News George Floyd

I would really like to bring attention to the awful fact that Derek Chauvin had 18 previous misconduct complaints reported against him... and his department never did ANYTHING to punish him for his crimes. This to me speaks volumes about institutional police corruption... speaking just from observation alone.

...And if we actually dive into statistics we would find that 99% of deaths caused by police from 2013-2019 have not resulted in officers being charged with a crime. To make matters worse... black people are 3x more likely to be killed by police than white people, and 36% of unarmed people killed by police were black (In a 2015 study) despite the fact that they only make up 13% of the U.S. population. These are just SOME statistics.

https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/

Police brutality is a verrrrrry big problem in the united states, especially towards black people and especially black men. :/

Damn, the corruption in the system is so deep that even the medical examiner looks like they were paid off or threatened. The autopsy report from Hennepin County Medical Center says that no evidence of strangulation was found, and that George Floyd may have just had a heart attack or overdosed while in police restraints.

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/25881/20200530/autopsy-report-george-floyd-died-asphyxia.htm

We the people are taken for utter fools.

Fortunately, George's family wisely hired an independent medical examiner to verify what everyone with eyes saw happen in the video, George Floyd died of asphyxiation, and it was homicide.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-floyd-death-homicide-family-independent-autopsy-finds/

VisionofMilotic said:

Damn, the corruption in the system is so deep that even the medical examiner looks like they were paid off or threatened. The autopsy report from Hennepin County Medical Center says that no evidence of strangulation was found, and that George Floyd may have just had a heart attack or overdosed while in police restraints.

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/25881/20200530/autopsy-report-george-floyd-died-asphyxia.htm

We the people are taken for utter fools.

Fortunately, George's family wisely hired an independent medical examiner to verify what everyone with eyes saw happen in the video, George Floyd died of asphyxiation, and it was homicide.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-floyd-death-homicide-family-independent-autopsy-finds/

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I think this is getting misreported by news outlets. The county medical examiner found "no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxiation or strangulation" - which means there weren't physical findings of trauma to his windpipe, but that does not rule out asphyxiation as he could have simply had any part of his lungs or neck compressed without them being overtly strangulated or damaged. An autopsy report is a lengthy process and I think the medical examiner's office was under pressure to update results as soon as they could, regardless of how misleading it might be to the public that cannot interpret these results without context. They have since provided further updates that conclude the death was homicide due to being restrained.

Kanzler said:

I think this is getting misreported by news outlets. The county medical examiner found "no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxiation or strangulation" - which means there weren't physical findings of trauma to his windpipe, but that does not rule out asphyxiation as he could have simply had any part of his lungs or neck compressed without them being overtly strangulated or damaged. An autopsy report is a lengthy process and I think the medical examiner's office was under pressure to update results as soon as they could, regardless of how misleading it might be to the public that cannot interpret these results without context. They have since provided further updates that conclude the death was homicide due to being restrained.

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Look at the lines that followed in the preliminary autopsy report from Hennepin County. The medical examiner said this:

The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation. Mr Floyd had underlying health conditions, including coronary artery disease, and hypertensive heart disease. The combined facts of Mr Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants likely contributed to his death.

The next two sentences are important to the framing by the state examiner, because they did not simply say that there was no traumatic asphyxiation/strangulation, he just died of asphyxiation from having his neck and back compressed as the independent autopsy found. They acknowledged that George died in police custody, but they connected his death to pre-existing medical problems like a bad heart, as if kneeling on your neck for 10 minutes may not have been enough normally to kill you, he was just already sick.

Dr Baden who conducted the independent autopsy responded by saying, "What we found is consistent with what people saw. There is no other health issue that could cause or contribute to the death."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-autopsy-findings-released-monday/5307185002/

The state was reading from the same script they used after Eric Garner's death. Yes, the police had him in a chokehold for 20 minutes... but his asthma is what really killed him.

The county released a new report with significantly different language than they previously did right after the Floyd family publicized results from their independent autopsy that seemed so contradictory to theirs. It's not just the media failing to do a thorough job of reporting, the report last week implied that his death could be equally related to other lifestyle issues, and prosecutors used this in the charging papers when they sought only manslaughter.

