The Derek Chauvin Trial

@snood,

snood wrote:

Yes. Also the prone position on the concrete, with arms drawn behind and handcuffed, in itself made it hard to draw a full breath. The weight of Chauvin and other officers on his back and neck just made it worse.

In that position a person can expel air, but cannot take a breath.
That's why a person can beg for mercy but still be asphyxiating.
And it answers the macabre statements made on the scenes of a couple of chokehold deaths(Eric Gardner) - "He's talking, so he must be able to breathe" - as they slowly murder another black man.

Murder?? They didn't intend to kill either one of them.

Instead of destroying the lives of innocent police officers, we should be trying to come up with better ways for the police to subdue resisters.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

How the hell do you know what he intended to do? Did you read his mind?
Why did Chauvin keep his knee on Floyd long after cops and EMTs had told him the guy wasn’t responsive? What do you say his intent was, for doing that?
I guess you are saying that he was concerned that this handcuffed, prone, immobile man was a threat to harm the four armed policemen who had him down.

It takes a specially cowardly wuss to still be afraid of someone over whom he and three buddies have every physical advantage...

You would take the side of this policeman no matter what his fellow officers and supervisors say; no matter what every single eyewitness says; no matter what the medical experts say; no matter what his prior record of complaints for brutality say.

Why is that?

1 Reply

@snood,

I know what he intended because it is obvious that he was just trying to subdue someone who was resisting arrest.

And you know, if no one bothers to solve the actual problem here, these deaths will just keep on happening, because police officers are always going to need to subdue people who resist arrest.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

I know what he intended because it is obvious that he was just trying to subdue someone who was resisting arrest.

What happens to the information that HE WAS NOT RESISTING OR EVEN CONSCIOUS AFTER FIVE MINUTES, when it hits your brain? Does it even reach your brain? Do you just ignore it, and replace it with information you like better?

oralloy wrote:

And you know, if no one bothers to solve the actual problem here, these deaths will just keep on happening, because police officers are always going to need to subdue people who resist arrest.

The “actual problem here” is that Chauvin murdered a man.

And another problem is that people like you would let him get away with it.

1 Reply

@snood,

snood wrote:

What happens to the information that HE WAS NOT RESISTING OR EVEN CONSCIOUS AFTER FIVE MINUTES, when it hits your brain? Does it even reach your brain? Do you just ignore it, and replace it with information you like better?

Who's to say that the resistance would not have resumed the instant that they let him up.

snood wrote:

The "actual problem here" is that Chauvin murdered a man.

When people die from being held prone, that isn't exactly murder.

It's not like anyone has come up with a good alternative method for dealing with people who resist arrest.

snood wrote:

And another problem is that people like you would let him get away with it.

I'm calling for society to develop better and safer ways for police to subdue people who resist arrest.

I'm not sure what more I can do. If I come up with a better technique myself, I'll be sure to post it. But I suspect that I lack the expertise to come up with such a solution.

0 Replies

Well everyone, we’re ten days into the trial. We’ve likely got at least two weeks before they start summing up. I might not be able to watch everyday, once the defense starts presenting their case. They just don’t have that much substance to work with, and I don’t think I’ll be able to withstand them slinging whatever horse pucky they think will stick.

I hope you all (most of you, anyway) continue offering your perspectives on this potentially historic trial.

1 Reply

@snood,

Something occurred to me listening to the pulmonologist, it seems as if Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyd's neck to run him out of oxygen. He also prevented Floyd from drawing any oxygen into his lungs and then kept him pinned down long enough to make resuscitation practically impossible. That makes it even more horrific to me.

1 Reply

@glitterbag,

I hear you.

When I watched that video, and then consider all the testimony of the witnesses, I don’t see how any reasonable person wouldn’t conclude that Chauvin knew - if not that he was killing Floyd, then at least that there was a real good chance he was killing him.

I’ll tell you GB - I can’t watch or listen to it for more than a second. It really shakes me. I could have been that poor guy, getting the life squeezed out of him.

2 Replies

@snood,

It's horrific, and it should scare the hell out of everybody.......

0 Replies

@snood,

snood wrote:

I don't see how any reasonable person wouldn't conclude that Chauvin knew - if not that he was killing Floyd, then at least that there was a real good chance he was killing him.

Many people do not understand the dangers of forcibly holding someone in a prone position.

0 Replies

I wrote this in FB, but it was relevant to this thread.

