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No, they weren't. The were standing by while the officer was subduing the perp with enough force to keep him still but not enough force to endanger his life, or so it appeared at the time: the guy was breathing well enough to talk and keep talking.
With hindsight, now we can see that the force used COULD WELL HAVE BEEN excessive, since he died shortly afterward. But on the scene, it did not look like deadly force. The cop could have leaned harder on his knee on the guy's neck and cut off his breathing entirely. He didn't do that. He let him keep breathing - that is, he used only enough force to subdue him but not cut off his breathing,, obviously since the guy was still talking.
Should the cop have used the knee-on-the-neck technique when the guy was already cuffed and down?
1.) If the cop had gotten off the guy and let him free (while cuffed), what chance was there that the guy would have gotten to his feet and either kicked at the cops or fled? We don't know, and now we'll never know. But it's a valid question the cops had to deal with, even if the guy couldn't have run far or kicked very nimbly with his hands cuffed behind his back.
2.) How violent and unruly was the guy before the cops got the cuffs on him? I don't know.
3.) How violent and unruly was the guy AFTER the cops got the cuffs on him? Was he lying facedown as the cop put the cuffs on? I don't know.
The cops had to keep all these things in mind while wrestling with the guy, with him fighting them all the way.
They dealt with the situation by getting him down on the ground and cuffing his hands behind his back (in whichever order they did it). They also put a knee on his neck to hold him down and subdue him... but plainly not hard enough to cut off his breathing.
Again in hindsight, we now know the pressure on the knee on his neck was probably too much, since he died shortly afterward. But should the cops have known he was about to die, when he was still clearly breathing well enough to talk and talk?
For that matter, did he have a heart condition long before the cops showed up? During the struggle, nobody knew, and still nobody knows. Did the cops use a level of force that would NOT kill someone in reasonable health? But with this guy struggling however hard he did, did he die due to the knee on his neck? Or would he have died if he had tried to run several 100-yard dashes in succession with no cops doing anything to him, because he wasn't healthy enough to do continuous heavy exertion with a heart condition?
I don't know the answers to any of these questions. Maybe some of them will be answered when witnesses speak, bodycam footage comes out of the entire struggle, maybe doctors' reports come out etc.
But all we have now is a brief video of a horrendous-looking video of a guy who said he couldn't breathe while clearly he could, and a dead body.
And a lot of uninformed people jumping to conclusions, uniformly against the cop instead of the guy who fought them, defied legal and proper instructions, and wouldn't quit until he was cuffed with a knee on his neck.
Maybe it will become evident that the knee after the guy was cuffed was unnecessary.
But with all we don't know, that hasn't become evident yet.
I only saw one other cop in the video, only watched it once, and so I don't want to go back and watch it again for clarity.
But the one officer I saw was standing RIGHT THERE and could hear and see everything that was happening to Mr. Floyd, and hear him beg for air, and he did nothing. That was the time for him to put his hand on the cop's shoulder and say "let's try to get him in the car again" or at least, "maybe he really can't breathe. Let's free his neck".
That man said i can't get air blare so the cop should have let up some.
By talking like that (and talking and talking) he demonstrated to the cop that he COULD breathe. Maybe the cop decided from that, that he had already let up enough, but he had to keep some pressure on to keep the guy from jumping up and causing more trouble.
Lots of maybes. We can't really tell until we find out what they guy had done before the cop got him down, cuffed, and subdued.
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(set 10 days ago)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Roboteer
By talking like that (and talking and talking) he demonstrated to the cop that he COULD breathe. Maybe the cop decided from that, that he had already let up enough, but he had to keep some pressure on to keep the guy from jumping up and causing more trouble.
Lots of maybes. We can't really tell until we find out what they guy had done before the cop got him down, cuffed, and subdued.
See?
People with their airway significantly restricted often can talk.
He could breathe some, but not enough to sustain life, and that's why he wasn't dead in 1.5 minutes. It took a lot more minutes.
We can't really tell until we find out what they guy had done before the cop got him down, cuffed, and subdued.
How does that matter? If he'd run a stop sign or run a knife through another person, the guy still was down, was cuffed, and was subdued. He wasn't going anywhere, and if he tried, he was outnumbered 3 to 1.
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 10 days ago)
35,636 posts, read 17,982,736 times
Reputation: 50678
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roboteer
BTW, what had this perp done, that cause the cops to pay attention to him in the first place?
Someone called the police, and pointed him out, and said he was suspected of forgery.
He was seated in a car.
He also appeared impaired to either the cop of the person who called them, or both.
There's no further information that I can find about why they thought he was a forger, and what he was suspected of forging.
edited to add: I found this. Apparently he was trying to use forged documents at a deli. A check? For a sandwich? I don't know. What other kind of documents would you use at a deli?
BTW, what had this perp done, that cause the cops to pay attention to him in the first place?
Doesn’t matter. Cops should protect and serve, not choke and kill.
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