policeman in george floyd case should probably be found innocent

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#1
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the main reason i say that, is because the police man's supporters say floyd was gonna die anyway as he was doped up. they seem sure of it. i think this is the key issue that it will all hinge on, how likely floyd was gonna die and how much policeman contributed. i dont buy it that policeman should be found guilty just for making the death come sooner if he was gonna die anyway... and i dont think he should be found guilty if there was just a very small chance floyd would have lived. 

what i think this all should boil down to, is what percent of doubt is truly reasonable doubt? ten percent? five percent?  if there was a five percent chance floyd could have lived, i dont think we can say the policeman is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. id draw the line at ten percent. basically i think we need to be ninety percent sure someone did the crime before finding them guilty. and id say that probability of reasonable doubt, is tied exactly to whether floyd was gonna die anyway. 
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@n8nrgmi
Honestly I don't know much about the law or justice in America.
What fits parameters/expectations for definitions and punishment.

I'd imagine most people would agree that 'some sort of consequence needs be dealt to the police officer.

Is it retributive or restorative justice that people seek however?

Older societies might call the settlement given to George Floyds family a wergild, justice fulfilled.
The officer additionally lost his job.
But some might still feel a need for correction to the officer.

“Let the whole damn city burn if that’s what it takes . . . burn, baby, burn,” said Pastor Runney Patterson.

#3
Double_R
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i dont buy it that policeman should be found guilty just for making the death come sooner if he was gonna die anyway...
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this claim that he would have died anyway is not yet clear, so it sounds like we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

It is a very interesting question though, should one be convicted of murder for causing one to die earlier than they would have? Obviously the amount of time we’re talking about matters, we’re all going to die so on some level this is the case with every murder. But if we’re talking minutes? Hours?

I think to answer that question we need to look at the officers actions. If an officer struggling to get a perp into a police vehicle accidentally hits the perps head I wouldn’t hold him responsible for that. But putting his knee on the guys neck for almost 9 minutes while he’s telling you he can’t breathe? Also take into account that the officer was well aware by his own admission that Floyd was on drugs, so he was well aware that the risk of death was higher giving him far less excuse. I say lock him up


#4
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Taking drugs doesn't mean one is going to die. The question is did the officer do anything that he should not have even if the guy was going to die. You don't get to shoot a suspect cause you find out from family they have stage three liver cancer to something like that.  If the officers followed procedure and did nothing wrong by law then whoever handles training for the police should be sued. This is where change will come from changing training. 
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@n8nrgmi
the main reason i say that, is because the police man's supporters say floyd was gonna die anyway as he was doped up. they seem sure of it.

It does not matter what they say. It matters what the toxicology report and autopsies say. They say he had drugs in his system, and other health complications, but there is no indication he would have stopped breathing or went into cardiac arrest from that if nobody had jammed their knee into his throat for nine minutes.  Before the cops arrived Floyd was impaired but walking around, not collapsing or showing any signs of physical distress. I have looked much worse than that after many nights of hard drinking.

The issue to me isn't whether Chauvin is guilty, it has always been about which degree of murder he is guilty of. He is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The police training says to subdue suspects, not kill them or continue to press down on their neck after they have been unresponsive for four minutes. I think his case will fall apart because of the last five minutes. The first 4 minutes 45 seconds when he was conscious is one thing, but the defense will have to explain why it was necessary to keep restricting the airways of someone who was pinned down to the ground and not moving with no signs of breathing. 
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#6
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well argued. yes it does boil down to medical testimony. and, even if he gets away with murder, he should be punished in some way for going too far. 
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@n8nrgmi
well argued. yes it does boil down to medical testimony. and, even if he gets away with murder, he should be punished in some way for going too far. 
I would say it is a combination of the medical report and the police procedure. From what I understand it is a breach of police procedure to kneel on someone's neck. If nothing else, he needs to be punished for that. So even if it could be medically proven that kneeling on his neck had nothing to do with his death (which seems highly unlikely), that man should never wear a badge ever again. He obviously broke procedure and had absolutely no regard for the survival or wellbeing of George.

If the medical finding is that kneeling on his neck contributed, in any way, to his death, then he is guilty of at least manslaughter. 

