020/05/29/the-amy-klobuchar-lie-and-george-floyds-killer/#comment-877316

8. Threats by Chris Flood removed.

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9. Some unpersuasive recent comments.

   If you want to make a point, foam flecked troll rants are not the way to do it.

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10. I have been watching the news and see more evidence of organized agitators. Pre-positioned bricks, pre-positioned cans of gasoline, the blacked out stolen cars filled with material for arson and vandalism and without license plates, and finally the denial of service attack on the city of Minneapolis websites. Very troubling.

    Who is behind this? Multiple groups? Are they coordinating? Are they local or from out of State? Are they antifa? Are they white supremacist groups? Are they foreign agents? Lots of rumors but not many facts that I can find.

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    1. Re: RickA “… Are they local or from out of State? Are they antifa? Are they white supremacist groups? Are they foreign agents?”

       You forgot the group of gun-loving people who are fantasizing, hoping, and planning for a civil war in the U. S. They call themselves “bois” and favor hawaiian shirts and use the euphemism “luau” and/or “boogaloo” for that war. Beyond that, they are not necessarily white supremacists or members of any other particular anti- group. They, like other fringe groups, have found Facebook an easy way to get together. inspire each other, and inject venom into the national conversation. I’m sure their existence is making Putin very happy.

       https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/27/the-boogaloo-movement-is-not-what-you-think/

    2. I have been watching the news and see more evidence of organized agitators. Pre-positioned bricks, pre-positioned cans of gasoline, the blacked out stolen cars filled with material for arson and vandalism and without license plates, and finally the denial of service attack on the city of Minneapolis websites. Very troubling.

       What is troubling is that the video put out by the White House turns out to be fake news – and has been taken down, without comment or apology, since it was debunked.

       The compilation video showed stacks of bricks in various cities across the country, with a caption that claimed that Antifa and “professional anarchists” were invading American communities and staging the bricks as weapons.

       “These are acts of domestic terror,” the caption stated.

       The majority of the clips used in the compilation had already been investigated by journalists and debunked by the time they appeared in the White House’s video. After pointing this out, the White House quietly deleted the video, offering no explanation or retraction.

11. Bernard, I agree it is not all standard procedure the police used, and this guy should not have been killed. My feeling is that it started out as standard procedure for someone resisting arrest, and then health problems of Mr Floyd caused unusual response, that the police did not adjust to, as with Mr Garner. Perhaps this was a deliberate killing based off of their employment history. I’ve read some conspiracy theory about this that I won’t go into here.
    I will concede this is more a feeling than backed by evidence as I haven’t looked too closely at the details.

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    1. MikeN:

       Yes – Mr. Floyd shouldn’t have had to die. Passing bad currency isn’t a death sentence. Resisting arrest isn’t a death sentence. Taking drugs isn’t a death sentence (unless you overdose).

       Once Mr. Floyd was on the ground and handcuffed the officers should have gotten up off him and even allowed him to sit up.

       So something appears wrong from the video. I don’t know what happened, whether he was in the car or how he got out or exactly what caused him to be on the ground with 3 officers on top of him. But they clearly had him under control and could have gotten off him and still maintained control.

       So that was an error in training and why one officer is being charged with 3rd degree murder (doesn’t require intent) and manslaughter, and probably why the other officers will also be charged with a crime (for not giving Mr. Floyd medical attention earlier when he was in distress and made that clear).

       Officers need to be trained to apply a Goldilocks standard – just enough force and no more than is necessary. Quite a few of these problems are from to much force being applied – and that is what needs to be fixed.

       Riots, looting, assault and vandalism are not the answer.

    2. Passing bad currency isn’t a death sentence.

       The last I heard, at the time that he was killed he wasn’t proven to have been the person who had passed the “counterfeit” bill. Nor was the bill proven to have been counterfeit, and even if it was and even if Floyd had passed it, there was no evidence that he knew the alleged counterfeit was counterfeit.

