Derek Chauvin murder trial (Police officer who arrested George Floyd)

[Werewolf]

"under the influence" - He had a lethal amount of fentanyl in his system, let's not sugar coat it. And it is possible to put your knee on someone's neck and not kill them.

No he had an amount that can be lethal.
Look up what is considered a "lethal dose" for many drugs, IIRC the term usually used is LD50, the point at which a substance is lethal for 50% of the population (or LD90 which is 90%).

The lethal amount differs from person to person, and if you've taken that sort of drug you tend to build up a tolerance for it - in much the same way a teenager who has a couple of cans of cider might be rolling drunk, whilst an alcoholic might drink a bottle of whisky and seem fairly sober* and may be able to still do quite complex tasks as you're used to the level of alcohol in your system and used to doing those tasks (but may run into issues if something unexpected happens).
With opioids this is one of the reasons people move onto ever higher doses (often in the US after getting hooked on prescription pain killers), as you can find the effectiveness of them drops so you need a higher and higher dose.

It's also why whenever they put you under for an operation they have a very highly trained, and specialised person to manage the drugs they use, as at one end of the curve you have people who might die from a fraction of the "normal" amount of any medication**, and at the other end you have people who need a lot more.

However it doesn't take a highly trained specialist to realise that when someone stops breathing and you can't find a pulse you should probably stop applying pressure to the neck - what to do when you cannot find a pulse is extremely basic first aid that is taught to the likes of scouts (IIRC beavers teach it and they're about 8 years old!).


*I believe it's where you get the term "functional alcoholic", and the same thing has been observed in many other drugs including cocaine etc as long as the person has the money to be able to buy it.

**Younger brother had an extremely rare reaction to a very low dose of one medication, apparently only one person in the hospital had ever seen it in person before, and then at some massively higher dosage and it was such a rare reaction they only had something like 2 doses of the antidote in the entire complex as they only carried it as an extreme precaution.

 

[Bear]

Why didn't the copper just handcuff the guy? then no need for the neck kneeling

He did, he was constantly resisting arrest

 

[deuse]

I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. It's possible to survive being shot 20 times. He kept his body weight on his neck for 8 minutes and didn't check him when he stopped responding.

You know that's false....don't you?

 

[deuse]

Why didn't the copper just handcuff the guy? then no need for the neck kneeling

They did and he was still fighting them.

Watch the latest video.

Beaten to it.

 

[MookJong]

The news coverage of this by both C4 and ITV last night was utterly jaw dropping and infuriating. Absolutely no effort to be impartial or rational.

If this man is not found guilty of murder then there will be riots and the media will be absolutely responsible. If I took the media portrayal at face value I would absolutely think there was some huge injustice happening here on the scale of Rodney King. It is reckless and irresponsible to paint this event in any other light than the one you see in the body cam footage and the autopsy report.

We are living in scary scary times.

 

[MadMossy]

Indeed right from the get go, GF was being confrontational and resisting arrest and instruction, so its no surprise at all the officers used restraint, they would be have been trained to keep a suspect restrained until backup arrives, some suggest they should have got off him when he stopped struggling, but for all they know he could have just pretended and tried to run off if they did.

 

[VincentHanna]

Even if he tried to run off, he was cuffed still and you can't run that fast with your arms behind your back.

And didn't any of the officers have a taser they could have used?

At one point he was fully in the back of a police car already and the police pulled him to put him on the ground which is when they restrained him with the knee...why not just slam the door on him? He was cuffed and the back of police cars are reinforced.

 

[MadMossy]

Watch the body cam footage and you'll see why, GF asked to lay down. Context is essential in this situation and the media are cherry picking everything to fit their agenda. Which we all know is white cop bad, black guy good.

 

[VincentHanna]

Watch the body cam footage and you'll see why, GF asked to lay down. Context is essential in this situation.

I can't breathe, I'm claustrophobic
Sorry sir, let me take you out of this vehicle and lay you on the ground with a knee on your neck instead, that'll help you.

the media are cherry picking everything to fit their agenda. Which we all know is white cop bad, black guy good.

I don't think I've seen anybody say George Floyd was a saint, he's clearly not the greatest of people, but it's typical police brutality.

I'm so glad the UK police force aren't like American cops.

 

[MadMossy]

No ours are the opposite, they do absolutely nothing.

 

[VincentHanna]

That actually ****** me off, I have tremendous respect for most of the UK police force who are often underfunded and generally de-escalate situations without killing anyone.

How many UK police have ended up killing somebody after a routine traffic stop for instance? Happens all the time in the US.

And yes it's partly due to their stupid gun culture. But - shock horror - It's quite easy to get a gun in the UK if you are a criminal.

 

[GreatAuk]

If the officer didn't cause floyd to stop breathing, what legal duty does he have to check him? Most likely there are police procedures to follow which he didn't, but from a legal pov?

It seems unlikely that he alone stopped him breathing, but could holding him in an awkward position contribute to his breathing bring more difficult if George was already having some difficulties? Probably.

