The Derek Chauvin Trial

@glitterbag,

Frankly I’m a little shocked at the gall of someone coming on this thread, ridiculing others’ opinions, and then trying to come off as some kind of authority and claiming to be the “only one” on topic.

If I didn’t think it was an extremely important thing to discuss I wouldn’t have started the goddamn thread.

So anyway,

After one day of testimony, here’s my impressions...

First of all, I think my expectations about the possible outcomes of this jury trial were affirmed - let me explain. I never expected “justice” to be one of the possible results. I think a just reckoning for this crime would be conviction of murder with intent. They eliminated that possibility right off the bat. I think the prosecution’s opening statement clearly stated that they intend to prove intent as the trial unfolds. I think the family’s acceptance of the civil settlement induced them to accept a huge loss in the bargaining about what the criminal charge would be.

So, though I don’t hope for justice in this case, I hope for the harshest punishment possible and with what I understand, the maximum Chauvin could receive is something like 10-12 years in prison (though I may be mistaken here).

Two of the three witnesses were good for the prosecution. The one young lady seemed totally unprepared to be on a huge public stage, unfamiliar with what her role was supposed to be and unfamiliar even with the events to which she was supposed to be witness.

The young man’s testimony seemed to have been cut off due to some “technical difficulties”, which was unfortunate because I think his was the most damaging testimony to the defense. He was the guy on the tape who kept telling Chauvin he was killing Floyd, and that he was enjoying it.

I’m afraid that white people in this country may be vastly underestimating the effect that Chauvin’s exoneration would have on awake people of color.

We’ve seen that story so many times we can recite the script by heart. You know the drill: “The officer followed procedure. The dead black person was uncooperative and suspicious and criminal and dangerous and drug-crazed. The officer feared for his life. We have to accept the judgement of the jury.”

I just don’t think that script will be able to pacify, this time.

So, I guess we’ll see.

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@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

glitterbag wrote:
tried to cooperate.

I'm not really following this case, but I seem to recall something about the guy refusing to let the police put him in the back of a police car when they were trying to arrest him.

Even if that were true, when they got him handcuffed and laid out prone, he wasn’t presenting any resistance. Chauvin stayed on his neck for five minutes after he was UNRESPONSIVE. There is no justification. He may get off in this US justice system, but Chauvin’s actions are unjustifiable.

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@snood,

It looks like Max has started his own thread on this case where he can kick **** about and victim blame as much as he wants.

Hopefully he will leave everyone else to discuss the trial without harassing them further.

I have been following the trial, but have not commentated as I don’t feel qualified, what with being from another country and all that.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

It looks like Max has started his own thread on this case where he can kick **** about and victim blame as much as he wants.

Hopefully he will leave everyone else to discuss the trial without harassing them further.

I have been following the trial, but have not commentated as I don’t feel qualified, what with being from another country and all that.

I’m glad Max started his own thread. Maybe now he won’t feel like he has to run this one.

Your perspective and opinion might have utility not in spite of, but because it comes from someone who’s not a US citizen.

1 Reply

@snood,

I can’t get my head around living in a society where the police are routinely armed.

We do have armed police over here but they’re specialists, either guarding important buildings like theHouses of Parliament or manning armed response vehicles (ARVs) that are employed when they think the perpetrators may be armed.

Our police don’t have to consider there’s a fair chance members of the public are armed either.

I was once stopped on suspicion of armed robbery. It was a case of mistaken identity, I was driving the same model of car used in the robbery and my passenger matched the description of one of the robbers.

There were armed police and dog units in a couple of vans but I never saw any of them, the police I dealt with were all unarmed, and although Iwasn’t happy I didn’t feel frightened.

The funny thing was it ended very quickly, one radio message and they just vanished leaving me with the village constable who had come out to see what all the fuss was.

I can’t say how things would have played out had I been black, but I do think the amount of firearms in your society skews the public’s relationship with the police.

