Since the death of George Floyd, our esteemed media, as well as their Democratic allies, have suggested that Floyd’s alleged murder is representative of broader American white supremacy, that Floyd’s experience with law enforcement is indicative of how American police pose an existential threat to black Americans. They have offered no evidence for this proposition. Not a shred of evidence has been presented to suggest that former police officer Derek Chauvin’s actions the day of Floyd’s death were motivated by race. Not a shred of evidence has been presented to suggest that black Americans live at threat of extermination from whites or police officers: As of 2013, according to Reuters, a black person’s chances of being murdered by a white person were 5 in 1 million, and according to The Washington Post database of police shootings, as of 2019, a black person’s chances of being shot by the police while unarmed were approximately 3 in 10 million.
But facts don’t matter when you’re pressing forward a narrative.
Now that Chauvin is on trial for Floyd’s murder, the facts will once again become secondary to the narrative. Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., said that police reform is dependent on Chauvin’s conviction: “If there was ever a case that you can just not argue, it is this one. This trial has got to come out the right way, and we have to deliver.” Floyd family lawyer Benjamin Crump stated, “Today starts a landmark trial that will be a referendum on how far America has come in its quest for equality and justice for all.”
That’s simply not true.
Bass, Crump and the rest of the establishment media assume that Chauvin’s case is clear-cut — that nobody could possibly vote to acquit. The fact pattern, however, presents serious issues for the prosecution. Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. All three charges are a challenge.
The prosecution first has to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Floyd’s death was caused by Chauvin’s actions. But the autopsy report shows that Floyd had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system and had a serious heart problem, and that Chauvin’s neck hold did not in fact cause damage to Floyd’s trachea. That means that while Chauvin’s neck restraint may have contributed to Floyd’s death by ratcheting up his blood pressure, for example, it’s uncertain that it caused Floyd’s death more than, say, the excited delirium from which Floyd may have already been suffering.
Second-degree murder requires that the prosecution prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin unintentionally killed Floyd while committing a felony — in this case, felony assault. But felony assault requires “intentional” infliction of bodily harm — that Chauvin wanted to hurt Floyd, not just use a suppression tactic already greenlit by the Minneapolis Police Department.
Third-degree murder — depraved-heart murder — doesn’t actually seem to fit the crime here, since it requires proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin acted in a way “eminently dangerous to others.” Others — plural. Usually, depraved-heart murder applies to someone who fires a gun into a crowd, not a person who targets an individual.
Second-degree manslaughter requires that the prosecution prove that Chauvin acted with “gross negligence.” But such gross negligence would have to show that Chauvin should have known that his behavior might cause Floyd’s death — an unlikely expectation, since the Minneapolis Police Department actively taught neck holds of the type Chauvin used, and which Chauvin applied only after Floyd resisted arrest and refused to be confined to the back seat of a police car.
The Chauvin case, then, is a legally complex one. But such complexities have been abandoned in favor of narrative. Should Chauvin be acquitted, we are likely to hear that America has proved its racism once again. The only thing that has already been proved, however, is that the “America as white supremacist” lie will remain the media’s dominant narrative, no matter the data.
Ben Shapiro, 36, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show” and editor-in-chief of DailyWire.com. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers “How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps,” “The Right Side of History” and “Bullies.” To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
All articles about this trial state that Floyd was “murdered”, when his cause of death was fatal self ingestion of fentanyl. I have no problem with charges of (perhaps) excessive force/ restraint by the police officers, but a charge of “murder” is unwarranted. Floyd died by his own hand.
George Floyd Shouldn’t have been released from prison in the first place since he was sentenced for murder already, hadbesides George Floyd had just used a phony $20.00 dollar bill to buy something with at a store Not to bring up the fact that he was high on drugs when the police made the arrest of George Floyd. Certainly, he wasn’t a innocent individual that the police were picking on because of his race as the liberal media presented the story,
What made me laugh today, was that his GF (ya know, the one he SUPPOSEDLY SHOVED A PISTOL INTO the belly of), cried on the stands for him?
I see a hung jury. It only takes one not guilty vote.
And that hung jury will soon be hung themselves first by the media, them by the BLM street hunters liberally bred for social racial revenge.
Which is WHY i think anyone on that jury, is going to be TOO SCARED NOT to convict…
“Chauvin acted in a way “eminently dangerous to others.”……well what about Floyd, who if left to his drugged out state of mind decided to jump into his car and mow down some innocent by-standers? The man needed to be arrested and separated from society until his mind cleared and he stopped being a threat to himself and others. The fact that he chose to resist a duly trained police officer is the same as deciding to go swimming with drugs controlling your mind, setting up the same kind of expected threats to his own life in resistance as swimming naked with no control of your mind. To my mind this is a case of “Suicide by Cop” from a miserable existence created in another Democrat run city, system and educational environment that creates social dependency on drugs, for malleable political dependency control of the minds and souls, that always leads to fatal collateral damage to the black communities that buy into the great Liberal lies of racial hate, envy, and greed that deny almost each and every citizen in those black communities of the ability to self-govern themselves out of harm’s way, that eventually comes into every American’s lives that even the big and strong of body become helpless to survive in the Democrat Jungle where natural survival of the fittest gets turned into unnatural survival only of the most submissive.
Ahh he was black. SO he can do what he wants.
I still am puzzled. ALL these areas of “systemic” racism are in cities populated by Democrats who elect Democrat congressmen/women/things, Democrat senators, mayors, aldermen/women/things, and city council people. These Democrats in power then enact Democrat legislation, Democrat laws, and create DEMOCRAT POLICE FORCES to enforce these decrees. And so then what happens? When the minorities who were tricked into electing these communists are on the receiving end of their representatives’ known actions, they are outraged. And then how was it spun by the left and their ministry of propaganda formerly known as the main stream media? President Donald Trump and Republicans were given the blame. BLM terrorists went mobile and destroyed cities and neighborhoods of conservatives , most likely because they had already (excreted) in their own living rooms.
IT matters NOT about facts. IT matters not how long dems have RULED those cities, often with an iron fists of the unions etc.. ITS ALL white people’s fault.
So sayeth the left.
Plain and simple, the “systemic racists” are liberals. How is that for reality?
The facts are that Floyd was not murdered, and that all of the officers involved followed departmental policy to the letter. The officers went above and beyond in their attempts to get medical help for Floyd during the altercation. Floyd died in the hospital, not on the scene. Floyd is solely responsible for his own death.