Like so many things, ISTM that it’s hard to judge the veracity and the rectitude of outcomes in situations like this, or the wisdom of the choice that either side made, in part because police unions often have one last card to play:
This often becomes a high-stakes game of chicken. There really does need to be a better way.
I’ve also long remarked that Republicans, generally, loathe every single union in existence but tend to be staunch and reflexive supporters of the Police Unions.
The defense claiming George Floyd said, “I ate too many drugs,” was deeply weird. It was like ghost hunters presenting EVP or moral guardians playing “backmasking.” If I were forced to guess, it sounded like, “I ain’t do nothing.” (I definitely didn’t hear the final consonants needed for the word “drugs.”) One of the Court TV commentators heard, “Please stop.” It could’ve been anything.
I’m reminded of the debate re: the Laquan McDonald shooting here in Chicago. I’m a lawyer, but I’ve never practiced criminal law. I was somewhat bemused by people arguing over what charges should have been brought and what the cop should have been convicted of. To me, the specific grounds for conviction is not nearly as important as the need for Chauvin to be convicted of SOMETHING and serve more than token prison time.
It’s not odd. Republicans are full-on authoritarians. Have been for decades. Labor unions challenge the power of the elites so they are bad. Police unions protect the power of the elites and thus are kosher. Stop thinking about the right in terms of philosophy or principles, they have none. It’s solely about getting and keeping power. It’s also why the are obsessed with militarism in spite of the fact that defense spending is the least “fiscally conservative” thing that could possible be done. It’s all about power over your foes…which is the people.
The fact Republicans support gun ownership because it’s a way to “protect” the people from government overreach BUT support bigger and bigger armed forces is one of the dumbest contradictions there is. It makes no sense to say you need a gun to protect yourself from the government and then vote for the government to have more guns. The Founding Fathers would have found the U.S. Army of 2021 absolutely terrifying. To them it would have been a much, much greater threat to liberty than modest gun control.
But if you think of Republicans as authoritarians, not conservatives, it makes perfect sense. The point, as the old saying goes, is to provide protection to in groups on whom there are no obligations, and impose obligations on out groups who receive no protection.
Conservatives support police unions in hopes that they can be used to rough up civil rights protestors, but not so much when it comes to protecting police union pensions.
It’s obviously a dated article but I was living and working in and around the South SF Bay area around the time Chuck Reed was mayor. His clashes with the police union got pretty testy.
I don’t know what the legal definition of murder 1, 2, and 3 are in MN, but to be honest, I don’t think aceplace57’s position is unreasonable. I personally doubt that Chauvin intended to kill Floyd while he was on camera; he might have wanted to rough him up a bit and ‘teach him (and bystanders) a lesson,’ or 'show ‘em who’s boss’ - all the cliches we can think of. It’s no less outrageous and such conduct ought to be criminal nonetheless. He absolutely ought to be imprisoned for it.
Again: which part was the accidental mistake? The unlawful “knee pressure” that Chauvin had been trained not to do? Withholding aid that he had been trained to render?
Chauvin did the opposite of what he’d been trained to do. He did this because Floyd’s life didn’t matter to him. There were no mistakes, only crimes.
It is absolutely unreasonable to suggest that Chauvin made a “mistake”. He’d been trained not to knee people on the neck, because it might kill the detainee. He’d been trained to render first aid to detainees; he did not give Floyd the proper aid.
These weren’t mistakes. Chauvin didn’t give a shit about the life of the man in his custody, and this indifference caused Floyd’s death. At a minimum it’s criminal negligence, and he should serve time in general population.
Some summaries of today’s testimony from NY Times:
The defense has made the argument that the bystanders watching Minneapolis police restrain George Floyd constituted a hostile crowd that distracted the officers from monitoring Floyd’s condition. But Sgt. Stiger, the L.A.P.D. expert, disagrees: “They were merely filming, and most of their concern was for Mr. Floyd.”
The defense is trying to get Sgt. Jody Stiger of the Los Angeles Police Department, the prosecution’s use-of-force expert, to say that suspects who appear subdued or unconscious can start to fight again. But the witness says that in evaluating appropriate use of force, officers can only go by the suspect’s actions, not what they might do.
Sgt. Stiger is really pushing back, insisting that what the officer is allowed to do depends not just on what the use-of-force policy says but what the suspect is actually doing.
There goes the crowd-blaming argument and the “but what if Floyd started fighting again” argument.
I really think the defense is looking at how the cops got off in the Rodney King beating, specifically King did not get down as ordered and kept … trying to fight back? escaping? resisting arrest? IDK but he kept moving around against police orders. Great defense except for the fact that Floyd was not resisting and had a cop’s knee on his neck. Soooooo … let’s pretend he may have been resisting and not dying.
Opiod tolerance means that the addict needs higher doses. The fact that he was altered and nodding off indicated that he had taken enough to affect him before the police showed up.
That is begging the question, it may have been that being restrained killed him, that the drugs killed him, or some of both killed him. That is what the trial is to find out, there has not been any testimony about that yet.
I’ve noticed a lot of people saying that people in the public forming an opinion on Chauvin’s guilt before the trial finishes playing out shows a lack of impartiality. Is this something that applies to all trials? I certainly am not going to wait for the trial to play out to decide that Ghislaine Maxwell is a sex trafficker. I think it’s perfectly fine to make a judgment as a random member of the public based on publicly available information for a lot of high-profile court cases. If I was on the jury (well I’d probably not get picked but at any rate) I would of course have to check a lot of bias at the door and try to not form any opinions without evidence presented at trial. However, I’m not and I’m free to evaluate the overwhelming public evidence that Chauvin killed Floyd.
I thought about expounding a bit more: I believe based on publicly available knowledge that it’s obvious Chauvin is guilty of manslaughter for the way he killed Floyd, and he should probably at least also get convicted of the Murder 3 charge too.
I kept it to the “Chauvin killed Floyd” just because I was responding to a comment opining that the overdose may have actually killed Floyd and not Chauvin.
A knee crushing one’s neck for several minutes isn’t being “restrained”. And today’s evidence included proof that that one was crushing Floyd’s neck for several minutes.
That was truly bizarre. “I ate too many drugs” does not at all match the linguistics that he or anybody else I’ve ever heard speak used. I can’t believe that the prosecution didn’t immediately object to the incredibly leading question.