The George Floyd Murder Trial Started

[stinkfish]

If he’s acquitted Minneapolis is going to burn. Think LA after Rodney King.

[dolphins4life]

I want to say, were there any options for the officers available?  

George Floyd was resisting and not cooperating.  The knee to the neck restraint seems justified to me.  Like I have said, though, I think he went to far in staying on him.

Could he have subdued him, and then lifted his knee off his neck and told him to stay still?

[Dave Gray]

Could he have subdued him, and then lifted his knee off his neck and told him to stay still?

Yeah.  That's the idea.  You don't kneel on any part of someone for 8 minutes, much less their neck.  Once cops have a suspect in custody, that needs to be the end of the man-handling.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I want to say, were there any options for the officers available?  

George Floyd was resisting and not cooperating.  The knee to the neck restraint seems justified to me.  Like I have said, though, I think he went to far in staying on him.

Could he have subdued him, and then lifted his knee off his neck and told him to stay still?

Once he was in handcuffs he wasn’t going anywhere.

[dolphins4life]

Here's another question:

George Floyd paid for his cigarettes, apparently with a fake $20.  (I still have not found confirmation whether it was or was not)

The cashier called the police.  Surely he must have had the $20 dollar bill on hand.  Did the police look at the bill to confirm whether or not it was fake before they arrested him?

Edit, so he did in fact use a fake $20. 

[ArtieChokePhin]

Here's another question:

George Floyd paid for his cigarettes, apparently with a fake $20.  (I still have not found confirmation whether it was or was not)

The cashier called the police.  Surely he must have had the $20 dollar bill on hand.  Did the police look at the bill to confirm whether or not it was fake before they arrested him?

He wasn't arrested for trying to pass a counterfeit $20.  He was arrested for disorderly conduct after he got defiant when confronted with the issue of the counterfeit $20

[Dave Gray]

It doesn't matter why he was arrested.

We should not be questioning the police officer's actions about confirming whether the bill was fake before detained or if he should have been detained at all.  It doesn't matter if he did nothing and it was a misunderstanding or if he burned down an orphanage full of children.  None of those things are on trial.

It simply comes down to once someone is detained and handcuffed, you can't kneel on their neck for 8 minutes.  It is reasonable to expect that 8 minutes of kneeling can either cause or contribute to someone's death.

[Pappy13]

None of those things are on trial.

It simply comes down to once someone is detained and handcuffed, you can't kneel on their neck for 8 minutes.  It is reasonable to expect that 8 minutes of kneeling can either cause or contribute to someone's death.

I agree with everything you said Dave except that's not exactly what the trial is about. The trial is not actually to determine if you can or can't kneel on someone's neck for 8 mins, it's about determining whether the police officer should have known that kneeling on someone for 8 mins could cause or contribute to their death. That's really what is being determined, whether this one officer should have known this and did it anyway. The defense is going to argue that his training led him to believe that what he was doing was acceptable. The jury will decide if they agree or not.

I got a feeling that it's very possible that the jury will find this officer not guilty and yet the police force will change their training policy and honestly I think that may be a fair outcome.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I got a feeling that it's very possible that the jury will find this officer not guilty and yet the police force will change their training policy and honestly I think that may be a fair outcome.

Anything less than murder and 20 years with an earliest parole date of 15 years is NOT a fair outcome.  I am not expecting a fair outcome.

[pondwater]

It simply comes down to once someone is detained and handcuffed, you can't kneel on their neck for 8 minutes.  It is reasonable to expect that 8 minutes of kneeling can either cause or contribute to someone's death.

Except that he died of an overdose according to the information known. If that information changes, I'll be more than happy to reevaluate my opinion based on the evidence. 

Anything less than murder and 20 years with an earliest parole date of 15 years is NOT a fair outcome.  I am not expecting a fair outcome.

How can you murder someone when the autopsy says that there were no life threating injuries and that he died of an overdose from an assortment of drugs in his system? 

[Spider-Dan]

Is that a common defense in murder cases?  That is to say, "I shot this woman and she died, but actually she died from a heart attack because she was high on drugs, so my shooting her had very little to do with it."  We all see the video of him kneeling on the neck of a handcuffed man for 8 minutes, past the point of unconsciousness.  And we're supposed to believe that this had nothing to do with it?  That the autopsy "showed" that this person died due to a heart attack that was Totally Unrelated to his transparently obvious restricted airway?  Give me a break.  If I (unjustifiably) shoot someone, and they die from a "heart attack" before medical care can be provided, I'm going to catch a murder charge.

While we're on the subject of autopsies, let's clear something up right now: the autopsy did not "show" that Floyd died due to an overdose.  The document you are repeatedly referring to is a charging document which provides an interpretation (from the DA's office, of course) of the information in the preliminary autopsy and the cause of Floyd's death.  The ACTUAL summary of the autopsy, from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office, clearly stated that Floyd's manner of death was "homicide": death at the hands of another.

So let's stop these pages of gaslighting about how the "autopsy showed" Floyd died of a "drug overdose."  It showed no such thing, because that's obviously stupid to anyone with a set of eyes in their head.

[Spider-Dan]

If he is found not guilty, he is going to sue the city and the Minneapolis PD for wrongful termination and get millions because the trial proves he was fired without cause and no one would argue that it ruined his chances at making a living.

That's not how it works.  For an easy reference, see OJ, who was found Not Guilty in a criminal court but liable in a civil case.

If a jury finds that Chauvin was not guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt, that does not somehow mean that Chauvin was proven innocent and has grounds to contest his termination.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Just spitballing here but:

How is the police can manage to arrest an active shooter that is armed and has killed 10 people including a police officer, but are unable to apprehend an unarmed man accused of passing a counterfeit $10 bill w/o killing him? Could it be they treat white and black suspects differently?

[Fau Teixeira]

Just spitballing here but:

How is the police can manage to arrest an active shooter that is armed and has killed 10 people including a police officer, but are unable to apprehend an unarmed man accused of passing a counterfeit $10 bill w/o killing him? Could it be they treat white and black suspects differently?

[stinkfish]

I don't think that THE POLICE are out to get black people. There are obviously some bad apple individual cops that will target or treat a suspect differently based on how they look. I had an acquaintance in my neighborhood. White guy. Couldn't understand why these asshole town cops were always hassling him, looking at him sideways, looking for him when something went down around town. They're picking on me. Nah buddy, you're just a fuck up and deserve the extra attention.