1 Reply

@snood,

snood wrote:

with what I understand, the maximum Chauvin could receive is something like 10-12 years in prison (though I may be mistaken here).

Second Degree Murder: not more than 40 years
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.19

Third Degree Murder: not more than 25 years
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.195

Manslaughter: not more than 10 years
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.205

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

I can’t get my head around living in a society where the police are routinely armed.

We do have armed police over here but they’re specialists, either guarding important buildings like theHouses of Parliament or manning armed response vehicles (ARVs) that are employed when they think the perpetrators may be armed.

Our police don’t have to consider there’s a fair chance members of the public are armed either.

I was once stopped on suspicion of armed robbery. It was a case of
mistaken identity, I was driving the same model of car used in the robbery and my passenger matched the description of one of the robbers.

There were armed police and dog units in a couple of vans but I never saw any of them, the police I dealt with were all unarmed, and although Iwasn’t happy I didn’t feel frightened.

The funny thing was it ended very quickly, one radio message and they just vanished leaving me with the village constable who had come out to see what all the fuss was.

I can’t say how things would have played out had I been black, but I do think the amount of firearms in your society skews the public’s relationship with the police.

Thanks, Izzy. That’s really very interesting- the contrast to how “law enforcement” is here.
What people don’t understand about the “Defund the Police” (misleading, scary name)idea here is that what’s being advocated for is rethinking how law enforcement is done. Armed policemen don’t need to be the only kind of person that answers every call. If a naked man is walking down Main Street yelling at people, a trained social worker and technicians would make more sense, and the person would not end up dead.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat every job like it’s a nail.

And that gives frightened, trigger happy or just plain bully policemen too much opportunity to kill and brutalize.

2 Replies

Quote:

You know the drill: “The officer followed procedure. The dead black person was uncooperative and suspicious and criminal and dangerous and drug-crazed. The officer feared for his life. We have to accept the judgement of the jury.”

Yup.

James Baldwin wrote:

America sometimes resembles, at least from the point of view of a black man, an exceedingly monotonous minstrel show; the same dances, same music, same jokes. One has done (or been) the show so long that one can do it in one’s own sleep.

No one will be surprised if Chauvin gets off with a slap on the wrist.

What would be a surprise would be a planned non-violent response in the aftermath of an acquittal. No burned neighborhoods, no looting, no shooting, no white supremacist provocateurs, no rioting cops, no hypocritical tongue-clucking from the white commentariat. It could be peaceful assemblies at city halls around the nation, it could be some sort of nationwide work stoppage, it could be a consumer boycott, it could be a children's campaign for justice, it could be a host of coordinated actions — anything that deviates from from the economically destructive events that we've seen again and again. Just a thought, a hope, although I'm not so naive to as expect to see anything different this time around.

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

Quote:
You know the drill: “The officer followed procedure. The dead black person was uncooperative and suspicious and criminal and dangerous and drug-crazed. The officer feared for his life. We have to accept the judgement of the jury.”

Yup.

James Baldwin wrote:
America sometimes resembles, at least from the point of view of a black man, an exceedingly monotonous minstrel show; the same dances, same music, same jokes. One has done (or been) the show so long that one can do it in one’s own sleep.

No one will be surprised if Chauvin gets off with a slap on the wrist.

What would be a surprise would be a planned non-violent response in the aftermath of an acquittal. No burned neighborhoods, no looting, no shooting, no white supremacist provocateurs, no rioting cops, no hypocritical tongue-clucking from the white commentariat. It could be peaceful assemblies at city halls around the nation, it could be some sort of nationwide work stoppage, it could be a consumer boycott, it could be a children's campaign for justice, it could be a host of coordinated actions — anything that deviates from from the economically destructive events that we've seen again and again. Just a thought, a hope, although I'm not so naive to as expect to see anything different this time around.

You’re certainly not naive. But are you self-aware enough to know that you can’t really understand what a slap on the wrist verdict would feel like to black people?

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@snood,

John Oliver said the same thing. When you defund social services the police end up having to do social work, and they’re not trained for it.

