Friday, as the jury was being empaneled for the trial of fired police officer Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis City Council voted 13-0 to approve a record $27 million civil settlement with the family of George Floyd over his death in police custody.
The jury will not likely miss this message sent by the city fathers:
I.e., an atrocity was perpetrated by our police, and we are admitting our responsibility and doing our duty by offering these reparations for Floyd’s cruel and unjustified death and the suffering visited on his family.
Most Americans who saw the nine-minute tape of Chauvin with his knee on the neck of George Floyd as he pleaded, “I can’t breathe,” will probably concur with the charge of criminal culpability of Chauvin.
Yet, over the months, new facts and factors have emerged.
George Floyd was not choked to death. He was not asphyxiated. He was not killed by Chauvin’s knee on the side of his neck. An autopsy showed Floyd’s neck muscles were not even bruised.
Floyd died when his heart stopped. Yet, he was already suffering from an enlarged heart with constricted arteries, one of five of which was 90% blocked and two others were 75% blocked.
An autopsy found heavy concentrations of fentanyl in Floyd’s system and traces of methamphetamines. If Floyd had collapsed and died in the street while being wrested into the squad car, his death would have been attributed to a drug overdose and a bad heart.
Also, a videotape of the minutes prior to Floyd’s being put on the pavement, his neck under Chauvin’s knee, shows Floyd crying, repeatedly, “I can’t breathe,” while resisting the two rookie cops trying to put him in the patrol car.
Moreover, there is testimony from those with Floyd when he was stopped for passing an allegedly phony $20 bill, that he had passed out in the car before the cops arrived. And the arresting cops claim he was foaming at the mouth before being restrained.
In short, Chauvin’s defense attorneys will likely make a credible case, backed by evidence, that Floyd’s death was not caused by the knee on his neck but by the battered condition of his heart, the near-lethal dose of fentanyl in his system, and his anxiety and panic at being arrested and fearing, as he wailed, that he was going to be shot.
The prosecution will counter-claim that Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck, and the two other cops sitting on him, precipitated the stopping of his heart.
But the prosecution faces other questions.
How could Chauvin, who arrived late to the scene, know Floyd was a drug addict with a serious heart condition and a large amount of fentanyl in his system, before using the restraint technique of sitting on him and putting a knee on the side of his neck?
What was Chauvin trying to do when he arrived to see two rookie cops trying to cope with a powerfully built, six-foot-four-inch, 220-pound man violently resisting arrest?
Did Chauvin put his knee on Floyd’s neck to kill him? To torture or injure him? Or did he use the technique to restrain him?
Prosecutors will contend that the knee on the neck was criminal assault, a felony that caused Floyd to black out and his heart to stop?
But that raises another question:
Is placing a knee on the side of the neck an outlawed or a prohibited procedure for police to use to restrain a suspect violently resisting arrest, as a chokehold is in some precincts?
Or is it a procedure some police use legally at times?
Chauvin was clearly familiar with the technique. Had he used it before without injury to a suspect?
In a motion to dismiss the charges he himself faces in the death of Floyd, former police officer Thomas Lane included 30 pages of Minneapolis PD training materials including information on the “maximal restraint technique.” Lane included a photo of an officer with a knee on a suspect’s neck, similar to the hold used by Chauvin.
In preparing for the trial of Chauvin, Minneapolis has fortified, with concrete barriers, fences and razor wire, the courthouse where it will be held. Understandably, for any acquittal of Chauvin, or conviction on a lesser charge than murder, could trigger a riot like those that plagued the city through the summer of 2020.
And if a mob does take to the streets in Minneapolis, as it did all last summer, the national reaction will be telling.
How does one accurately describe a crowd that gathers outside a courthouse to demand, on the threat of a riot, a verdict of guilty?
And should a riot occur — and violent protests in Louisville, Seattle and Portland over the weekend seem to point to another such long hot summer — may we expect our new national leaders (Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer) to denounce the mob and stand up unequivocally for the rule of law?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.” To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
” — may we expect our new national leaders (Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer) to denounce the mob and stand up unequivocally for the rule of law?”
Surely you jest.
These disgusting Democrats have encouraged and supported the racist unrest in our country.
I.A.W. U.S. Census & FBI (Table 43a) Black males make up about 6% of the U.S. population but commit 53% of all the murders in the U.S… Every year there are ~5,000 African-Americans men, women and children killed and 96% of them were killed by fellow African-Americans.
How many bodies do you have to step over to get to the one that you think is important only because a White police officer was involved?
Try choking someone with your knee to the back of their neck. It cannot be done.
IF THEY CAN SPEAK THEY CAN BREATH..
That said, i know from training i got while in, you CAN put enough pressure on someone’s chest, via a knee in their back or kneeling ON them, to stop them breathing.. Though that’s NOT ‘choking them’,it IS restricting their capacity to get breaths in.
What killed George Floyd????? George Floyd was a criminal and a drug addict. Had George not been a criminal and / or a drug addict, Floyd would be alive today!
That is an irrefutable fact. Floyd’s own stupidity and drug addiction killed him. Good riddance.
I’ve seen SEVERAL news articles on the fact, HE DIED cause of a fentanyl overdose.. HE WOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD< even if no cop touched him…
Need to pass laws to stop this lottery type payout to criminals. He was a thug. He would have died anyway. So why pay his family a big old pile of money? He deserved to be buried in potters field.
AND ANY one given this much, NEEDS TO IMMEDIATELY and irrevocably be TAKEN OFF ANY and all government entitlement programs.. Especially welfare.
The killer of george floyd was george floyd. Just another example of how the blame for stupid sometime deadly choices cost the taxpayers and profits the families regardless of the amount of drug the dead one took to achieve their final goal.
By far the most important person in this mess was Mayor Frey when he announced that the only reason Floyd died was because he was black. Had he been white he’d be alive today. A white man saying a black man was murdered because of skin color. He also said that the cops should be arrested. This started the whole ball rolling. Numerous studies regarding treatment of blacks by cops have shown no difference as to how law enforcement treats blacks and whites. People need to research FBI figures. Should the outcome of this trial be not what they want, the populace will resume having fun this summer replenishing home goods. Or maybe they would prefer no charges. Floyd’s family should be sued by the community for not tending to his health.
Can anyone cite the catch phrase the pregnant woman who Saint George assaulted by sticking a gun into her life carrying stomach uttered when Mr. Floyd was ransacking her home for drugs and money? “I can’t breathe” has already been taken. There must be some hysterical, desperate, terrifying plea she cried while some career criminal released back into society was in the process of murdering her.
What woman. Saint george, never ‘assaulted’ any woman.. That’s fake news from right wing propaganda outlets..
ACCORDING TO THE LIBTARDS…
According to a news report, this same scenario occurred with George Floyd a year prior. That time he survived the overdose. This time, not so much! It was noted that he injested Fentynal as the police were trying to get him into the police car and became unruly as a result. The plan, as I see it was to restrain him as best possible till medical help arrived. Note that he did not die at the scene from being choked, but later at the hospital from the overdose and its effects on the respiratory system. I know the optics were bad regarding the method of restraint but it sure doesn’t deserve a $27M payout, especially before a verdict has even been reached in the case. Can the officer even get a fair trial now? I doubt it!
ThaT is why i say NO PAY OUT should ever be made, TILL THE CRIMINAL TRIAL has been resolved.. PERIOD.