Now the DA is being called upon to seek first degree murder charges with that the findings from the independent investigation.

VisionofMilotic said:

Look at the lines that followed in the preliminary autopsy report from Hennepin County. The medical examiner said this:

The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation. Mr Floyd had underlying health conditions, including coronary artery disease, and hypertensive heart disease. The combined facts of Mr Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants likely contributed to his death.

The next two sentences are important to the framing by the state examiner, because they did not simply say that there was no traumatic asphyxiation/strangulation, he just died of asphyxiation from having his neck and back compressed as the independent autopsy found. They acknowledged that George died in police custody, but they connected his death to pre-existing medical problems like a bad heart, as if kneeling on your neck for 10 minutes may not have been enough normally to kill you, he was just already sick.

Dr Baden who conducted the independent autopsy responded by saying, "What we found is consistent with what people saw. There is no other health issue that could cause or contribute to the death."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-autopsy-findings-released-monday/5307185002/

The state was reading from the same script they used after Eric Garner's death. Yes, the police had him in a chokehold for 20 minutes... but his asthma is what really killed him.

The county released a new report with significantly different language than they previously did right after the Floyd family publicized results from their independent autopsy that seemed so contradictory to theirs. It's not just the media failing to do a thorough job of reporting, the report last week implied that his death could be equally related to other lifestyle issues, and prosecutors used this in the charging papers when they sought only manslaughter.

Now the DA is being called upon to seek first degree murder charges with that the findings from the independent investigation.

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Honestly, I wouldn't read so much into the original report. It is probably factually the most complete conclusion, since they acknowledge all potentially contributory factors. You can understand why this might set people off, but the original report is factually correct and they make no comment on the significance of any of the factors. You have to take a medical report at its word, but of course, the media and laypeople are not going to acknowledge the limited scope of those conclusions and will extrapolate. And again, they were initial findings. Their approach to give the most conservative and complete conclusion possible by acknowledging all potentially contributory findings is reasonable given the that results were preliminary. Most likely at that point they had only completed the visual component of the autopsy and some toxicology tests, and were not able to look at his tissues under a microscope and other tests that probably take a longer time.

I would not read into the earlier report more than what the report says itself. Not that it matters now that the complete results are out. The politics of his death has made everybody's job more difficult. I'm sure the prosecutors would have liked to have a complete result before they laid charges, but public pressure would have forced them to lay charges on whatever evidence was available at the time. And the medical examiner likely would not have revealed the interim results without the pressure of the situation.

I'm honestly sick and tired of innocent black people being killed by the police, as well as tormented and questioned by them for doing nothing wrong. It's absolutely disgusting, More than just firing this police officer has to be done, and the protests need to keep happening.

Also, any parents who were upset about that I Can't Breathe commercial that aired on Nickelodeon today are pathetic. I'm gonna just say that.

Kanzler said:

Honestly, I wouldn't read so much into the original report. It is probably factually the most complete conclusion, since they acknowledge all potentially contributory factors.

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I am afraid I must strongly disagree that the Hennepin County Medical's original findings were probably the most factually complete conclusion. Chiefly after saying there was no strangulation or traumatic asphyxiation, they mentioned nothing else of asphyxia. Clearly this was a horribly incomplete picture to show the world, rather than the most complete.

Also in the independent examination by Dr. Michael Baden and Dr. Allecia Wilson they found no other obvious cause of death, but asphyxia due to the neck and back pressure. The only possible contributing factors they could find were being handcuffed on the ground with the pressure of the officer's weight on his back.

Dr. Baden, who is a very well-known member of the scientific community famous for investigating the assassinations of Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Medgar Evers and President John F Kennedy, has stated that heart disease didn't cause or contribute to George Floyd's death, and that there was no other health condition. He said Floyd was actually in great health, and commented that he wished he had the arteries that George Floyd had!

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ir-flow-george-floyd-s-brain-causing-n1221316

The state medical examiner differed, saying instead that he had "significant" underlying conditions, including hypertensive heart disease, and found that they likely contributed to this death.

