Chauvin trial re George Floyd - Sky News

[chilling19]

Is anyone watching this? With the really upsetting and unarguable against video footage I can't see how the defence can build a case. Also the baiting by the defence lawyer of the female EMT witness was horrendous, as was the judge telling her off. She held her ground though, as did the previous child (female) witnesses.

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.

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.

I found the footage really upsetting and tried to imagine a white man being put in the same position. Also, I keep coming back to no matter how high he was, or how dangerous he was perceived to be by the cops, death is not a proportionate response. It seems he had a massive panic attack and could have been talked down by properly trained police. As it is, they ignored all the signs that he was in trouble with his health and carried on - the sheer arrogance of Chavin in particular is obvious - he really didn't give a damn.

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.

*through.

Fat fingers.

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.

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'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.

@MabelPines

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.

Where is the evidence it is racism. Check out the death of Tony Timpa in exactly the same circumstances in 2016 only he wasn't a criminal but called the cops for help as he hadn't taken his meds and was having a psychotic episode. He was cuffed behind his back and layed on his front. For what it's worth he was white and one of the cops on top of him was black. They were on top of him for 14 minutes, crushing the the life out of him. They mocked him as he lay dying in front of them begging for his life . Then when the paramedics arrived, as they lifted his nonresponsive body on to the medics trolly the cops joked that they may have killed him. They were reprimanded and allowed to return to duty. How many people know the name Tony Timpa?

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.

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.

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.

Childrenofthestones

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

@NiceGerbil

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.

If that's for me then no, that's not my conclusion, its my question. I'm asking where is the evidence of racism? Will he get away with it? I don't know but suspect he wont, with the pressure on the jury who must know that if they find not guilty the country is likely to erupt into rioting that will make Rodney King riots look like a walk in the park, he is more likely to be found guilty than not. Picture what went on in Portland for 90 straight nights before the election, but now in practically every city in the country. Can you imagine being on that jury. 😲

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.

How many people know the name Tony Timpa?

I didn't, thanks for sharing. That's awful.

@JessicaaRabbit

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.

Spot on. Every word. Nothing justifies the use of that kind of force over the period of time,where bystanders and EMT had alerted them to GF not struggling to breath and then basically drawing his last breath.

I hope justice is served.

God I wish the whole whataboutism "white men die at hands of police too" would just go away during this trial. Yes, we are fully aware that US police also kill unarmed white men. White men are a majority in Minnesota (over 80%) so statistically we'd expect this.
American police are particularly brutal compared to their other western counterparts.

But just kindly knock off the whole "is it or is it not racism?" Cause you're clearly an outsider weighing in here on a specific community with multiple layers of history, attitudes, politics, diverse ethnic groups and cultures. Minneapolis is not Charlottesville, Virgina (with its history of slavery, confederates and KKK) nor is it Portland (west coast, extremely progressive)- it's like comparing Italy with Norway with Germany.

There is plenty of evidence of long-term racist actions and attitudes from the MPD (Mpls Police Department) and when Black people in the Twin Cities as a race class get pulled over, harassed and handled roughly by the police (90% of officers don't live in the city and wouldn't "deign to"), it's particularly painful for Minneapolis citizens to see their worst case scenario come true-death of a Black person after he or she is arrested.

When you watch the video of the 3 officers kneeling for that long on a human being, it's chilling. It's depraved. Can I prove without a doubt Chauvin was a racist in his heart? No. But does it matter that an unarmed Black man was slowly suffocated to death in front of Black people and teenagers who were begging for his life? Yes, it does. And any nasty whining about white men get hurt too IS racist as hell in this scenario.

@RoyalCorgi

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.

Yes. There was a successful conviction of a police officer in the US - it was also in Minneapolis. Justine Damond was a woman killed by a MPD officer.

www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730691678/ex-minneapolis-officer-sentenced-to-12-1-2-years-in-death-of-unarmed-911-caller

The way the law works, even if they did the wrong thing, if that is not what killed him, the law does not punish them for murder.

That seems pretty basic, really. If it looks like he had a heart attack from drugs or whatever, the fact that they didn't restrain him properly is immaterial to a murder charge.

The US has serious problems with policing, which are themselves in part related to social breakdown more generally. But a lot of it is due to really poor training.

But as for whether racism was at play in this case it seems impossible to say. I can't see the outcome being better for a white guy with the same record doing the same thing. In fact my understanding is that while black men are more likely to be harassed by police, the evidence for them being victims of police killings more often, if you take into consideration confounding things like poverty, isn't all that strong.

An interesting analysis on that topic (pre George Floyd)

nonsite.org/how-racial-disparity-does-not-help-make-sense-of-patterns-of-police-violence-2/

I listened to some of the testimony the past 3 days. I watched parts of various videos they were showing. It was harrowing and I was a mess last night.

I had a loved one who was addicted. Watching yesterday I felt like they thought he was trash because he was a drug user. That him being terrified and then dying was no big deal because his life was of no value.

I don’t know if they are racist but I think they are sociopaths.

I live in the US and am also sickened by the lack of prominent headlines about this trial. This doesn’t seem to be very important to MSM at all now. I guess they got the mileage they wanted last year.

Shutting down discussions by calling people racists because they are talking about police behaviour in the wider community is helpful how exactly?

But just kindly knock off the whole "is it or is it not racism?"

If white people have also died because of a knee to the neck from the police force, then it is perfectly reasonable to consider the option that there is a problem with police brutality as a whole, and that GF may have died as a result of this, rather than the colour of his skin.