MN - George Floyd, 46, died in police custody, Minneapolis, 25 May 2020 #6 - Chauvin Trial Day 3

[Sillybilly]

From the video it looked like he was placed in the vehicle's left side then ended up laying flat on the seat with his head towards the right of the vehicle. When they pulled him out head first he ended up on the street.

He was already cuffed and they wanted him in the vehicle. There were LEOs on both sides. Why pull him out at all?

 

[Cool Cats]

From the video it looked like he was placed in the vehicle's left side then ended up laying flat on the seat with his head towards the right of the vehicle. When they pulled him out head first he ended up on the street.

Video shows cops attacking Floyd in car before death

New video of George Floyd’s arrest before he was pinned to the ground and died shows a violent struggle in the back of the police car.

One officer appears to stare directly at the camera.

 

[RANCH]

He was already cuffed and they wanted him in the vehicle. There were LEOs on both sides. Why pull him out at all?

One reason is that George asked repeatedly to get out because he was claustrophobic and couldn't breathe. I don't think the cops were too worried about that.

I think the real reason was to put "hobbles" on his legs to help subdue him and then try to put him back in the vehicle. JMO

 

[RANCH]

<modsnip: Quoted post was removed>

Maybe the violence associated with the black men that police killed in the past caused Chauvin to fear that he would also become a victim to their violence and that led him to use excessive force against George Floyd which caused his death.

Pure speculation on my part and JMO.

 

[Ruthbullock]

This picture is Chauvin pulling him OUT of the vehicle. Note the vehicle behind Chauvin. George entered/pushed into the vehicle on the sidewalk side. He was removed on street side.

Again, my question remains why Chauvin pulled him out once he was in the car.

He asked to lie down on the floor- it was caught on chauvins bodycam. So they removed him from the car again, laid him down and requested EMTs

 

[Rb1234]

I'm really not as naive as this is going to sound; but I nearly can't believe my own eyes that this happened from a call to 911 about a counterfeit twenty dollar bill; and LE actually showed up.

As a former restaurant owner in the mid size city where I currently live, I can guarantee you 100% that if I called 911 over a counterfeit twenty dollar bill, not only would LE definitely not show up, but they would give me hell for tying up the 911 line.

<modsnip>

Yes agree it’s crazy they showed up, especially when things like missing persons can take a long time for police to take seriously & start working on, even if parent/friends insist it’s unusual or cause for concern. A fake bill is not an ‘emergency’

 

[Lilibet]

I think the real reason was to put "hobbles" on his legs to help subdue him and then try to put him back in the vehicle. JMO

I think you may be right about the hobbles. There would be nothing to prevent Mr Floyd from using his long legs to bust out a window if he was claustrophobic. Since they couldn’t find the hobbles and he was still claustrophobic they pulled him out onto the ground and the rest is history. I’m not at all unsympathetic to cops. They do a very dangerous job and most of the time it goes fine, partly because they know how to protect themselves and talk down a distressed suspect. That keeps the suspect safe too.

But once he was on the ground everything fell apart because Chauvin considered Mr Floyd a big threat of a man on drugs needing to be subdued forcefully on his stomach for over 9 minutes. Hind site is 20-20, but the big mistake was letting LE pride and image get in the way of reasonable use of force in the proper position for the proper length of time IMO. I’m rambling on here, trying to make sense of this tragedy, but seeing Mr Floyd in his death throes tips it all over into a very senseless and sadistic place for me.
JMO

 

[Sillybilly]

ADMIN NOTE:

To say simply that GF possibly had fear as a black man was left as reasonable speculation that doesn't warrant dissecting it any further. IF GF had that fear, surely we can all understand where it may have originated.

Quite a few posts had to be removed due to general back and forth bickering. There is no way to edit that many posts and be able to retain context so a lot of responses got removed in the process.

 

[Ruthbullock]

I may have missed this somewhere along the line, but can someone explain to me why George was pushed in one side of the cruiser and then pulled out the other side?