Significant is the opposite from minor, and not contributing is the opposite of likely contributing to. How can I not be expected to read into the discrepancies in the state report from the independent one?

Kanzler said:

You can understand why this might set people off, but the original report is factually correct and they make no comment on the significance of any of the factors.

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They did make a comment on it, they said implicitly that they likely contributed to his death.

Mr Floyd had underlying health conditions, including coronary artery disease, and hypertensive heart disease. The combined facts of Mr Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants likely contributed to his death.

They afforded a possible heart condition and any medications he may have been on the same level of importance as him being "restrained" by the police. As if they could have all been equally to blame as the pink elephant in the back of the room, a 200 pound police officer crushing down on top of this man's neck and back with the weight of his knee and boot for 10 minutes. Probably only because he was an athlete did this poor guy last as long as he did while suffering under such excessive force.

Kanzler said:

And again, they were initial.

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I would be more trusting if they had ruled homicide before the Floyd family released the findings of their independent investigation. When another report was publicized that did not seem to align with theirs, then the local medical examiners instantly overcame the time-consuming process and had homicide results in that same day. I suspect the results would continue to look much more like the initial findings had the family not been on the case. My prayers are with them for justice.

Medical examiners certainly can be influenced to report only findings that corroborate whatever the state says. During the autopsies from the Attica prison revolt in the 70s medical examiner John Efland was surrounded by state troopers standing over him and directing everything he did as he tried to conduct an investigation. The whole government came down on him, even the governor's office, pushing him to parrot the account of the police. The story they wanted out there was that the prisoners maniacally murdered all of their hostages when the authorities heroically retook the prison. But this was a lie. The hostages were shot to death, yet the prisoners had no guns, they only had knives. The chilling reality is that the raiding police shot down inocent people that were in their way to retake the prison at all costs. Fortunately this examiner refused to back down from the truth, even though his career was almost destroyed for it, but the point is the corruption can potentially interfere with a medical examination.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ohn-f-edland-atticas-heroic-medical-examiner/

Kanzler said:

The politics of his death has made everybody's job more difficult. I'm sure the prosecutors would have liked to have a complete result before they laid charges, but public pressure would have forced them to lay charges on whatever evidence was available at the time. And the medical examiner likely would not have revealed the interim results without the pressure of the situation.

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I'm not confident enough in the system to feel as sure as you say you are. What you are saying is how it should have worked for sure, but if the system was always well-intentioned then George Floyd would still be alive.

Even with both reports now saying homicide Chauvin has still not been charged with first degree murder, and none of his accomplices have been charged with anything, despite new video of 3 officers kneeling on George's neck. Only 1 of them has been charged.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/george-floyd-new-video-officers-kneel-trnd/index.html

I hope this changes, and they all are taken down, but the feds definitely did not race off to lay charges due to public pressure, the only thing that was rushed out to the public were preliminary autopsy results that could be used to buttress the claims of the police. If anything the pressure to make this partial report public looks more like it was in the interest of the police department, not ours. Thankfully however there was another team of investigators on the case this time.

Gotta double post to announce some breaking good news. All four officers are going to be charged, and the charges have increased. Way to go Keith Ellison, the attorney general who has now stepped in to oversee this case! That's something good.

That's good to know. Hopefully this can come a long way from... well, how did they call it in the initial charges? "Accidental"? "Involuntary"?

VisionofMilotic said:

-snip-

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I think I'm beating a dead horse at this point, but you can't logically infer that the medical examiner meant equal significance among the factors when they only listed the factors without any mention of relative significance at all. You just can't, at least not on the basis of what the medical examiner provided you.

Doesn't really matter for the discussion now anyways, since upon reviewing that article you provided I agree with you that the two autopsy reports are significantly different. That is surprising. I didn't know the history of law enforcement twisting the arms of medical examiners in the US. Needless to say, I was shocked and disgusted.