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@hightor,

I think it is amazing how a few events can be used to demonize an entire movement. On the whole, the BLM protests last summer pretty much matched your request, a non-violent response all across the country. The few places were things got violent get a lot of attention especially in a "if it bleeds it leads" news cycle, but I stumbled across a George Floyd protest in a small town in Georgia and I was impressed by the sincerity of the people who spoke and the respectful attitude by both the presenters, the law enforcement people who were watching, and the bystanders like myself who stopped to listen. The protests here in Wilmington were peaceful as well, but law enforcement was everywhere, armed to the teeth, looking for trouble. Unfortunately, the actions by just a few can prejudice the actions of the many.

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@engineer,

Thanks engineer. Well said.

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@engineer,

And those few can always face incredible provocation. You’ve already said the police were tooled up and looking for trouble.

What’s amazing is that there wasn’t a lot more violence by the protesters.

Like you said if all the non violent protests were highlighted instead of the few violent ones the feeling would be very different.

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@engineer,

Quote:

I think it is amazing how a few events can be used to demonize an entire movement.

Sure. The scenes of violence in Wisconsin were heavily exploited. And these few events continually play into the hands of the white "law and order" crowd. My specific (and apparently foolish) hope was that the worst aspects of this repetitive cycle, for once at least, might be broken, depriving the right-wing this source of propaganda. The non-violent demonstrations and signs of support in localities across the country were definitely covered in the media and witnessed by many but that didn't prevent people like Rittenhouse from becoming a new hero of the right.

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@hightor,

It’s a tactic the ruling classes have always used. We’re talking about the real elite here, the super rich global elite, people like Rupert Murdoch who owns Fox News.

Divide and rule, demonise one part of the working class, frighten the other one. Fear is good, if everybody is frightened of each other they won’t notice the Global elite getting richer and more powerful.

I’ll get off my soapbox now, sorry.

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

My specific (and apparently foolish) hope was that the worst aspects of this repetitive cycle, for once at least, might be broken, depriving the right-wing this source of propaganda.

It is foolish, to say the least.

The right wing will create scapegoats for propaganda, notwithstanding objective truth. They always have and they always will. They have to have their violent antifas, their marauding caravans of illegals, their Willie Hortons, their Cadillac-driving welfare mothers, their drug-smuggling children with calves like cantaloupes.

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@snood,

Quote:

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat every job like it’s a nail.

Great sentence.

I see that Donald Williams got to finish his testimony. What did you make of it? He got interrupted a lot.

I agree with you, no matter what George Floyd did or didn't do in the cup store, no matter if had drugs in his system, even if was hesitant about getting into the car, there is no getting away from the fact that Chauvin held him down in a martial arts move for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, longer than we thought all along. He did it while Floyd was handcuffed and on the ground and even continued to do it when Floyd showed no signs of responsiveness.

1 Reply

@revelette3,

The two girls who testified today broke my heart. The youngest turns 10 years old next week....so does my grand daughter....neither one of those girls will ever get those images out of their minds...and neither should we...

(I'm sending you a PM)

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@hightor,

One of the things we've been seeing in Canada in response , in great part, to Mr. Floyd's murder, is a change in the composition of our local and national media. Many more BIPOC talking heads and producers. Diversity in the opinions presented is a good thing.

On the ongoing downside, whenever we hear a shooter/stabber/slasher/mental health checkin is arrested/brought in quietly, the automatic thought is that they must be white.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

One of the things we've been seeing in Canada in response , in great part, to Mr. Floyd's murder, is a change in the composition of our local and national media. Many more BIPOC talking heads and producers. Diversity in the opinions presented is a good thing.

On the ongoing downside, whenever we hear a shooter/stabber/slasher/mental health checkin is arrested/brought in quietly, the automatic thought is that they must be white.

Unfortunately, the chances are better for a white offender to be taken into custody unharmed. At least in the US.

0 Replies

The Derek Chauvin Trial

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