Chauvin trial re George Floyd - Sky News

The police do usually get away with murder. Has there ever been a successful prosecution in the US (or even the UK for that matter) of a police officer killing a black person?

The police officer quite deliberately stood on Floyd's neck until he was dead. It was entirely unnecessary. The fact that Floyd may have been a nasty piece of work is neither here nor there. It is not the job of the police to issue summary justice.

Childrenofthestones

I didn’t know about the case of Tony Timpa, thanks for sharing.

That’s why I focus on Breonna Taylor. That case was actually black/white. They painted her as all kinds of things but lost when the truth came out.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=TOEOKc_q4e8

Its 10 min but you only need the first minute and 3:30.

He will get away with it I suspect.

No racism. Really? Ok well that's your conclusion.

They squished his neck until he died. That's what happened.

I’ve been following it on Americans media.

There’s no justification for what Chauvin and the others did. But I suspect they may get away with it due to what will be the main defence that he’d have died anyway due to the amount of fentanyl he took just prior to being arrested. It’s an opiate, a respiratory depressant.........apparantly he’d done the same thing before in a previous arrest.

He also ingested meth just prior to arrest.....I think to conceal it from the police, at least that’s what the defence are saying. I assume a tox screen backs them up?

The defence will argue that’s what caused his death.

I've been watching.

For me there are two things that I just can't consolidate with this being justifiable:

1. The paramedic took GF pulse, couldn't find one, yet that fucking bastard kept his knee on his back and neck.

1. What were they waiting for? The cows to come home? Surely the whole point of restraint is to get somebody under control. GF was unconscious, unresponsive yet they still maintained their position on his body.

No matter which way you look at it, GF wouldn't have died if the police didn't take the course of action they did. With every breath GF took he would have struggled to inhale more air due to the combination of pressure on his neck and back. Like a boa constrictor tightening with each breath. Suffocation.

If 12ish people observing could see the danger he was in, why couldn't the police?

I truly believe they had their power blinkers on. Chauvin came across as truly arrogant and shown no empathy whatsoever to the plight of the man he was crushing.

I can't imagine how those witnesses must feel, watching a man slowly die in front of them knowing they couldn't intervene without putting themselves at risk by officers carrying guns.

This trial will set a precedent and the outcome is important not just for justice for GF, but to the countless other individuals who are at risk of being mistreated by police and if found guilty, should give officers pause for thought in how they treat folk.

The footage is shocking and truly disturbing, it makes me feel sick.

I just couldn’t, and still can’t, see the justification for the knee on the neck / head area. GF had his hands cuffed, he wasn’t spitting or biting, he hadn’t physically attacked the cops (or anyone else) and wasn’t moving for a long time.

Even if you’re able to justify the initial decision to put him on the floor, how did they not have the (very basic) humanity to check him properly / roll him over when they’d had him pinned down for almost 10 minutes?

It really doesn’t take much imagination to put yourself in the place of someone (anyone) remaining pinned in one position, on their front, for that long. Not only would it become intensely painful, but has it ever had the intended effect of calming an agitated person down?

I have a sinking feeling he may well walk free for a few reasons:

1. The prosecution are trying to go for 3 charges, second degree manslaughter, third degree murder and second degree murder. This is a sign the prosecution are not confidant in the strength of any one charge.

1. The autopsies, whilst both appear to differ they are more similar that it first appears, George Floyd’s heart gave out, and there is evidence of this occurring before the knee hold was applied.

1. There is this whole business of excited delirium. There is case law in America of those being restrained unfortunately dying, even when being restrained less brutally than Floyd was (one was even a deputy sheriff at a party and others have been white).

Now there is contention about excited delirium being a thing, but a Minnesota white paper accepts its existence, and accepting for law enforcement the bar for what justifies “reasonable force”, is extremely high when restraining someone.

What this trial will likely come down to is duelling experts, but that is likely to bore and confuse a jury, as such it all very much up in the air how this going to go, but the problem the prosecution will run into is all the defence has to do is establish reasonable doubt and they have a much bigger mountain to climb in all this.

*through.

Fat fingers.

I found the footage really upsetting and tried to imagine a white man being put in the same position.

It is upsetting. But white men have died of through similar circumstances. Timothy Coffman is one of them.

I’m not sure that this case is quite as cut and dried as its been portrayed in the media - I watched some of the trial yesterday and watching the video from inside the store was quite eye opening , GF was very obviously high and acting manic, and the store assistant tried to play down the fact they were scared of him, (ie challenging his friend and then recognising the same note but not challenging GF) we know meth can make people very strong and also lowers their pain threshold, I don’t think criminals should be treated poorly, in fact I think the US prison system needs a complete overhaul but that’s another thread, but I also think there needs to be some acceptance that doing meth and committing crimes could end badly.

But the important question about this trial is would GF have been treated in the same way if he was white - unfortunately I don’t think there is any way to prove the answer to that.

He’s entitled (and legally obliged) to present as robust a defence case as he can manage.

He’s obviously trying to goad the witnesses so he can paint a picture of an angry mob who, on the day, were distracting the three or four policemen there and caused them to somehow not notice that their detainee was dying.

Add the drugs element into the mix and you can see what he’s doing; placing enough doubt in the juror’s minds that they may not thinks it’s proved beyond reasonable doubt.