Tbf from a legal point of view I don't know how it would be seen in America, but personally from a moral point of view I believe the officer in charge of restraining someone in a situation like that has a duty to keep an eye on their welfare, especially if there are already indications he needs medical assistance. Even if the neck restraint was appropriate and had no impact on George's ability to breathe the police should have noticed he was no longer responsive and attempted to give medical aid. I'm sure they have at least basic first aid knowledge and could have placed him in the recovery position once he became unresponsive which would have made his breathing easier, or begun cpr if he had stopped breathing.

 

[SpeedFreak]

If you are physically restraining somebody with force and they die, the balance of probability is that you have contributed to it. A dozen bystanders in the street could see what was happening yet a "trained" professional could not. Even if Floyd had resisted arrest previously, he was cuffed. The officer will be found guilty of something, the question is to what degree, murder or manslaughter.

 

[MadMossy]

How many UK police have ended up killing somebody after a routine traffic stop for instance? Happens all the time in the US.

How many of those situations has the person resisted arrest or instruction and been confrontational? Probably most of them.

The same happens here, people resist arrest/instruction and are confrontation from the start. The difference being our Police don't have a lethal weapon (discounting a taser which can be lethal).

With that in mind, would you be confrontational or resist a US police officer, knowing all to well they carry and are authorised to use lethal force when they feel in danger or the public are at risk?

 

[dowie]

Some people may accept plea deals while innocent in the US. You're ignoring the fact that for the most part police officers in the US get off scott free for blatant murder

This is another blatant murder. For some reason best known to yourself you're angry a white officer is facing justice for murdering a black man in cold blood

You're projecting now, try to deal with what is being said, arguments being made instead of second-guessing and throwing in your own emotive arguments - this incident happened in another country and I'm not angry about it nor do the race of the officers matter to me, the race is only relevant in relation to the angry by others and the publicity.

You don't seem to grasp that this case is obviously rather different to the typical ones involving a police officer because of all the focus on it, resources thrown at it etc..

 

[dowie]

Even that's debatable. It could be argued that a known history of violent crime is relevant to how the police handle a person. If you know that the person you're dealing with has committed armed robbery and is apparently (by their own statements) willing to shoot people, that is relevant to how you handle them. It could also be argued that since this is a political trial and character is being used by one side it should be allowed for the other side too.

Well yeah perhaps but I don't think that argument is being made, AFAIK none of the officers had a history of interacting with him from a perspective of police/suspect (Chauvin worked shifts at the same club). If they'd had interactions with him in the past and that was a reason they put him on the ground etc.. then perhaps those past incidents they had would be relevant. I don't think the details of the 2019 arrest with other officers or say his criminal record in another state were things known to them at the time ergo (for the court case at least) it's not relevant to how they approached him here. for us at home however then sure, we can look at it and see that he's kicking off as he did the first time, trying to delay and distract while he consumes or conceals the drugs and sure enough he gets into some medical difficulties just as he did before .

 

[Orangeade]

If you are physically restraining somebody with force and they die, the balance of probability is that you have contributed to it. A dozen bystanders in the street could see what was happening yet a "trained" professional could not. Even if Floyd had resisted arrest previously, he was cuffed. The officer will be found guilty of something, the question is to what degree, murder or manslaughter.

Only a bonafide idiot would think it was murder.

 

[dowie]

Not on a per capita basis

Also your post is divisive. Police shouldn't be killing people of any race. The deaths of white people are equally abhorent

This is naive - crimes aren't distributed evenly between racial groups on a per capita basis either, sometimes police do need to kill people - in particular armed, violent suspects (who are sometimes shot dead by the police). If the police in the US are a bunch of racist white supremacists then why do they kill or indeed arrest so few Asian Americans?

Given that black people make up a higher portion of armed, violent suspects then they also make up a higher portion of those who are shot by the police.

In an inner-city area you'll find a disproportionate portion of black people involved in crime too, in this particular case they're not targeting Floyd because he's black, they're targeting because he passed over a 20 dollar bill when wasted and after the store tried twice to get him to pay for his cigarettes they called the police... they're simply responding to that call... and of course once they get there they find someone high on drugs and behind the wheel of a vehicle - his race, again, has nothing to do with anything here, they have to arrest him and take him in, the fake 20 dollar bill is much less relevant at that point that someone high, concealing drugs, acting erratically and in charge of a motor vehicle!

 

[StriderX]

The news coverage of this by both C4 and ITV last night was utterly jaw dropping and infuriating. Absolutely no effort to be impartial or rational.

If this man is not found guilty of murder then there will be riots and the media will be absolutely responsible. If I took the media portrayal at face value I would absolutely think there was some huge injustice happening here on the scale of Rodney King. It is reckless and irresponsible to paint this event in any other light than the one you see in the body cam footage and the autopsy report.

We are living in scary scary times.

Riots = Ratings.

Simple as, we're all just meatsacks to the elite.

 

[deuse]

Even if he tried to run off, he was cuffed still and you can't run that fast with your arms behind your back.

I've read it all now...