I assume the point of this is to persuade a reader who is unaware of the statistics? I think such a reader would be turned off by the "martyr facts" in the lower right. That reader would argue these facts and ignore the stats.
Everything you say about the Floyd case is correct but you omit a bit more. It’s not clear to me that Chauvin’s improper use of the maximal restraint technique was not a contributing factor in Floyd’s death. The stress from the whole thing possibly exacerbated the problems from the fentanyl and made his heart worse. It’s hard to tell if he would have died anyway in the counterfactual where he wasn’t arrested, just from the fentanyl.
I’m no fan of BLM and agree with the majority of what you write here.
Sure, George Floyd asked to be put on the ground, but he didn't ask for an officer to kneel on his neck for eight minutes, including three minutes after Floyd lost consciousness. He ignored warnings from bystanders and even other officers while doing so. A woman asked "Check his pulse and tell me what it is!" At this point, Ofc. Lane asked "Should we roll him on his side?" He's referring to the side recovery position, which MPD manuals instruct officers to use on suspects who are unresponsive and no longer posing a threat. Ofc. Chauvin then stated "No. He's staying where he is." The text of the slideshow, shown during the trial, clearly says "Place the subject in the recovery position to alleviate positional asphyxia." Two minutes later, Lane repeats the question, "Should we roll him on his side?" again. Chauvin ignores him.
It's really hard to believe that a rookie cop like Lane could know the proper thing to do to prevent positional asphyxia, but Chauvin, a veteran of over a decade, was not. This seems like callous disregard for the life of the suspect, to the point of ignoring even fellow officers.
Fentanyl is a downer, not an upper. If Floyd was overdosing, he would have been unresponsive and lethargic. He would not be agitated and actively yelling while overdosing on an opioid. The article you link to claims that he had over three times the amount of fentanyl needed to overdose in his system, but multiple witnesses at the trial attested, with graphs, that he had less than half the amount of fentanyl than the average overdose death.
You mention that the original autopsy doesn't say Floyd died of strangulation. This is because he wasn't, uh, strangled. He died of positional asphyxiation, where the lungs are compressed to the point in which only short, shallow breaths are possible. Multiple people die from this a year.
All this was brought up during the trial, so I have to assume you didn't follow the trial at all.
I agree that Chauvin's behavior was callous and reckless but you are giving a slanted account of the facts.
Floyd had meth in his system and meth is an upper. The combination of uppers and downers is even more dangerous than each individually. The fatal amount of fentanyl varies widely from person to person. People have died from doses much smaller than Floyd's (that's where the misleading "3x legal limit" stat comes from) and some people have survived doses much higher than Floyd's.
Floyd said "I can't breathe" BEFORE he was put on the ground which greatly undermines the narrative that Chauvin asphyxiated him.
The original autopsy report said he died of cardiopulmonary arrest, not asphyxiation or positional asphyxiation. Later, Floyd's lawyer and sympathizers commissioned a new "autopsy report" made by people who did not observe Floyd's body which said the cause of death was asphyxiation and neck pressure.
Moreover, people like me who point to this case as an example of mob mentality and the corruption of the judiciary need not prove Chauvin was innocent. We merely need to show that there was a reasonable doubt about whether his actions caused Floyd's death, which there certainly is, even if Chauvin was clearly guilty of lesser crimes of reckless misconduct.
Your account of the autopsy is mistaken. The original autopsy was by Andrew Baker, 12 hours after Floyd died, without seeing any video evidence or hearing from witnesses. It is not unusual to asphyxiate someone without leaving any physical injuries, so it isn’t suspicious that Baker found no evidence of asphyxia in his initial report.
"Cardiopulmonary arrest" is... vague. Your heart and lungs stop working, that's how everyone dies. But it wasn't just "cardiopulmonary arrest," it was "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression." When he wrote this report, Baker had not yet seen full toxicology reports or any video footage. He said that his final report was not complete. Five days later, Baker wrote in his final report that the manner of death was homicide. We don't have to involve the autopsy committed by Floyd's family.
(Side note: As far as I'm aware, the U.S. is the only country where medical examiners are expected to give the manner of death and not just the cause of death. Maybe we should... not do that?)
Fair point regarding the meth, and of course as a lifelong drug addict Floyd's tolerance was probably much higher than mine would be. (Not testing that theory.) I'm not basing my agreement that his death was due to positional asphyxia on anything Floyd said. It's not terribly relevant. It is, however, a suspicious coincidence that if he overdosed, he only happened to overdose five minutes after a guy was kneeling on his neck and back. And multiple specialists at the trial, none of whom appear to be activists, all said that Floyd did not appear to be in the midst of an overdose.
With that in mind, I don't think there is reasonable doubt about whether his actions caused Floyd's death, with the agitated and erratic state he was acting in before Chauvin's actions. I've seen an opioid OD, and the guy was basically asleep before I realized he wasn't breathing. The argument would have to be that Floyd coincidentally died of an overdose or natural causes while he was under Chauvin’s knee, and that Chauvin’s knee had nothing to do with it. Obviously the defense failed to convince the jury of this idea. The jury has since talked about the case, and one juror who was a holdout said he changed his vote to guilty not just based on the kneeling, but that Chauvin did not provide any lifesaving methods and ignored other officers' suggestions to move Floyd. This doesn't seem particularly corrupt, to me at least.
