My go to pundits on legal matters seem to agree that Chauvin’s trial was fair and the rule of law was upheld. I am very glad to hear that.
For what it’s worth, I disagree with the verdict. It seems to me that drugs, poor health and his own reckless behavior are the actual causes of Floyd’s death. I think it unfair for Chauvin to bear the brunt of blame under these circumstances.
I accept that justice doesn’t belong to me, but I see little cause for optimism in this particular verdict.
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I also disagree, but I understand that the jury does not have my healthcare background. The medical evidence is clear that heart failure, and not hypoxia, was the cause of death. Short of simply releasing Floyd when he resisted, the outcome would have been the same no matter how he was restrained.
But the video does look brutal, especially the last 3 minutes, and that outweighed the medical facts in the jury’s minds.
There will be consequences. First among those is that it will drive away good people from law enforcement and only those who want to be there for the wrong reasons will remain. I wouldn’t blame every cop in the country if they simply didn’t go to work tomorrow.
At the least, they will let criminals get away to avoid confrontation. Criminals will respond by being emboldened to resist or flee.
I will be OK out here at the compound but those of you in the city are going to be pretty much on your own.
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Heart failure? Good grief! Yes, indeed, his heart stopped. Yours would too if a 200 pound man put his weight on your throat for seven minutes while ignoring your pleas and those of the people watching. And continued doing so for a full three minutes more after you totally stopped moving. It appears that the jury had the common sense that you lack whenever it comes to police violence. They do not deserve your unwarranted condecension.
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You really have a problem with facts that don’t fit your narrative.
There was no weight on Floyd’s throat, his airway wasn’t even bruised.
The prosecution revealed that when the paramedics arrived Floyd’s oxygen saturation was 98%, Had he been dangerously hypoxic for ANY reason, the value would have been in the low 80s.
So, his death WAS NOT a result of pressure on his lungs or throat.
His underlying blockages and enlarged heart are consistent with heart failure. His extreme exertions in trying to avoid arrest were simply more than he could support. All the oxygen the blood can hold doesn’t help if you are in decompensation and continue your exertions.
No matter how bad the video looks, lack of oxygen did not kill Floyd, heart failure killed him.
He would have died under any form of restraint if he kept struggling, and by the time he passed out he was too far down the decomensation path.
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“You really have a problem with facts that don’t fit your narrative.”
Uh, not really. My problem is with “facts” that you offer. And with very good reason.
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The prosecution offered the fact that he had a 98% oxygen saturation, and that rules out any form of asphyxia,
Heart failure is what it left that is consistent with events.
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“I also disagree, but I understand that the jury does not have my healthcare background.”
So they counted on the experts to explain to them what happened. The defense expert failed, where the prosecution’s convinced them of the truth.
You never would have made that jury because you had preconceived notions about what happened. Good thing.
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I also know that the evidence presented by the prosecution itself ruled out hypoxia as the cause of death.
But you are right that I would never get put on such a jury. The prosecution relied on an emotional case based on the apparent brutality and lack of concern evidenced by Chauvin, they certainly proved he should not be in law enforcement, but nonetheless, Floyd did not die as a result of what Chauvin did, so no matter how upsetting his behavior, he can’t be guilty of murder just because I don’t like him.
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“Floyd did not die as a result of what Chauvin did”
The prosecution’s expert witness with credentials on the physiology of breathing a mile long does not agree with you and presented the facts of the death clearly and decisively to the jury. You should study his testimony before continuing with your truthy but false claims. The defense studied it and had no persuasive rebuttal.
One obvious difference between what you keep saying and what the professor said is that it was not just the knee on the neck that was fatal. It was the combination of that AND weight on his back and the compression of his ribs that restricted his ability to breathe.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/irish-doctor-s-testimony-seen-as-crucial-in-securing-conviction-of-derek-chauvin-1.4543936
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You really don’t read before responding.
The prosecution, in refuting the possibility of Carbon monoxide poisoning said the paramedics reported Floyd had an oxygen saturation of 98%.