There may be some difficulty in gettin a first-degree murder charge. Just perusing the criminal code in Minnesota, there are seven cases under which someone can be guilty of first-degree murder, but I don't think any of them fit. The most applicable case would be causing "the death of a human being with premeditation and with intent to effect the death of the person or of another", but the operative word here is 'and'. Even if you can prove intent, it would be really hard to prove premeditation in this case.

You really don't think public pressure affects what the DA is thinking or doing? They made the charges for the three other officers when that new video came out, which makes me think they found out about the video not much earlier than we did.

Kanzler said:

There may be some difficulty in gettin a first-degree murder charge. Just perusing the criminal code in Minnesota, there are seven cases under which someone can be guilty of first-degree murder, but I don't think any of them fit. The most applicable case would be causing "the death of a human being with premeditation and with intent to effect the death of the person or of another", but the operative word here is 'and'. Even if you can prove intent, it would be really hard to prove premeditation in this case.

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I am not from the US and I haven't played a lawyer on TV, but asking anyway, what makes premeditation "hard to prove" in this case? The officer chose to use force the way they did, which children as early as fifth grade know that can end up wrong. The officer did not sit or push themselves on the deceased's knee, no, and he had access to a ready option to secure the prisoner and break access to them from himself and other sources at less than 5 m distance.

I'm also wondering under what premises would this case be considered involuntary or not first degree murder. While it is true the deceased had "pre-existing conditions", those conditions were already preexisting at any and all times before the arrest: the day before, the week before, the year before. Yet, he did not die until murdered (yes, I know that sounds stupid to state but... people these days do are missing common sense). Thus, the deciding factor in his death can not be the preexisting condition but must be the fact that a killing procedure was applied to him. Procedure which, as any reputable doctor can attest, can also kill a person who does not have those preexisting conditions.

premeditation means that the officer sought to knowingly kill george floyd ahead of time - all accounts seem to indicate that while chauvin is a racist abusive sack of dog shit, and had multiple instances of unwarranted force in his history, first degree murder relies on the assumption that chauvin knowingly planned to kill before the situation happened
he knew the difference between right and wrong, knew what he was doing, understood consequences and so forth, but it is unlikely that it can be considered premeditated because he was not 'lying in wait' for floyd

and while i think he is guilty of first degree murder in the sense that his history of racism devalued chauvin's viewpoint of floyd, as a black man, to the point where his job as a cop with little to no accountability allowed and encouraged him to commit murder, it is incredibly unlikely that a jury would vote for conviction on first degree murder charges

Her said:

premeditation means that the officer sought to knowingly kill george floyd ahead of time - all accounts seem to indicate that while chauvin is a racist abusive sack of dog shit, and had multiple instances of unwarranted force in his history, first degree murder relies on the assumption that chauvin knowingly planned to kill before the situation happened
he knew the difference between right and wrong, knew what he was doing, understood consequences and so forth, but it is unlikely that it can be considered premeditated because he was not 'lying in wait' for floyd

and while i think he is guilty of first degree murder in the sense that his history of racism devalued chauvin's viewpoint of floyd, as a black man, to the point where his job as a cop with little to no accountability allowed and encouraged him to commit murder, it is incredibly unlikely that a jury would vote for conviction on first degree murder charges

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To be honest, I think demonstrating abuse of power in a murder should be an aggravating factor, in the same way that in many places killing a cop, or committing sexual crimes during a murder would qualify for a first-degree murder. It makes sense to me, as it's especially heinous for a police officer to take advantage of their authority in taking a life. Even if it would open up the cop to the death penalty in certain places, it would only be as just as the other cases for first degree murder. At least the system would be fair.

So I came across this article released today... and it's about Melissa Borton who was one of the 17 or so people who had filed a formal complaint against Derek Chauvin in the past for police misconduct...

Here's the part I'd like to emphasize:

Chauvin and an unnamed officer "without a word" reached inside her car, unlocked the door and began pulling her out while she was still strapped in, Borton recalled in an interview with The Times.

"They fumbled with my seat belt and dragged me away," Borton said. "They didn't say anything to me this entire time."

