The Derek Chauvin Trial

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Im betting the jury wont be swayed by much of the defenses positions.

What or who killed Mr Floyd?
Who or what administered it?
Was excessive force the primary cause?
Should the defendent operated in a more humane and totally different manner?

Im sure the judges instructions to the jury will cover these points.

I hope you’re right.
But I can’t help worrying about that one or more of them who think a cop can do no wrong or the black person they confront can do no right, or both.
There are people to whom facts mean nothing if they don’t fit their preconceived ideas.
Some people watched the Capitol Hill riots and saw peaceful protesters.
Some people watched Trump **** up for four years and still think he’s a good man and good leader.

I hope you’re right, but I’ve thought there was an open and shut case against other policemen accused of crimes against a black person, and the US justice system has snatched that football right the **** away.

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@edgarblythe,

Wow, edgar blythe - that's really powerful. Extremely tragic.

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It's a bummer but I am going to miss the closing arguments Monday, have to be out and at the present time I don't have a phone. Might try to charge up my Kindle if I can remember the password...anyway, if I don't figure it out, I'll have to catch up later after they have already did their summation.

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@revelette3,

revelette3 wrote:

It's a bummer but I am going to miss the closing arguments Monday, have to be out and at the present time I don't have a phone. Might try to charge up my Kindle if I can remember the password...anyway, if I don't figure it out, I'll have to catch up later after they have already did their summation.

Don’t worry Rev - I’m sure they’ll be replaying everything remotely interesting that’s said in the closings, so you’ll get to see it.

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To me, the defense’s entire case can be summed up in one sentence:
“It was everything besides the knee.”

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I sat on a jury for a week some years in the past. All but one of us saw the verdict as a slam dunk. That last guy proved a total jerk. My way of saying it's impossible to guess how a jury will decide.

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@snood,

True and there is always Youtube.

It sure is horrible how many deaths either by mass shootings or by police there have been just in the last few weeks.

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Ya'll might think it is beyond obvious for me to say I think the police are either run amok or there is some kind of organization going on within the police members or officers.

Throughout Trial Over George Floyd’s Death, Killings by Police Mount

Quote:

MINNEAPOLIS — Just seven hours before prosecutors opened their case against Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer charged with murdering George Floyd, a Chicago officer chased down a 13-year-old boy in a West Side alley and fatally shot him as he turned with his hands up.

One day later, at a hotel in Jacksonville, Fla., officers fatally shot a 32-year-old man, who, the police say, grabbed one of their Tasers. The day after that, as an eyewitness to Mr. Floyd’s death broke down in a Minneapolis courtroom while recounting what he saw, a 40-year-old mentally ill man who said he was being harassed by voices was killed in Claremont, N.H., in a shootout with the state police.

On every day that followed, all the way through the close of testimony, another person was killed by the police somewhere in the United States.

The trial has forced a traumatized country to relive the gruesome death of Mr. Floyd beneath Mr. Chauvin’s knee. But even as Americans continue to process that case — and anxiously wait for a verdict — new cases of people killed by the police mount unabated.

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The EVERYTHING BUT THE KNEE defense

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@revelette3,

There are usually 1000+ citizens killed by police every year, over three per day. Now we're hearing about and discussing them

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

There are usually 1000+ citizens killed by police every year, over three per day. Now we're hearing about and discussing them

So you’re saying the numbers haven’t changed, just our awareness? I’d have to look the numbers up, but you’re definitely right about discussing it more - the ubiquitous phone cameras have made it more visible.

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@revelette3,

revelette3 wrote:

Ya'll might think it is beyond obvious for me to say I think the police are either run amok or there is some kind of organization going on within the police members or officers.

About “some kind of organization “ in the police force...

This PBS News story from a few years back talks about the FBI finding the increase in white nationalists joining the military.

White supremacists in law enforcement

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Just wanted to mention this somewhere and didn’t want to start a whole thread. It is tangentially related to this thread’s subject.

This is the kind of reform I think would help. It just means using the proper tools to do the job, and not trying to use a hammer (armed policemen) on everything,

Police in San Francisco no longer being called for nonviolent crises

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@snood,

That’s similar to what we have.

When someone calls 999 they are asked what service they want with mental health issues it’s usually an ambulance. If the police aren’t called out they usually don’t attend, and if they do they’re not armed with anything more lethal than a truncheon, taser and pepper spray.

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@izzythepush,

The police unions and police leadership we have are just too full of macho cowboys.

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@snood,

We have a Police Federation it’s not quite a trade union because the police aren’t allowed to join a trade union.

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@izzythepush,

They are very powerful here. And very supported by Republicans and the NRA.

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@snood,

snood wrote:

Just wanted to mention this somewhere and didn’t want to start a whole thread. It is tangentially related to this thread’s subject.

This is the kind of reform I think would help. It just means using the proper tools to do the job, and not trying to use a hammer (armed policemen) on everything,

Police in San Francisco no longer being called for nonviolent crises

I am so glad to hear that.

We have what we call a PAC team for mental health issues. You call them and they are accompanied by the police but the mental health worker does the assessment. In one case, a woman was having a bath, fully clothed, in her condo. It was a cold snap (-31 C) and her window was wide open. The daughter called the police who called the PAC team. They decided, based on her conversation, to take her to a psych unit. She refused to go. They called the EMTs who gave her a shot of sedation. She was in the psych unit for over 3 weeks.

There's no way the police will try to wrestle someone with mental health issues - they are simply not qualified. Hence the PAC team. And it's better for everyone, including the police.

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While we wait for the conclusion of the Chauvin trial, I'd like you to consider this recent traffic stop in Ohio. And ask yourself how this would have gone, were the driver a black man.

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@snood,

duh. he would have been shot dead.

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The Derek Chauvin Trial

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