       Resisting arrest isn’t a death sentence.

       Floyd didn’t resist arrest.

       Taking drugs isn’t a death sentence …

       Floyd showed no evidence of being under the influece of drugs. The traces allegedly detected in the autopsy are acknowledged to be a red herring, which raises the question as to why the official coroner appeared to try to implicate their use in Floyd’s death.

       There was absolutely no justification for what Chauvin did to Floyd. It’s that simple. Attempting to taint Floyd by surreptitiously associating him with allusions to criminal actions is unconscionable.

12. we know why rickA doesn’t like antifa despite the fact that there’s no real organization there: they oppose things he supports and he identifies the people as having the wrong color.

    But there is strong evidence that their involvement in violence is, like so many things the right rants on about, a falsehood.

    https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-takes-down-washington-protest-230300318.html?fbclid=IwAR3CuQOUYn-I1SJqPplh4_qes7l6PDI7r7FQh7_MOXrvjLsghcxd4CErZJ8&utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

    Reply

    1. Re: dean “But there is strong evidence that their involvement in violence is, like so many things the right rants on about, a falsehood.”
       =
       Unfortunately, it is apparently a built-in human weakness to believe things just because they have been often repeated* and this, of course, has been a big advantage to lying dictators and those attempting to attain dictatorship, especially once communication became fast and worldwide in the 20th century. Add goon squads and you have a potent combination.

       * https://getpocket.com/explore/item/cognitive-ability-and-vulnerability-to-fake-news?utm_source=pocket-newtab

    2. If antifa isn’t involved and this is a bunch of white supremacists behind the riots, why are Democrats so eager to bail them out of jail?

13. The one who doesn’t realise that he is naked in the eyes of the world.

    Trump has reached the ‘mad emperor’ stage, and it’s terrifying to behold

    He incites violence from the safety of a bunker, then orders peaceful people tear-gassed for the sake of a surreal photo op

    No detectable humanity in this monster. If his parents were still around they should be castigated for negligent parenthood, no values, no sense of right and wrong and no empathy for others, no self control, no self awareness. There are classifications for such as he.

    The violence perpetrated on protesters for a photo op’ outside a church to the above poor qualities add no sense of incongruity. If there is a hell (not amongst my beliefs) I wonder how prepared he is for the rejection from that other place.

    Brutality used to enable a photo op’ for the monster.

    TV footage showed people running, falling and scrambling for safety as officers removed them by force. One woman was carried away by fellow protesters because she was injured and unable to walk. Military vehicles rolled out on Pennsylvania Avenue.

    Donald Trump threatens to deploy army as teargas fired so he can pose at church

    I hope those who enabled his rise to the WH are proud of themselves as the US slips further down the list of civilised nations.

    Reply

    1. Re: LionelA “I hope those who enabled his rise to the WH are proud of themselves as the US slips further down the list of civilised nations.”

       The Trump voters who get their news from the Republican echo chamber of Trump to Faux News to Trump to Faux News (keep repeating) then they are not even aware of what is really happening and/or it’s been labelled “fake news” so they just ignore it. The House and Senate Republicans and the Trump minions on Trump’s payroll are bedazzled by the power, money, and ideology — in various combinations — they enjoy. And because of psychological projection, they are unable to believe that anyone else actually thinks or would act differently than they do. At least that’s my working hypothesis.

14. RickA, can you give any detail to why Floyd was on the ground to begin with?
    I read that they had him in the car, handcuffed.

    I agree with you that he shouldn’t have died, and they should have backed off at a certain point. I’m not sure if it would have changed things had they backed off. Staying on his neck for any length of time, perhaps even a few seconds given his health, seems ridiculous.

    Reply

    1. No – I have no idea what happened in the car or how he got out of it or how he got onto the ground with 3 cops on him. Haven’t seen or read anything about that. I am sure we will see that someday, as the cops had body cams (I think).