He asked to lie down on the floor when in the vehicle, so they pulled him out and lay him down.
Body camera transcripts reveal new details about night of George Floyd's death

 

[SouthAussie]

Interesting ... in the transcript of the interview with Lane it is said that Chauvin was Kueng's training officer. He wasn't Lane's training officer, but Lane had called him a couple of times in the past when his own training officer was not available - to get direction on how to handle a call.

This likely explains why everyone deferred to Chauvin on that day, with Lane twice questioning Chauvin about laying George on his side.

https://kstp.com/kstpImages/repository/cs/files/Floyd Transcript 1.pdf

 

[Sillybilly]

He asked to lie down on the floor when in the vehicle, so they pulled him out and lay him down.
Body camera transcripts reveal new details about night of George Floyd's death

I'm not sure Chauvin agreed to that to accommodate GF.

Same article says:

Floyd said, “I can't breathe,” as they told him to get in the car again. “l just had COVID, man. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.”

The autopsy report verified he had in fact had Covid so it would have been reasonable to conclude that he had difficulty breathing and he was not just using it as an excuse.

 

[Blondiexoxo]

Medical examiners testimony is going to be a huge deciding factor imo.
Is it correct a second autopsy was performed at request of the family that revealed a differing opinion from the first? The 11ng/mL fentanyl in GF’s one autopsy report worries me in terms of the defence portraying this as an OD, that is a large amount but when you consider his size then it may not have had such a severe effect on him, an opiate tolerant individual requires more and more of the drug to feel the same effect. I hope the prosecution have an expert to testify to this because I think the defense may use the ‘therapeutic dose’ range of fentanyl (less than 3ng/mL) to create doubt in the jurors minds. But if someone is in active drug addiction then they are not using the therapeutic dose, because that no longer has an effect on them it goes up and up. Fentanyl is a very dangerous drug and I can see the defence producing some fentanyl expert that could testify to this. However, the prosecution need to bat this off with their own expert testifying to how drug tolerance works IMO.

 

[Ruthbullock]

I'm not sure Chauvin agreed to that to accommodate GF.

Same article says:

Floyd said, “I can't breathe,” as they told him to get in the car again. “l just had COVID, man. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.”

The autopsy report verified he had in fact had Covid so it would have been reasonable to conclude that he had difficulty breathing and he was not just using it as an excuse.

Unfortunately I can only share the article- we heard it plain as day when watching the video in court- well I say we, I missed it the first time and the other half made me rewind it. He asked to be taken out and they took him out, it was at this point they also requested the EMTs and very quickly afterwards raised the emergency level on the code for the EMTs.
The other part I missed that my eagle eyed other half saw was the foaming of the mouth when sat down before crossing the road to the patrol vehicle.
I’m wondering how mush the delay in the arrival of the EMTs will play into the defence case. They are requested and then escalated the request on the bodycam footage - the off duty firefighter felt there was too long a delay and that there would never normally be this amount of time waiting for an ambulance, so therefore it’s fair to assume the LE weren’t expecting to be holding GF in that position for very long either

 

[SouthAussie]

He asked to lie down on the floor when in the vehicle, so they pulled him out and lay him down.
Body camera transcripts reveal new details about night of George Floyd's death

I don't think they laid George on the ground because he asked to be put on the ground (he did say he would rather be on the ground though).

In the interview with Lane, Lane says they laid George on the ground to control him.

"We ended up going to the ground. I think someone said 'let's bring him to the ground because we can't control him'. We went down to the ground. Kueng was next to me. Officer Shaaban was at the front end and when he was on his stomach and we were bascially just trying to restrain him, I think I said 'Let's use the MRT' " (The MRT is the hobble)

Pg 15, Lane's recount:
https://kstp.com/kstpImages/repository/cs/files/Floyd Transcript 1.pdf

Pg 12, George freaking out from claustrophobia/anxiety:
https://kstp.com/kstpImages/repository/cs/files/Floyd Transcript 2.pdf

Thanks for the transcripts, they are an interesting read.

