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Yes, Chauvin restrained a pulseless suspect and prevented aid to the victim until the medics arrived. This was not contested by the defense and we can all agree on that.
Didn't post #1512 announced that Chauvin defense was successful on all counts?
Do you happen to know if the MPD or other police departments have policies re accepting medical help from bystanders ? I can see potential benefits, but then again, how do you know the bystander's actual qualifications, if the offer is from a crackpot, or what happens if the bystander is injured by the suspect.
I imagine there is no language that forbids it. I imagine the chief would have testified to this fact if there had been specific language prohibiting Good Samaritans from assisting.
All of this goes to reasonableness and reason. Chauvin had an unconscious, pulseless victim under his knees. Not only did testimony from today demonstrate Chauvin had been trained by the department to conduct BLS, which he failed to conduct for an unconscious, pulseless victim in his custody, but he also refused the help of a bystander who identified as an off-duty EMT.
On the question of reasonableness and the question of reason, Chauvin failed.
A person who causes the death of another by any of the following means is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than ten years or to payment of a fine of not more than $20,000, or both:
(1) by the person's culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another; or ...
The legal question for the jury to decide in the above charge is:
Did Derek Michael Chauvin cause the death of George Floyd by his culpable negligence, thereby creating an unreasonable risk and taking a chance of causing death or great bodily harm to George Floyd?
That's about the only thing that prosecutors might get Chauvin on, after so much was revealed and agreed by the witnesses today.
After Floyd fell unconscious while Chauvin was kneeling on him, witnesses said that it's not a bad idea to keep restraining him, since he might wake up and go back to fighting and kicking even more violently.
But once bystanders started saying, "Hey he's not breathing", and Chauvin kept kneeling on him anyway, that could be a serious dereliction of duty. Should he have taken the bystanders' word that Floyd wasn't breathing? And gotten off him and checked his pulse and breathing? And if he found none, then started chest compressions as all Mpls police are trained to do?
The doctor at the Hennepin County Medical Center yesterday, said that when a patient's heart has stopped ("cardiac arrest"), every minute he doesn't get CPR, reduces his chances of being resuscitated by 10%-15%.
That might fit into the description of 2nd Degree Manslaughter as poster ChiGeekGuest quoted above. The jury might still find him guilty on that charge. But not guilty of any form of murder.
Actually, no. Chauvin's comments at the scene, that Floyd appeared to "on something", tells us that he was aware of a possible overdose. Since Floyd was in their custody, they had an obligation to help him, not harm him. We don't know if they had narcan in their cruisers (Minneapolis police officers are supposed to) which they could have administered, but we do know that police procedure was to turn someone on their side who is having trouble breathing, which the police officers did not do. We do know that Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd's neck even after Floyd became unresponsive, even after one of the other police officers told Chauvin he couldn't find a pulse. That is not police procedure. The paramedic had to ask Chauvin to get off Floyd.
The dealer is a criminal who doesn't want to testify about his criminal activities. Drug dealing is a criminal activity.
As I said, the defense attorney won his case today. He didn't just instill a "reasonable doubt", which is all the defense really needs to do. He used the witnesses to established that kneeling on Floyd as Chauvin did, could not have killed Floyd... according to the witnesses' very own testimony.
Under Defense questioning, the witnesses said that:
1.) To cut off air flow to the suspect's lungs, you have to compress the FRONT of the throat. They displayed videos showing that Chauvin never did that.
2.) To cut off the blood flow to the brain, you have to compress the SIDES of the neck. And you have to do it on both sides of the neck, and press very hard, enough to leave significant bruising. Chauvin never did that either. Autopsies showed that there was no bruising on his neck, not even small amounts of bruising.
3.) The size and strength of the suspect, can legitimately cause police officers to modify what they would have done to a smaller person. This is told to the officers in their training.
4.) Body cam and other video showed that Chauvin never knelt ONLY on Floyd's neck. He sometimes had a knee of the back of his neck, and the shin on his shoulder. At other times he was not on Floyd's neck at all, but was kneeling on his back and shoulder. The officer in charge of training Mpls police, said that these were legitimate, and non-dangerous, examples of kneeling on a suspect to use your body weight to restrain him.