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@n8nrgmi
id id say that probability of reasonable doubt, is tied exactly to whether floyd was gonna die anyway. 

By the same logic, we might argue that Chauvin was going to go to jail anyway for failing to claim at least half a million is assets not including his $100,000 BMW.   Whatever happens here in this trial, Chauvin will likely do more time for fraud and tax evasion then for murdering Floyd.

  • Floyd got two autopsies- one state and one celebrity.  Both concluded that Floyd was murdered by asphyxiation.  Neither autopsy reported any symptoms of overdose although there was drugs in his system and we can't know for sure that drugs didn't contribute to Floyd's death but that's irrelevant to Chauvin's murder charge.  
    • We know that the Coroners think Chauvin is guilty of murder.
  • Minneapolis Police fired all four cops the next morning stating that these cops obviously violated many standard police practices and called Chauvin's actions murder.  That is, if the Minneapolis Chief of Police had been standing there while Chauvin was strangling Floyd for eight minutes, Chauvin's boss would have arrested Chauvin, not Floyd.
  • Minneapolis Police filed 18 prior reports of police misconduct on Chauvin, including 3 prior police shootings.
    • We know that Chauvin's fellow cops and co-workers think Chauvin is guilty of murder.
  • The City of Minneapolis paid Floyd's family $27 million dollars to settle the civil lawsuit.
    • We know that the City of Minneapolis thinks Chauvin is guilty of murder.
  • Chauvin's wife left him the next day expressing her sympathy for Floyd and horror at her husband's act.
    • We know that Chauvin's wife thinks Chauvin is guilty of murder.
  • State AG Keith Ellison took over the prosecution personally.
    • We know that the State of Minnesota thinks Chauvin is guilty of murder.
  • Chauvin agreed to plead guilty to murder in exchange for a ten year sentence in Federal jail.  Bill Barr personally cancelled to plea agreement saying that it was too lenient.
    • We know that the Trump administration thought Chauvin was guilty of murder.
    • We know that Chauvin considers himself guilty of murder.
  • Last month, the US AG opened up a Grand Jury investigation of Floyd's death with the obvious intent of trying Chauvin on civil rights violations if not found guilty now.
    • We know that the Feds think Chauvin is guilty of murder.
None of this more than heresay in a court of law but in terms of setting expectations regarding verdict, let's note that all the experts and all the people around Chauvin seem convinced that Chauvin murdered Floyd, including Chauvin himself.  Floyd is not on trial here   Let's not let speculation about potential levels of intoxication cloud our judgement concerning our freedom from oppression by the state.  It is essential that citizens in a Democracy place fierce and powerful limits on the State's capacity to kill citizens.   DON'T TREAD ON ME is one popular American motto regarding the state.  The government in this case literally tread on a citizen until he died while crowds of people cried "murder" and begged the government to spare his life.  These citizens documented the murder live from 20 angles.  There really is no rational argument that Chauvin must innocent based on the blood chemistry of the victim- Chauvin's actions by themselves would have killed almost anybody.  The only reason Floyd lasted 8 minutes was because he was much bigger than most.
#9
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Riots incoming, no matter what happens.
Edit. Oh and it's nice to hear someone who can pronounce Fentanyl correctly
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So even if it could be medically proven that kneeling on his neck had nothing to do with his death (which seems highly unlikely),
Pretty easy to prove in court though. It was police policy up until 2016 to kneel on the neck, and there are hundreds of hours of Bodycam footage with a suspect being restrained with a knee to the back (not the front) of the neck and being able to breathe just fine. One outlier doesn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
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@Greyparrot
Pretty easy to prove in court though. It was police policy up until 2016 to kneel on the neck, and there are hundreds of hours of Bodycam footage with a suspect being restrained with a knee to the back (not the front) of the neck and being able to breathe just fine. One outlier doesn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
A quick google search confirms that what Chauvin did was not proper police procedure. Here is one article I found which says that it is sometimes permitted to use neck holds on suspects, it requires specific training and that the way chauvin did it was not a method Minneapolis police are trained to do it. And even more so, they are not supposed to keep doing it after the person stops resisting, which Chauvin did. 

Here is testimony from Chauvin's supervisor which confirms that they should have stopped using this level of force once he stopped resisting. 

