A PO I went to high school with is very upset about the incident, and is speaking out about it on social media. I haven’t seen the guy since HS, but I respect that he’s taking a public stand.
And what precisely is your PO friend PO’ed about? Treatment of the cops, or treatment of the suspect?
I’ve dealt with a LOT of Corrections Officers, and a fair number of Police Officers in my job, and I suspect your typical Officer could go either way.
It should be noted that jujitsu competitions are fair fights. Police officers are encouraged not to get into fair fights. A martial art designed for police use would include tactics for multiple officers working together, as well as use of pepper spray, cars, guns, and everything else police have access to.
“Police officers working together” is well and good until you’re on a county highway in the middle of the night and there’s not another cop on duty within 30 miles. But whatever y’all think I guess.
And in that situation, a cop’s first response, if possible, will be to call for backup and wait for it.
No, it won’t always be possible. But the plan is for it to usually be.
Police are saying intoxication and resisting arrest (per your earlier post) were involved. I assume that intoxication and resisting will be at least part of the police justification, claiming the situation escalated and they had to respond more aggressively.
However, even if the situation had escalated I don’t think that would justify the knee on the neck. He was unarmed, right? And he was cuffed already? What?! IANAD but you could probably paralyze someone that way as well, right?
We can verify or refute the story that he was resisting by body cam footage and a toxicology report could tell how sober he was or wasn’t. If police statements prove to be true, the story makes at least a small amount of sense. I’m mighty skeptical it was justified but I’m suspending judgment for now. As I said I didn’t have all the background info and maybe other information will come out that changes things.
If tox and body cams show that police claims are false, then it’s even worse.
Kneeling on a ground cuffed subjects neck is not a trained technique. I’ve been in the job since ‘82 covering 2 separate careers and it has never been a trained technique. Quite the opposite, actually.
Kneeling across the shoulder blades is a trained technique. And during training and in-service training instructors are avid about proper placement. That training is bound to become more intense due to current events. In my observation it does not appear that officer made a simple unconscious error in placement.
During proper execution of the shoulder blade placement an officer is to use both hands to control the subjects head so that they cannot thrash around and injure their own neck and/or face and head.
The only time placing the knee over a subjects neck would acceptable is if the situation justified lethal force. Such as an uncuffed subject on the ground, hands in front of him, possessing a deadly weapon in his hand. That is an extremely simplistic explanation of when it would be justified and there are other maneuvers that also would be included that I won’t get into.
I agree. I took several years of martial arts. Shotokan Karate. Just for fitness. I had no illusions of becoming a fighter. Attacks to the neck were considered lethal. Holds, take downs, using the neck or ones that twisted the neck were considered very dangerous.
In Judo, you use pressure on the neck to cause the opponent to pass out due to lack of blood supply to the brain. You don’t even choke the person. They breathe fine, till they black out. Keep the hold for just a couple minutes and they die.
I know it wouldn’t have been acceptable back when I was working. And that was a long time ago.
There’s been security footage recovered from stores surrounding the area where it happened. You see Floyd removed from his SUV, handcuffed and walked over to sit against a wall by one officer, with no resistance. After a few minutes, two officers walk him over to the police SUV with no resistance. Out of view of the camera, he goes to the ground and you see three officers on him with one standing over him.
Here’s the charging document used to arrest the cop. It states that Floyd resisted handcuffs, then resisted by falling to the ground when being led to the car and then it sounds like he was on his feet when he resisted by falling to the ground again.
News reports also say the autopsy shows he did not asphyxiate, and had medical conditions including a heart condition. (But no definitive conclusion mentioned that he had a heart incident) So the explanation for collapsing on the way to the car may be medical problems, not deliberate resisting arrest.
Regardless - since the Staten Island incident where the detainee, Eric Garner, was choked to death, it’s been pretty well known that making it difficult to breath or constricting the neck is not acceptable police technique. The charge is apparently third-degree murder because there is no indication (no evidence) that the officer was intent on killing the victim, but third degree only needs to show the accused acted with reckless disregard for the victim, knowing the action could kill him. So the prosecutor is obviously also of the opinion that the officer should have known this was an action with possible lethal consequences.
In my opinion too much focus is being placed on the knee on the neck. It is not approved technique and no one trains to do it. It is wrong due to the potential to cause serious injury. In this case, and according to the probable cause statement, such injury did not occur. The real issue is the lack of response when the officers didn’t address the “I can’t breath” statement. Whether the inability to breath came from being proned out or underlying medical issues or anything else isn’t the point. When a prisoner is in medical distress, it is incumbent on the officers to address it, assuming it is safe to do so. Failure to do so is negligent (at least) hence the 3rd degree murder and manslaughter charges. I know the family wants first degree murder charges butt he facts don’t support it and the family lawyer should tell them so.