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What happened was this person matched the description of someone they were looking for, so these two officers took it upon themselves to forcefully pull her over and drag her out of her car without saying a single word to her. No interview, no distance, they just basically tore her out of her car. Imagine what how terrifying that would look like if they weren't in a police car and dressed like average people??? An abduction comes to mind...

So like she filed a complaint against the police department, and never heard anything back. After waiting for over six months, she called the department asking about it and found out he got a slap on the wrist. This had probably already happened many times before because they just don't care.

This part is especially sad and chilling...

Borton only recently learned that Chauvin was involved in her detainment. After watching the video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck, she suspected he was one of the officers who pulled her over. "There was something that registered in my brain" when I saw Chauvin, Borton said. "I told my partner, 'I think that's the guy.'"

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That man is honestly so cruel and wicked.. and it's a real disgrace that he was able to get away with his behavior for SO LONG with no reprimanding, and no real consequences to his actions at all. It's truly sick and it shows the institutional corruption of police departments for being complicit by not holding their officers accountable.

So we can say that this man had probably been abusing his power for his whole entire career... and what really sickens me is to know that there are probably MANY other officers like him, out there, but still to this day have never been held accountable. People are losing more and more faith in police officers and I can't blame them.

Kanzler said:

I think I'm beating a dead horse at this point, but you can't logically infer that the medical examiner meant equal significance among the factors when they only listed the factors without any mention of relative significance at all. You just can't, at least not on the basis of what the medical examiner provided you.

Doesn't really matter for the discussion now anyways, since upon reviewing that article you provided I agree with you that the two autopsy reports are significantly different. That is surprising. I didn't know the history of law enforcement twisting the arms of medical examiners in the US. Needless to say, I was shocked and disgusted.

There may be some difficulty in gettin a first-degree murder charge. Just perusing the criminal code in Minnesota, there are seven cases under which someone can be guilty of first-degree murder, but I don't think any of them fit. The most applicable case would be causing "the death of a human being with premeditation and with intent to effect the death of the person or of another", but the operative word here is 'and'. Even if you can prove intent, it would be really hard to prove premeditation in this case.

You really don't think public pressure affects what the DA is thinking or doing? They made the charges for the three other officers when that new video came out, which makes me think they found out about the video not much earlier than we did.

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I think we're both coming from the same place of wanting to see the law upheld. Our criminal justice system is long overdue for reform, and that's an understatement.

One thing I think is worth noting is that all of them got charged and the charges were increased only one Attorney General Ellison was appointed by the governor to take over the prosecution of the case. There was a great deal of concern in the community that this was going to be a show trial and that the prosecutors were not serious about attempting to get justice. It's not that I don't think public pressure is factor, but bias by the County Attorney's Office in favor of the officers that work in that county can also be a factor, considering that there are so many prior bad acts emanating from this police department. At least two of the cops involved have had multiple police police brutality accusations against them, including several shooting deaths by Chauvin, but prosecutors were not charging him. So I do think there is corruption in this county that needs to be rooted out.

What the charge against Chauvin was raised to yesterday was Second Degree murder. I actually think that's an accurate descriptor of what happened. There are a lot of subdivisions of second degree murder in Minnesota, so it can get confusing to follow but with second degree murder you don't have to show premeditation like you do with first degree murder. You don't even necessarily have to prove an intent kill, there can be an intent to kill, but not always. Second degree murder can be a lot of different crimes.

What I think they are going for in the Floyd murder case would be the first clause in the second subdivision. I got this from Minnesota's Office of Revisor and Statues, but it expressly says anybody is guilty of second degree murder who:
causes the death of a human being, without intent to effect the death of any person, while committing or attempting to commit a felony offense.
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.19

If you kill someone while you're committing a felony then you have committed second degree murder whether you intended or not. Some states call it felony murder. Let's say you're trying to rob someone, and you hit them in the head with a crowbar and that person dies, then that would be second degree murder. In that case the robbery is the felony, in Chauvin's case the felony is assault.