    2. …given his health…

       Drs Allecia Wilson and Michael Baden, the independent pathologists who conducted the second autopsy, reported that they “could find no underlying conditions that contributed to Floyd’s death” and that ” he was in good health.”

       Truth matters.

15. “I am in no doubt that it was deliberate murder.”

    Bernard J. – Re your June 1 reply:

    I just want to add several comments to my May 31 post.

    1. More recent information (or information originally available that I overlooked) indicates that Derek Chauvin, whose knee was on George Floyd’s neck, was not the only officer suffocating Floyd. A deadly, synergistic combination of the pressure on his neck, the other officer(s) pressure on his posterior thorax, and the deadly prone position they had him in made it impossible for his chest to expand enough to draw air into his lungs. Even in the absence of compromise to his upper airway or [your words] “maximum body pressure to the right common carotid artery,” POSITIONAL ASPHYXIA would have – and did – kill him.

    • Positional asphyxia – “Restriction of chest wall movements and/or airway obstruction; can rapidly lead to sudden death.” – Emergency Care and Transportation of the Sick and Injured, 11th ed. © 2017. Although you can find the definition of positional asphyxia anywhere, I cite this source – the EMT’s bible – because it is discussed, in some detail, in the very chapter that describes “excited delirium” and the heightened life-threatening consequences of improper restraint of patients in this state. Why is this SO important?
    ——————————————————————
    “[Officer] Lane asked whether they should roll Floyd on his side.”

    “No, staying put where we got him,” Chauvin allegedly replied.”

    “I am worried about excited delirium or whatever,” Lane said.”
    ——————————————————————
    Why did Officer Lane say this, in this context? His remarks (“roll Floyd on his side,” “I am worried about excited delirium”) indicate that Lane not only suspected that Floyd was medicated, but KNEW – after all, he indicated this twice – that if this was the case it would put Floyd at increased risk for sudden death from positional asphyxia. In other words, the officers did exactly the opposite of what at least one of them knew – and clearly communicated – to be proper. Consequently, what they (and obviously Chauvin in particular) did was even WORSE than it seems.

    Moreover, if indeed Floyd was in a state of excited/agitated delirium – which positive blood chemistries might be used by the defense to suggest, though the cellphone video shows no evidence of it – this does not mitigate the atrocious treatment he received; on the contrary, it makes it even more heinous. But despite this incontrovertible medical fact, precisely this condition has been misused as an excuse to exonerate other killer cops:
    https://www.salon.com/2020/06/01/a-man-died-and-a-nation-burns-but-the-george-floyd-case-isnt-over/

    2. The much-publicized disparities between the county medical examiner’s preliminary autopsy report – and BTW it baffles me that they released this, incomplete as it was, with wording bound to confuse the lay public (“no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation”) – and, specifically, the independent pathologists’ announcement that George Floyd died as a result of mechanical asphyxiation – are not contradictory. Mechanical asphyxia is a pretty broad term, encompassing traumatic asphyxia (which has a specific medical connotation), strangulation, hanging, garroting, and who knows what else. MOST IMPORTANT, it includes positional asphyxia.

    3. From the official and independent autopsy reports, it does not appear that any “comorbidities” [a weird word to use when your primary “morbidity” is being killed by cops] Floyd might have had (and here the two reports differ) significantly contributed to his death. They might have made him slightly more vulnerable, but ANY big person (e.g., a healthy young NFL linebacker) and many a small one would have died from being restrained in this manner.