Neck, chest, pleural edema(the theory I had to abandon) or any other cause of hypoxia are ruled out by that number.
Either the prosecution lied or Floyd did not die from obstructed breathing of any kind. It is impossible to have a saturation of 98% and hypoxia.
That leaves heart failure(decompensation) as the remaining cause of death. and any ER doc can tell you that when people are in heart failure, they tell you they can’t breath, even if that isn’t the problem.
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“You really don’t read before responding.”
You are exhibiting classic signs of Dunning-Kruger. You think you know a lot more than you actually do. In this case you think you know more than a senior pulmonologist with 47 years of experience. You have seized on one number – 98% – as proof certain that the expert was incompetent or dishonest when he testified that even a healthy person would have died given the things done to George Floyd.
Here is what you are leaving out of your victim-blaming “analysis.” You are assuming that the O2 saturation measured much later was the same level as at the time of death. That is a bad assumption. There were extensive attempts to revive him both in the ambulance and at the hospital. These attempts included administering oxygen and CPR. Even when the brain is dead the plumbing of the body works and these measures would have restored O2 levels in the blood but not reverse brain damage. He stayed dead.
And, BTW, if the defense theory of CO poisoning had any truth to it that blood analysis would have shown it because CO sticks to hemoglobin more stubbornly than O2.
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Things aren’t so bad as they seem. There will be an appeal. Meanwhile the facts of the case will be released one by one to the public. George Floyd is another guy like Rodney King and Mike Brown. Not law abiding citizens at all. Addicts, actually..Few people feel much sympathy for them. Realistically, maybe at this date, there had to be a conviction.
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Why, because of the court of public opinion or left wing politicians say so?
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Uh, the character of the victim – good or bad – has NOTHING to do with the case against the killer. You understand that, right? Maybe not.
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RE: “Few people feel much sympathy for them.”
For that very reason, one of the consequences of the verdict will be the beatification of George Floyd.
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“Meanwhile the facts of the case will be released”…
The entire trial was broadcast DAILY to any and all who wanted to watch. The defense witnesses had one job: TO sow “reasonable doubt”. They failed. The jury took the testimony of the SEVERAL prosecution witnesses over that of the less than a handful of defense witnesses. Credibility seems to have been the issue. the prosecution witnesses had it, the defense witnesses did not.
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I agree with your assessment. Worst case Chauvin was guilty of not ensuring the health of a detainee under arrest or negligence but not murder or manslaughter. Of course Maxine and Joe certainly opened the door for appeal due to their political interference in a coequal branch of government. Even the judge said so.
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As frequently happens, insurrectionist Republicans and “conservative” media have distorted the actual words of Democratic leaders and taken them out of context to inflame the emotions of their “base.” Here is an objective report on what Maxine Waters actually said and the context in which she said it. She did NOT call for violence nor incite riot. She did make clear her views on the case which is something politicians of both parties do all the time.
https://www.vox.com/2021/4/20/22393725/chauvin-verdict-maxine-waters-comments
As for President Biden, he said nothing about the case until the jury was sequestered so the charge of political interference in the verdict is literally impossible.
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Strange, Trump didn’t even say anything about getting “more confrontational” but you claim he incited a riot. Waters actually calls for confrontation if the verdict doesn’t go her way and you say she was just taken out of context. Hypocritical bullshit if there ever was.
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Unlike you, I guess, I can read and understand plain English and I do not let the likes of Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson tell me what to think about what I can read for myself. Have a great day.
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“Trump didn’t even say anything about getting “more confrontational””..
The words he used were …”fight like hell”…
Sounds more confrontational to me.
Can’t change the historical fact there, Bobr. No matter how you and Hannity and Carlson try to do so.
And the civil rights movement was based on all kinds of confrontations, most of them peaceful protests not overtaken by those who wished to 1) discredit the protesters or 2) infiltrators with bad intent. And the only timed they turned violent was when the police decided to be “more confrontational”.
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