So no matter how you look at it, Chauvin was not following proper police procedure. He continued kneeling on a man long after he stopped resisting which lead to or contributed to his death. I think it is beyond question that he should never be a police officer again. And I would say it is pretty clear he is guilty of some level of murder charge. He broke police procedure and caused a man's death. It shows a complete disregard for human life, which is certainly not a trait that should be permitted in police. 

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So no matter how you look at it, Chauvin was not following proper police procedure.
That's irrelevant, especially with the settlement the city gave that put the blame on the cities police policies instead of a scapegoat.

The only relevant fact that needs to be proven in court is this.

With hundreds of hours of bodycam footage with suspects (not on drugs) being able to breathe just fine with a knee to the back of the neck, is it still beyond a reasonable doubt that putting a knee to the back of someone's neck will reasonably cause death?

Clearly no.

And even if it was the case that it was reasonably certain that a knee to the back of the neck of a person overdosed on Fentanyl would reasonably cause death, there was absolutely no way for Chauvin to know that. Floyd said he couldn't breathe. He didn't say he just swallowed a bag of Fentanyl because he was afraid of getting busted in a drug deal gone bad.

This case was done long ago, people just don't care. It's riot time.
#13
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I predict a hung jury
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Is everyone in this thread, other than polytheist witch, completely delusional?

If you murder someone who is going to die, such as a hospital patient... You just murdered someone.


What kind of shit is this? You think the policeman committed euthanasia instead? It's almost hilarious if it wasn't so disgusting.

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I remember reading an article penned by some vapid radical leftist referring to a 6'2, 240 pound 14-year-old as a "child"

These people must never leave the house.


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@Greyparrot
So no matter how you look at it, Chauvin was not following proper police procedure.
That's irrelevant, especially with the settlement the city gave that put the blame on the cities police policies instead of a scapegoat.
A police officer broke police procedure, did not follow his training, used excessive force on someone after they had stopped resisting and caused a man to die. If he had followed proper procedure and he died, then he would probably be ok. He would have been doing what he was trained to do. In this case, he didn't do what he was trained to do and he killed a man. 
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A police officer broke police procedure, did not follow his training, used excessive force on someone after they had stopped resisting and caused a man to die. If he had followed proper procedure and he died, then he would probably be ok. He would have been doing what he was trained to do. In this case, he didn't do what he was trained to do and he killed a man. 
What if I told you that he did follow procedure and putting his knee on his neck/back area was something that was taught in training?
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What if I told you that he did follow procedure and putting his knee on his neck/back area was something that was taught in training?
If he followed his training then in my opinion he wouldn't be criminally responsible for it. The fault would be in the training or whoever wrote the training manual. However we know that isn't the case. He was not trained to to do that. He certainly wasn't trained to continue doing it after George stopped resisting. So the fact that he broke police procedure and continued crushing him even after George stopped resisting (after having been told repeatedly george couldn't breath) means he is guilty. 
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George Floyd said he couldn't breath 'many times before he was restrained on the ground.
Maybe it was a panic attack, maybe it was drugs, maybe both, maybe he was lying.

'I think there's a difference between intentionally killing someone, and accidentally killing someone.

Someone can run over the body of a sleeping person in the middle of the highway at night, thus 'killing them, but I wouldn't hold it against the driver.

I 'would hold it against a a drunk driver crashing into another car.
I 'would hold it against a driver that recklessly drives close to pedestrians.

I just 'don't hold to the argument that George Floyd was 'intentionally killed.
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I just 'don't hold to the argument that George Floyd was 'intentionally killed.
You can murder someone without intending to kill them. Your drunk driver or reckless driver examples are murder. In this case, police officers are trained in specific ways to restrain people. Chauvin chose to do something dangerous he wasn't trained to do and caused someone to die. that is murder. Choosing to continue crushing him after  he stopped resisting was a clear breach of police policy and showed callous disregard for his wellbeing. and that caused his death. 

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I agree with you that drunk or reckless drivers are often called murder, though I prefer the term manslaughter.
Which 'might put Chauvin in the same category, though I am not yet convinced.
I have arguments for this, but too much back and forth is wearing for me,
I'll just keep an eye on the trial and public opinion.
Occasionally voicing 'some of my opinion.
#22
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@n8nrgmi
My only thing to say about this is that you should probably properly capitalize stuff. Reading everything in lowercase just seems like a blogpost joke instead of anything serious.