    4. For the time being – unless pending laboratory tests and/or gross pathology findings that the Hennepin County M.E. is not yet making public prove otherwise – my myocardial infarction hypothesis is in limbo … But not entirely ruled out, since news reports seem contradictory as to when Floyd first exhibited medical symptoms. Did he really “voluntarily fall down” (implying he voluntarily bloodied his own nose!) as the police reported? And what exactly happened when he was forcibly pulled from his car and handcuffed, which cannot be seen in the restaurant surveillance video? Plus, there’s more than one way positional asphyxia and a knee applied to the neck can cause sudden cardiopulmonary arrest. Think of this as the common final pathway problem – does it matter if the distal cause of the murder victim’s cardiac arrest was strangulation, a preexisting arrhythmia leading to ventricular fibrillation, a fatal spasm of a coronary artery, Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or a dislodged clot in the left anterior descending coronary artery? Any way you slice it, hypoxia did him in. And we all know what caused that. Yet you can bet that won’t satisfy the courtroom – not until the verdict, anyway.

    5. Whereas you and I agree that George Floyd was deliberately murdered by Derek Chauvin, to re-iterate my point, Chauvin’s attorneys will certainly argue otherwise. You can bet on it. Officer Chauvin was trained this way, they will say. He had the flu the night his required continuing education course communicated revisions to approved suspect restraining protocols. He certainly never INTENDED to kill Floyd, how could he be so stupid, in front of all those witnesses? It was an accident. And so on. The legal “niceties” – if you want to call them that – will fly fast and furious, with arcane and subtle delineations between degrees of murder, manslaughter, negligence, civil rights violations, etc., dancing around like so many minuscule drunken lawyers [the very antitheses of angels] on the head of a pin. And this convoluted reality – not “common sense,” the widespread desire for social justice, or even what we all clearly saw – is what will determine not only Derek Chauvin’s fate, but to a huge extent America’s as well. Which brings us right back to several of the themes emphasized in my original comment above.

    Reply

    1. Officer Chauvin was trained this way, they will say. He had the flu the night his required continuing education course communicated revisions to approved suspect restraining protocols. He certainly never INTENDED to kill Floyd, how could he be so stupid, in front of all those witnesses? It was an accident

       Life would imitate art.

       “I ran out of gas. I… I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! IT WASN’T MY FAULT!”

       Still more honest than either rickA or mikeN.

    2. Joseph M., a question for you. If officer Dauphin, but perhaps not the other officers, intended to kill Floyd, is this what he would have done?

    3. Any way you slice it, hypoxia did him in.

       It’s indisputable. I suspect any defense that tries to argue otherwise will not go very far…

       The rest of your post is very thorough. Kudos.

16. Underlying the complete chaos and unraveling of order in the United States is a lack of compassion, sympathy, or integrity by the worst President (by far) in US history. Instead of trying to defuse the situation and metaphorically turn down the volume, the man-child narcissist-in-chief only knows how to wind up his base, adding fuel to the conflagration. He is the worst possible human being to be in charge of a situation during a crisis. Bone spurs is a rank coward, hunkered down in his bunker, firing off one incendiary tweet after another, and also using Facebook to wind up the right wing crazies in the Boogaloo, Groymer etc. groups that worship him.

    And MikeN and RickA support this vile administration. By now it is a case of defending the indefensible. One can desperately hope that enough Americans have the common sense and decency to vote in November to end the nightmare of the Trump neofascist regime.

    Reply

    1. ESPN reporter tweet at noon: ‘Burn it all down!’

       Same reporter in the evening: ‘They were rioting a few blocks away at a gated community. Get these animals out of here!’

    2. Former ESPN reporter. First tweet on a Thursday. Second one several days later. Still an asshole for the two tweets, but if you can’t get the basic details about the story correct you’re not helping yourself be taken as a reliable commenter.

    3. …if you can’t get the basic details about the story correct you’re not helping yourself be taken as a reliable commenter.

       So, just another day in the office for MikeN…

17. The inevitable diversionary bullshit about ‘anarchists’ and ‘Antifa’ by the same old rightwing scum. MLK nailed this lie a long time ago:

    A riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? …It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity…as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.

    Reply

    1. I must have missed school the day they taught MLK looting the businesses in Alabama and setting them on fire.

    2. “I must have missed school the day they taught MLK looting the businesses in Alabama and setting them on fire.”

       I’m sure you missed a lot of school, especially the discussions about minorities, poor, women, and the disenfranchised.