Chauvin has been charged with third degree assault in addition to murder, what that constitutes is the reckless infliction serious bodily injury. He is not just doing his duty as a police officer and simply trying to conduct an arrest. He is not defending himself against someone attacking him. His victim is unarmed, already handcuffed, restrained and immobilzed. He has done his job, but rather than just take him to the police station he stops to have some fun. He knelt on this poor man's neck for 9 minutes, compressing his neck and back. What he is doing is performing a slow torture.

Floyd kept screaming and begging, telling him that he couldn't breathe more times than I could count, he asked for a doctor, and was denied care, and kept praying out loud that they didn't kill him, and his prayers fell on deaf ears. So Chauvin can't make an argument with a straight face that he didn't know he was seriously harming him. Floyd cried out that he was in pain all over his body, and that Chauvin was hurting his private parts, but Chauvin just kept coolly pressing all his body weight down on him as minute after minute goes by, taunting him with his friends as bystanders scream and beg for mercy too, warning him that Floyd could die. One man even cries out that this a human being, but Chauvin ignores him, and continues crushing an unresponsive man. That's an assault. Assault is a felony, and if someone dies while you commit the crime of a felony you're guilty of second degree murder.

What I believe is that Chauvin is a sadist. He didn't have to do this, but did it because he felt like it, taking advantage of someone he had subdued that he thought nobody would care about. Since the number of complaints against him are into the double digits I think it's safe to say that Chauvin mistreats people in his custody. If he would do this cruel thing right on the street in broad daylight in front of a crowd of onlookers, I don't even want to imagine what he would do when he thinks nobody can see.

If he's found guilty, which I really hope he will be, then he'll go to jail for 40 years. It's not a life sentence like you might get with a first degree murder charge, but if he serves 40 years it's almost life. He could die in prison, or if he some out he should be an old man and unable to hurt anyone else in the community, and neither will his buddies if they're found guilty of aiding and abetting. Helping someone as they commit a crime carries the same sentence as if you did it yourself, so each of them would get the 40 years if convicted as well, and effectively be swept off the streets for good like they should be.

It's very hard to comment on this thread when other people keep voicing my thoughts, but I really want to reiterate something that was said earlier. Even if the first ME's report wasn't full of shit and Floyd had indeed had preexisting medical conditions, Chauvin and his fellows are still liable for Floyd's death if their excessive use of force exacerbated those conditions to a point they became fatal. There is literally no scenario here where Chauvin and the other officers did not murder Floyd.

Unfortunately George Floyd's murderers are all out on bail and free to enjoy themselves, including Derek Chauvin, the one who delivered the death blow on his neck for 8 minutes. Must be nice to be able to get a million dollars to bail yourself out of jail. Chauvin doesn't even have to stay in his home in Minneapolis until trial or even in the state Minnesota.

He doesn't deserve bail. I wonder how long before he tries to run?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehil...-establish-residency-outside-of-minnesota?amp

How did police officers get 1mil? Don't tell me there was a donation pool.

Fucking sickening.

Dimitri said:

How did police officers get 1mil? Don't tell me there was a donation pool.

Fucking sickening.

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Apparently what happened was that a "bail bond company" (didn't know that this was a thing until now) footed most of the bill. Supposedly under Minnesota law the person posting bail only has to pay 10% of the bail amount if someone else or an organization can pay the rest. Or something like that.

https://apnews.com/article/police-t...apolis-crime-1e0d9bcb6e751c31c8de0794434c5730

It was not immediately clear where Chauvin got the money to pay his bond. In Minnesota, someone who posts bond is required to pay 10%, in this case $100,000, to the bail bond company. Then, the company and the defendant work out an arrangement for collateral to back all or part of the rest of the bond amount, said Mike Brandt, a criminal defense attorney who is not connected to the case.

A message left with the company that posted the bond, Allegheny Casualty Company, was not immediately returned.

The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, which has a legal defense fund, did not provide any money for bail, a spokeswoman said. Bob Kroll, president of the Minneapolis Police Officers Federation, said his union was not involved.

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I see, thank you for explaining! But I'm guessing it's something it's something like the Minnesota freedom fund, where others helped bail protestors?

I don't know much about how jail works, sadly.