I’m sure I’m like a lot of other people in that I cannot watch the video of George Floyd being murdered. I’ve been watching the trial, but every time they start to show a bit of the video, I find I have to turn off the sound and avert my eyes.

Every time it plays and I get a glimpse of Chauvin’s face, it comes across to me again - this man knew what he was doing. He knew it, and he didn’t care who else knew it. He decided that George Floyd had breathed his last and he didn’t think anyone could do anything about it.

And. it. chills. my. very. guts.

These things scare me: 1)The evil assuredness in that man that he could kill - openly; boldly murder - and go on about his day.
And 2)the chance that someone on that jury is going to find him not guilty. Because if he can get away with THIS... there is nothing to keep this from happening to me or you.

0 Replies

There was just a moment of note between the defense attorney and the forensic pathologist.
He cited a study that showed that out of millions of police encounters with citizens, with hundreds of those ending up with a person in the prone position, that no deaths occurred.

When he asked the FP if she was aware of the study, she answered dramatically “Isn’t that remarkable? Especially when you consider that everyone of those police precincts had deaths of persons in custody.”

She was clearly intimating that these police sanctioned studies were inaccurate.
It has been a decades-long struggle, trying to get the police and FBI to document and make available the true numbers of deaths at the hands of law enforcement.

It’s no coincidence and not surprising that the one obscure study the defense produced supports their contention that Chauvin’s kneeling on a prone man’s neck had nothing to do with killing him.

1 Reply

I have blocked arteries and heart disease, I sure hate to think if someone smothers me with a pillow, someone don't come along and say, "lets pretend someone didn't smother her, is it possible she had died in her bed from heart complications.?"

1 Reply

@revelette3,

revelette3 wrote:

I have blocked arteries and heart disease, I sure hate to think if someone smothers me with a pillow, someone don't come along and say, "lets pretend someone didn't smother her, is it possible she had died in her bed from heart complications.?"

I bet if it was a cop who smothers you with a pillow, the chances are better that they’d try to cover it up.

0 Replies

They just had several hours of questioning the chief medical examiner. This was the man who, after doing an autopsy on Mr Floyd, made the determination that this was a “homicide”, and that the cause of death was “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual restraint and neck compression”.

As to all the other factors the defense keeps pointing to - the drugs, the heart condition - the CME says those are “contributing factors, but not the direct cause of Mr Floyd’s death”.

Seems pretty conclusive to me.

1 Reply

@snood,

Yeah, I know, so conclusive a person would wonder why Chauvin and his lawyer are not trying to make a deal. Nelson must have something up his sleeve and all they need is one juror who was not honest when answering questions and plans on a not guilty verdict regardless of logical facts to the contrary.

1 Reply

@revelette3,

Hi, Rev.
Did you know that Chauvin was asking to plead guilty to third degree murder before the trial began? He was trying to get a deal that would have been at least 10 years in federal prison.
But the Attorney General at the time- none other than William Barr- refused to grant him the deal, thinking that it would appear to be too lenient.

So they might not have anything up their sleeve. They might be going through this trial just because they had no other choice.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ag-barr-quashed-plea-deal-fired-officer-derek-chauvin-george-n1257457

1 Reply

@snood,

Yes I remember that being discussed a few pages back. Would that mean, no deal can be made during the trial? Or have I watched too much "Law and Order" in the past and that really don't happen much?

2 Replies

@revelette3,

Not sure.
My overall feeling right now is that it is the prosecution’s case to lose now. I think the chief of police and the pulmonologist scored big with the jury.

I’m a little worried about what the jury will be thinking after several days of defense witnesses spinning tales. They haven’t presented their case yet.

And like you said, it only takes the one pro-police juror.

0 Replies

@revelette3,

And something else scares me too, Rev.
Those 12 jurors were chosen and seated, in part, specifically because of what they said they DON’T know.

They were all asked if they knew about the case. They were asked if they had seen the video. Some of them admitted to having seen the video of Chauvin on Floyd’s neck. But they were also asked if they had any opinion or feelings about who was right or wrong in that video.

The jurors chosen by the defense had seen that video and then answered that they didn’t know if what Chauvin did was wrong.

They basically already have said that they can ignore what they see and hear with their own eyes and ears.

So that makes me worry that there will be one or more jurors to whom it won’t matter how overwhelming the weight of the witnesses’ testimony.

1 Reply

The Derek Chauvin Trial

Quick Links

My Account

able2know