    3. I must have missed school the day they taught MLK looting the businesses in Alabama and setting them on fire.

       It’s like being tone-deaf, except to all of reality, with you.

18. One in moderation, not sure why

    Reply

    1. There is a person (of known identity) who has been making both obnoxious statements generally and specific death threats against members of my family. I’d simply rather not have his comments visible at all. He changes his mode of posting to get past the modest level of security I like to maintain in order to make it easy to comment here, so I’ve had to increase that. Comments that seem to have nothing whatsoever wrong with them will therefore get caught in the net now and then. Sorry!

    2. No problems Greg and sorry to hear this. I saw some of that stuff the other day. Not good.

19. “He didn’t resist after the cops had him close to death.”
    “He didn’t resist before either. ”

    According to the charging document he did.
    https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6933328-27-CR-20-12646-Complaint.html#document/p2
    I’d like to see the bodycam footage to understand how Floyd got from one side of the car to the other.

    Reply

    1. Why? It makes no difference to the fact that he was killed as a result of unnecessary force by the police.

       You are dangerously close to another Charlottesville moment Mike.

20. MikeN, it is hard for me to believe that people like you actually exist. Sadly they do. Infected with a deep-rooted racism, they try to find any meager straws they can grasp to justify obscene police or right wing brutality. Here you are on here, clutching at the flimsiest of straws you can find to somehow justify why a well armed 180 pound policeman ended up with his full weight via one knee on the neck of an unarmed man for almost 9 minutes, an action that directly led to the death of the man (George Floyd). It matters nada what you think. This was a vindictive murder. Now please run along.

    Reply

    1. I agree that at a certain point the police actions were not justified, and the officers involved should be charged with murder.
       Perhaps it was deliberate murder. That is why I ask Joseph and others about the details.
       Absent a deliberate murder, I think the actions of the police were justified up to a point, unless the prosecutors are lying about resisting arrest, which seems unlikely given they are charging the police with murder.

    2. Infected with a deep-rooted racism, they try to find any meager straws they can grasp to justify obscene police or right wing brutality.

       Remember, he defended the guy who stalked and murdered Trayvon Martin for being a young black teen, and he defended the Nazi in Charlotesville after he got in his car and drove it into a crowd. This isn’t the first time he’s looked long and
       hard for a way to defend a racist or worse.

21. Two stuck in moderation now Greg… 🙁

    Reply

22. LOL, George Zimmermann was a protester against police brutality who was responsible for getting charges filed when a black guy was beat up, but now you claim he murdered someone for the crime of being a black teenager.

    Reply

    1. Because he did murder a kid mikeN, something you were thrilled about.

    2. In your crazed mind, why did he murder this kid?

23. “I think the police were justified up to a point” opines right wing-nut MikeN. The problem is that whatever justification they had to arrest George Floyd stopped a million miles short of a racist bigoted policeman bearing his entire body weight on him through his knee on the suffocating man’s neck for almost 9 minutes. This was beyond any rational arrest procedure. There were four armed policemen there and one of them needed to asphyxiate the suspect to subdue him?!

    Are you frigging serious? Wtf is wrong with you?

    Reply

    1. I don’t think we can assume racism or bigotry as the motivation for the killer.
       I do not think that knee on the neck for 9 minutes is justified. Was it justified for 1 minute? Is it justified if he didn’t have his entire body weight behind that knee? Can this be determined from the video?
       At a certain point, getting off Floyd is required. The officer not only didn’t do that, he ignored it when the other officers made suggestions, though it doesn’t look they suggested getting him to a seated position either.

       I don’t rule out deliberate murder, not due to racism but a conspiracy theory I’ve read about. Interesting to see if Joseph thinks this would be how a murderous cop would handle things.

24. “conspiracy theory I’ve read about.”

    That. That is the clearest demonstration you’ve given of your idiocy and why nothing you ever say can be taken seriously.