 

[SouthAussie]

Unfortunately I can only share the article- we heard it plain as day when watching the video in court- well I say we, I missed it the first time and the other half made me rewind it. He asked to be taken out and they took him out, it was at this point they also requested the EMTs and very quickly afterwards raised the emergency level on the code for the EMTs.
The other part I missed that my eagle eyed other half saw was the foaming of the mouth when sat down before crossing the road to the patrol vehicle.
I’m wondering how mush the delay in the arrival of the EMTs will play into the defence case. They are requested and then escalated the request on the bodycam footage - the off duty firefighter felt there was too long a delay and that there would never normally be this amount of time waiting for an ambulance, so therefore it’s fair to assume the LE weren’t expecting to be holding GF in that position for very long either

Still, nothing explains Chauvin's refusal to lay George on his side. Especially as the EMTs seemed to be taking a while.

To me, that was the biggest error made on that day. And Chauvin's negligence arises from willfully not doing that, even when he was reminded twice.

 

[ACE422]

No one should place a person in a physical restraint if they have not been adequately trained to continually assess the person for signs of medical distress. It was obvious to those who had NO basic medical training that he needed medical assistance. An officer checked for a radial pulse (when the FF demanded someone do it) and failed to find one. I can only assume that DC could feel that he stopped breathing since his other knee was on his back. LE are trained in CPR and failed to provide medical attention when they knew he needed it. DC never let up on his neck, even when he was unresponsive, limp and not breathing. He knew he was dead. Sickening. MOO

 

[Lilibet]

The autopsy report verified he had in fact had Covid so it would have been reasonable to conclude that he had difficulty breathing and he was not just using it as an excuse.

I keep harping on this point. As we know, the officers have no way of knowing whether Mr Floyd is faking it or really had Covid and can’t breathe. As it turned out his Covid claim was true and I can tell you from first hand experience that it’s hard to breathe. They needed to take him at his word and place him in a safe, comfortable position without mocking him for talking while they awaited the ambulance. Of course he could talk. Being short of breath does not prevent talking, although it’s an effort. Unless Chauvin can explain why he didn’t treat Mr Floyd’s claims with respect and compassion, I’m left thinking that he didn’t care whether Mr Floyd could breathe or not, or lived or died, which is how it all played out with his knee on Mr Floyd’s neck.
JMO

 

[Rb1234]

I somewhat agree with you. Although I can’t definitively blame GF’s death on the drugs he had in his system I cannot discount the fact that he had a lot of drugs mixed into the situation. I am law abiding and the last time I was pulled over for speeding I was shaking in my boots. I can’t imagine how I would feel in a similar circumstance but if engaged in the use of fentanyl and meth I would panic too.

I had never been in trouble with police, arrested or done anything illegal, but I was taken for questioning by police once when I was quite drunk, as I ‘fit the description of someone who had been selling drugs’ when I was out with friends at an event.

I completely freaked out, was aggressive, shouting, crying. I’m usually a shy, quiet, calm person but panicked & made the situation worse for myself. And that was just from alcohol, plus the annoyance at my day being abruptly ended. (It was a nice sunny day and we don’t get many of them in the UK!) Now I look back so embarrassed and I would never have thought that’s how I’d react in such a situation.

But if you are under an influence, unaware you’ve done anything wrong & your day is suddenly doing a complete 180 turn... Plus GF also had a gun pointed at him, had been shot before, had past experiences with police. I can understand him getting so worked up.

Still, worked up or not, the actions of LE in those videos were completely unnecessary and inhumane. DC looks cold and callous. Agree with previous posters - it looks like he is more concerned with ‘saving face’, enjoying his power not only over GF but the crowd, working them up, and defiant against them. Taos attitude towards drug users is shameful.

All MOO - didn’t intend for such a long post either!

 

[SouthAussie]

Good pic here of the 'unruly mob' who were witnessing George's death.
Six of the witnesses are numbered and (suitably) identified.




"But despite the global outcry this is not an open and shut case. In the US, police are rarely convicted for deaths that occur while they are on duty, if they are charged at all."

"The verdict in this case will be widely seen as an indication of how the US legal system treats deaths that occur while in police custody."
Derek Chauvin trial: New footage shows George Floyd pleading with officers

 

[JerseyGirl]

I set up a Chauvin Trial Day 4 thread. This one will close shortly. Please continue here:

MN - George Floyd, 46, died in police custody, Minneapolis, 25 May 2020 #7 - Chauvin Trial Day 4