If your Caps Lock button is broken, I can find you better keyboards.
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If he followed his training then in my opinion he wouldn't be criminally responsible for it. The fault would be in the training or whoever wrote the training manual. However we know that isn't the case. He was not trained to to do that. He certainly wasn't trained to continue doing it after George stopped resisting. So the fact that he broke police procedure and continued crushing him even after George stopped resisting (after having been told repeatedly george couldn't breath) means he is guilty. 
What if I told you that it was the case that the neck restraint was used because he was actively resisting and suffered symptoms of a condition that caused the active restraint. What if I told you that it was procedure to hold the knee on the neck until EMA arrived because of this condition?
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What if I told you that it was the case that the neck restraint was used because he was actively resisting and suffered symptoms of a condition that caused the active restraint.
It would still be a breach of procedure. But even if it weren't, that argument ends the second he stops resisting. Chauvin kept doing it long after this point until he had killed him. That's murder. 

What if I told you that it was procedure to hold the knee on the neck until EMA arrived because of this condition?]
If you said that, you would be lying. His own supervisor testified there was no justification for Chauvin doing this. 
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It would still be a breach of procedure. But even if it weren't, that argument ends the second he stops resisting. Chauvin kept doing it long after this point until he had killed him. That's murder. 
Then you my friend do not know police procedure.

If you said that, you would be lying. His own supervisor testified there was no justification for Chauvin doing this.
Have you considered his supervisor may have a political agenda and his testimony goes against published pieces that detail how prone restraint is legal and is taught during training? 
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It would still be a breach of procedure. But even if it weren't, that argument ends the second he stops resisting. Chauvin kept doing it long after this point until he had killed him. That's murder. 
Then you my friend do not know police procedure.
I am not a police officer. But I did look it up. Here is article discussing what police procedure is in Minneapolis. Here you can see Chauvin's own supervisor saying he had no justification to be doing this. 

So if you think you know better, please explain why you know what the correct procedures for the Minneapolis police are better than the Minneapolis police. 

Have you considered his supervisor may have a political agenda and his testimony goes against published pieces that detail how prone restraint is legal and is taught during training? 
I've provided evidence showing Chauvin broke procedure, including testimony from his commanding officer. You've provided absolutely nothing. If you think that was correct police procedure in Minneapolis, then provide evidence of that. Otherwise, concede that he broke procedure. 
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I've provided evidence showing Chauvin broke procedure,
And it is absolutely irrelevant to the case, despite what the corporate media wants you to think.

If Chauvin wore his gun on his back instead of his right side, he would have broken police procedure, and it could be shown in court that it was true. 

But if the prosecutor cannot prove that the violation of that specific procedure caused a person's death, then it means nothing at all. Like I said before, there are hundreds on hundreds of hours of bodycam footage showing suspects not overdosing on Fentanyl being restrained with a knee to the BACK of the neck being able to breathe just fine with no risk of death. The prosecutor is going to have an insanely hard time proving a knee to the back of the neck likely caused a death, or that the police officer should have reasonably known it could have caused a death when there exists so much bodycam footage the media does not want to show you proving the complete opposite.
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Like I said before, there are hundreds on hundreds of hours of bodycam footage showing suspects not overdosing on Fentanyl being restrained with a knee to the BACK of the neck being able to breathe just fine with no risk of death. 
You must’ve watched a lot of Cops like me 🤡
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@Greyparrot
But if the prosecutor cannot prove that the violation of that specific procedure caused a person's death, then it means nothing at all.
So you concede that he was using a restraint he wasn't supposed to be using. You concede he did it far longer than anyone could logically explain using it. Medical examiners have concluded this restraint caused his death. 

Sounds like you are conceding it is an open and shut case of murder. 

#30
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@HistoryBuff
Sounds like you are conceding it is an open and shut case of murder.
I am conceding it is an open and shut case of a deviation from a policy violation that may or may not have led to the death of a person, but that isn't what this police officer is on trial for.

The 2nd part isn't going to be able to be proved, and I think you know this.