    Reply

25. “In your crazed mind, why did he murder this kid?”

    Not crazed mikeN. He killed him because he was a black teen and he didn’t think he should be in the area.

    Clear as a bell to people who paid attention and aren’t racists. I would reserve the “crazed mind” to people who think defending continued violence against minorities is always justified, as you do, and who think defending a murdering nazi after the police released evidence showing his intent in his actions makes sense — which you also did.

    Reply

    1. Re: “why did he murder this kid?”

       Racists and supremacists (racial, ethnic, or other) don’t need a specific reason to do something mean-to-awful to a particular member of the group which is the focus of their disdain or anger. That’s the fallacy of racism and “supremacism”: the idea that all members of one group are inferior in some way or ways to all individuals of another group and deserve punishment for that inferiority.

    2. Completely ignoring his prior history on behalf of a black person beaten by the police, or his own racial ancestry, part Peruvian, part black.
       It probably bothers you that you can’t claim he was a white guy.

26. Interesting article explaining how racist dicks like mikeN an rickA manipulated information in Floyd’s autopsy to raise the “medical issues were the cause of death” bullshit.

    https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/george-floyds-autopsy-and-the-structural-gaslighting-of-america/?fbclid=IwAR1xJyeY2KIhxRN_O9HsuD1Qbu7WiFqPTFkBGR4cwonz-sxuG6F13C9_Wh4&utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

    Reply

    1. Lots of discussion of gaslighting, but ultimately it says we can’t rule out asphyxiation, not that it is definite.
       I don’t believe his death was due to health problems, and the police are innocent, but I don’t rule it out entirely, even though they should have sat him up at a certain point. Like I said before it is possible, though unlikely, that following proper procedure would still have led to this death. That is a problem with the procedures being used, not racism by the police or individual officers.

    2. I don’t believe his death was due to health problems, and the police are innocent, but I don’t rule it out entirely…

       So you’re saying that there’s a reasonable chance that George Floyd may have died from natural causes at exactly the same time that the full weight of an adult male pressed on his right common carotid artery and œsophagus for nine minutes, and that that pressure had no effect…?

       It’s the same as saying that global warming isn’t resulting from the increase in atmospheric CO₂…

       #ParsimonyFail #RealityCheckFail

    3. Of course not. What I am saying is that his death may have been caused by health issues that were triggered by the police actions, which were according to procedure up to a point. In this scenario, even if the police had sad him up as they should have done once they realized he wasn’t breathing(or earlier), he still would have died/was already dead. I’m thinking of something like what happened to Garner in New York.

    4. … he still would have died…

       I’ve seen nothing in the coroners’ reports, especially the independent second one, that indicates that Floyd wouldn’t be alive today if he hadn’t had his breathing and circulation cut off for close to nine minutes.

       I’ve seen nothing in those reports that indicates that he wouldn’t be alive today if the pressure on his neck had been lifted the last time that he gasped that he couldn’t breathe, or his mother’s name…

       I’ve seen nothing in those reports that indicates that he wouldn’t be alive today if he had been given appropriate resuscitation when he became unresponsive.

       But carry on blaming the victim, and ignoring that he had his neck crushed for almost nine minutes.

27. Again mikeN, you might like to read this.

    https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/george-floyds-autopsy-and-the-structural-gaslighting-of-america/?fbclid=IwAR1xJyeY2KIhxRN_O9HsuD1Qbu7WiFqPTFkBGR4cwonz-sxuG6F13C9_Wh4&utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

    Get someone to explain the big words to you.

    Reply

28. Bernard agreed. There is nothing in the reports that says that. There also is nothing in the report that says he would be alive if they had done as you suggested. I think it is likely, particularly in the second case. It is the third case where possibly the police change in action is too late. Either way, they are acting against proper procedure at that point.
    I’ve seen conflicting reports about what is proper procedure, some saying knee on the back, while others saying knee on neck is done routinely.

    Reply