5.) It is acceptable for officers to keep a suspect restrained in a prone or side position, even with hobbles on, for many minutes while waiting for other officers to arrive or even waiting for an ambulance to arrive.
6.) If a suspect can talk, that means he CAN breathe. Even if most of his talking consists of the words "I can't breathe".
7.) People getting arrested usually aren't too happy about it, to put it mildly. And it frequently happens that they pretend things that aren't true, to get cops to take it easy in them, or even let them go. Cops are trained to judge what's true and what's not, and act accordingly.
8.) Suspects are often on drugs of some kind. And many kinds of drugs can temporarily give a suspect much more strength that he would normally have.
9.) When a suspect has been fighting with cops, and they render him unconscious, he can soon wake up and go right back to fighting, even with more violence than before. Officers are trained to watch for this, and make decisions accordingly. It is not an unwise decision, to keep a suspect restrained even when he's unconscious, because of this possibility. The witness even said that he has had suspects do that to him personally, earlier in his career when he was a patrol officer on the street. (The MMA fighter bystander testified to this last week, too).
The Defense counsel really dropped a ton of bricks on the Prosecution today, by getting all this information from the witnesses, particularly the officer in charge of training the police in techniques for restraining suspects, use of force etc. And he hasn't even had a chance to call his own witnesses yet and directly question them.
That's about the only thing that prosecutors might get Chauvin on, after so much was revealed and agreed by the witnesses today.
After Floyd fell unconscious while Chauvin was kneeling on him, witnesses said that it's not a bad idea to keep restraining him, since he might wake up and go back to fighting and kicking even more violently.
But once bystanders started saying, "Hey he's not breathing", and Chauvin kept kneeling on him anyway, that could be a serious dereliction of duty. Should he have taken the bystanders' word that Floyd wasn't breathing? And gotten off him and checked his pulse and breathing? And if he found none, then started chest compressions as all Mpls police are trained to do?
The doctor at the Hennepin County Medical Center yesterday, said that when a patient's heart has stopped ("cardiac arrest"), every minute he doesn't get CPR, reduces his chances of being resuscitated by 10%-15%.
That might fit into the description of 2nd Degree Manslaughter as poster ChiGeekGuest quoted above. The jury might still find him guilty on that charge. But not guilty of any form of murder.
I didn’t see the trial today so cannot offer any opinions regarding.
MPD training instructs officers to "place the subject in the recovery position to alleviate positional asphyxia" & to call emergency services once the suspect is in handcuffs.
Also warns that sudden cardiac arrest can result from the struggle.
I linked to the training & will try to find again.
Agree PO Chauvin violated the policy & was negligent.
The training manual describing the policy & procedures for the neck restraint was filed in a motion to dismiss the charges against Thomas Lane, one of the 4 Police Officers charged in George Floyd’s death.
Page 26 includes a photo of the restraint in practice along with the captions:
"Ok they are now in handcuffs now what.”
then, "Sudden cardiac arrest typically occurs immediately following a violent struggle.”
then, "put suspects in the recovery position to avoid positional asphyxia and call emergency services once the person was in handcuffs."
The motion to dismiss charges against Thomas Lane also contained a transcript:
As per the motion/transcript, PO Lane asked several times if George Floyd should be rolled onto his side, & several times PO Chauvin told him no. PO Lane stated he was worried about “excited delirium or whatever” & “in the Academy when someone is on drugs, they work themselves up and they can have issues from that."
PO Lane had been a full-time police officer for less than a week.
Second-degree manslaughter requires proving that George Floyd's death was caused by PO Chauvin's negligence in creating "an unreasonable risk" & "consciously (taking) chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another."
Lt. Mercil testifies, on redirect, that an officer using body weight with a knee on a subject's neck and back in the prone position would increase the risk of positional asphyxia and would not be appropriate to do once the subject stops resisting and has lost their pulse.
Editors note: the procedure that chauvin had utilized to subdue Mr Floyd was neither approved by the police department or recorded as 'acceptable ' as a restraint in any training course.
When MPD Officer Nicole Mackenzie was asked about breathing and talking her response was: just because there talking doesn't mean they are breathing properly.
Nelson is attune I'll give him that.
I didn't see or hear any witness contradict so unsure where this slam dunk Nelson nailed it for his client .
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