Having every cop be a black or red belt in BJJ would be great. It’s not very feasible. Some are able to and good for them. After 12 hour shifts, OT, side jobs needed to feed your family, court and everything else pulling at your time few have spouses or other family that would be happy with them being away for even more hours a week. Departments are not willing to do the training during the work week because that would either lead to manning shortages or hiring more people and they don’t want to be on the hook for training injuries. With an increase of opposition to traditional pensions there will also be an aging police force on the street level. I have bad knees. I have a bad back from wearing my gear on my hips for 20 years (something more ergonomic is seen as militarizing the police). I sure as hell can’t roll around on a mat for hours a week without being in traction. So yes some train on their own in BJJ but it won’t be feasible for the majority to do so.
I’m on multiple cop pages including one of the largest where you have to verify your identity to be on. The vast majority were 100% against the actions taken. A small number took a “wait until all the facts are out” approach. Zero have said it was OK.
I’m fine with a “wait until” attitude. Frankly, that’s the smart way to go.
Otherwise, I’m talking about private, in person, unrecorded comments. Not the ones on message boards where a person can be outed. In those private moments (which frequently happen in front of me) I’ve found officers can go either way when they believe what they’re saying is confidential.
Now that’s just my experience, and I didn’t count the responses. But I regularly heard both “always support the officer against inmates/suspects” and “that sounds like a horribly wrong thing for the officer to do”.
Given the controversy involved, I feel it’s critically important to be very careful about the wording and meaning here.
According to this article, here’s what the autopsy actually said:
Contrary to your first sentence, the autopsy did not affirmatively show that he did not asphyxiate.
Instead, the autopsy was unable to affirm traumatic asphyxiation or strangulation. The difference is analogous to the difference between “not guilty” and “innocent”. “we know he’s innocent” is not the same thing as “we don’t know he’s guilty,” and “we can’t confirm he asphyxiated” is not the same as “he definitely didn’t asphyxiate.”
Moreover, Traumatic asphyxia is a very specific physiological phenomenon:
What all of this means is that the autopsy revealed no signs that Floyd was holding his breath while someone jumped on his chest, and it revealed no signs that he was strangled. Which makes sense; AFAIK, nobody has reported these things happening.
The autopsy report definitely does not rule out death by positional asphyxia, i.e. an inability to adequately ventilate the lungs.
Has the actual autopsy report been published? If so, I haven’t seen it. What I have seen are reports of the report and a rather odd probable cause statement. Further down in the same article you linked it says “The Hennepin County Medical Examiner (ME) conducted the autopsy saying that asphyxia was not the cause of death.” However, I doubt the report says that. The article doesn’t cite a source for is claims. Nor do you when you said “Instead, the autopsy was unable to affirm traumatic asphyxiation or strangulation”. Of course, the report will be unable to affirm something if it didn’t happen. In my experience, autopsy reports do not normally include (rule out) or affirm things that were NOT the cause of death. If someone is contending that he was asphyxiated, they will have a hard time proving it if there is no evidence to support their claim. I’d like to let the report speak for itself. What does it say was the actual cause of death?
So your contention is that he just happened to die, and it had nothing to do with the way he was being handled by the officer. Just a complete coincidence?
The media have been citing a “preliminary autopsy report,” and they’ve been putting quotes around that line:
“…no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.”
Which would suggest this is a word-for-word accurate reproduction of what is in that preliminary autopsy report.
Sloppier reports are equating the common understanding of “asphyxiation”, i.e. an inability to exchange air in the lungs, with the “traumatic asphyxiation” terminology mentioned in that report, which is not at all the same thing.
See the quote above, re: “no physical findings…” I’m citing the plethora of news articles that present that information in quotation marks, indicating it is a direct quote from that preliminary autopsy report.
Many of the articles I’ve seen point out that this report is preliminary, and the full/final report is still pending.
IANAD. I’d be curious to hear from a doctor as to what signs would be present in the body of someone who died due to positional asphyxia, as opposed to simply stopping breathing due to some other cause.
Here’s the criminal complaint against Chauvin (PDF) which includes the following block of text:
I could not find any instances of “asphyx” anywhere else in that document, nor could I find any preliminary report that was actually filed somewhere by the coroner. I’m starting to think that the “preliminary autopsy report” isn’t a formal document, but rather is just an unpublished communication from the coroner to the prosecutor intended only for use in that criminal complaint - and that the media are all citing this criminal complaint as their primary source. If that’s the case, then no, the coroner didn’t say whether Floyd did/didn’t die of asphyxiation, except perhaps indirectly, due to being restrained by the police.
Just my opinion here, but if four police officers are unable to subdue a suspect who was laying face down on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back without kneeling on his neck until the suspect is dead I question the training given and the basic abilities of the officers in question. It also seems to me to be a much higher level of force needed for the crime of possibly passing a counterfeit twenty dollar bill