I assume the point of this is to persuade a reader who is unaware of the statistics? I think such a reader would be turned off by the "martyr facts" in the lower right. That reader would argue these facts and ignore the stats.
Understanding that the BLM martyr narrative is a lie is an indispensable part of the picture.
Everything you say about the Floyd case is correct but you omit a bit more. It’s not clear to me that Chauvin’s improper use of the maximal restraint technique was not a contributing factor in Floyd’s death. The stress from the whole thing possibly exacerbated the problems from the fentanyl and made his heart worse. It’s hard to tell if he would have died anyway in the counterfactual where he wasn’t arrested, just from the fentanyl.
I’m no fan of BLM and agree with the majority of what you write here.
Sure, George Floyd asked to be put on the ground, but he didn't ask for an officer to kneel on his neck for eight minutes, including three minutes after Floyd lost consciousness. He ignored warnings from bystanders and even other officers while doing so. A woman asked "Check his pulse and tell me what it is!" At this point, Ofc. Lane asked "Should we roll him on his side?" He's referring to the side recovery position, which MPD manuals instruct officers to use on suspects who are unresponsive and no longer posing a threat. Ofc. Chauvin then stated "No. He's staying where he is." The text of the slideshow, shown during the trial, clearly says "Place the subject in the recovery position to alleviate positional asphyxia." Two minutes later, Lane repeats the question, "Should we roll him on his side?" again. Chauvin ignores him.
It's really hard to believe that a rookie cop like Lane could know the proper thing to do to prevent positional asphyxia, but Chauvin, a veteran of over a decade, was not. This seems like callous disregard for the life of the suspect, to the point of ignoring even fellow officers.
Fentanyl is a downer, not an upper. If Floyd was overdosing, he would have been unresponsive and lethargic. He would not be agitated and actively yelling while overdosing on an opioid. The article you link to claims that he had over three times the amount of fentanyl needed to overdose in his system, but multiple witnesses at the trial attested, with graphs, that he had less than half the amount of fentanyl than the average overdose death.
You mention that the original autopsy doesn't say Floyd died of strangulation. This is because he wasn't, uh, strangled. He died of positional asphyxiation, where the lungs are compressed to the point in which only short, shallow breaths are possible. Multiple people die from this a year.
All this was brought up during the trial, so I have to assume you didn't follow the trial at all.
I agree that Chauvin's behavior was callous and reckless but you are giving a slanted account of the facts.
Floyd had meth in his system and meth is an upper. The combination of uppers and downers is even more dangerous than each individually. The fatal amount of fentanyl varies widely from person to person. People have died from doses much smaller than Floyd's (that's where the misleading "3x legal limit" stat comes from) and some people have survived doses much higher than Floyd's.
Floyd said "I can't breathe" BEFORE he was put on the ground which greatly undermines the narrative that Chauvin asphyxiated him.
The original autopsy report said he died of cardiopulmonary arrest, not asphyxiation or positional asphyxiation. Later, Floyd's lawyer and sympathizers commissioned a new "autopsy report" made by people who did not observe Floyd's body which said the cause of death was asphyxiation and neck pressure.
Moreover, people like me who point to this case as an example of mob mentality and the corruption of the judiciary need not prove Chauvin was innocent. We merely need to show that there was a reasonable doubt about whether his actions caused Floyd's death, which there certainly is, even if Chauvin was clearly guilty of lesser crimes of reckless misconduct.
Your account of the autopsy is mistaken. The original autopsy was by Andrew Baker, 12 hours after Floyd died, without seeing any video evidence or hearing from witnesses. It is not unusual to asphyxiate someone without leaving any physical injuries, so it isn’t suspicious that Baker found no evidence of asphyxia in his initial report.
"Cardiopulmonary arrest" is... vague. Your heart and lungs stop working, that's how everyone dies. But it wasn't just "cardiopulmonary arrest," it was "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression." When he wrote this report, Baker had not yet seen full toxicology reports or any video footage. He said that his final report was not complete. Five days later, Baker wrote in his final report that the manner of death was homicide. We don't have to involve the autopsy committed by Floyd's family.
(Side note: As far as I'm aware, the U.S. is the only country where medical examiners are expected to give the manner of death and not just the cause of death. Maybe we should... not do that?)
Fair point regarding the meth, and of course as a lifelong drug addict Floyd's tolerance was probably much higher than mine would be. (Not testing that theory.) I'm not basing my agreement that his death was due to positional asphyxia on anything Floyd said. It's not terribly relevant. It is, however, a suspicious coincidence that if he overdosed, he only happened to overdose five minutes after a guy was kneeling on his neck and back. And multiple specialists at the trial, none of whom appear to be activists, all said that Floyd did not appear to be in the midst of an overdose.
With that in mind, I don't think there is reasonable doubt about whether his actions caused Floyd's death, with the agitated and erratic state he was acting in before Chauvin's actions. I've seen an opioid OD, and the guy was basically asleep before I realized he wasn't breathing. The argument would have to be that Floyd coincidentally died of an overdose or natural causes while he was under Chauvin’s knee, and that Chauvin’s knee had nothing to do with it. Obviously the defense failed to convince the jury of this idea. The jury has since talked about the case, and one juror who was a holdout said he changed his vote to guilty not just based on the kneeling, but that Chauvin did not provide any lifesaving methods and ignored other officers' suggestions to move Floyd. This doesn't seem particularly corrupt, to me at least.