The defense attorney for police officers accused of killing George Floyd will claim that the cops didn’t murder him. Floyd killed himself with a large dose of fentanyl on top of an existing heart condition. Beyond that, the cops followed their training, and tried to save the man who posthumously sparked Black Lives Matter mass protests and riots nationwide.
- What if Floyd complained he couldn’t breathe before he got on the ground?
- What if he asked police to let him get on the ground?
- What if the cops followed their training to restrain a perp exhibiting symptoms of ‘excited delirium’?
- What if the knee on the neck was designed to save him?
Former Philadelphia prosecutor, George Parry, makes the case in American Spectator that George Floyd killed himself.Â
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Bill Whittle Network · George Floyd Murder Defense: Cops Did Their Job, Floyd Died of Fentanyl and Heart Condition
37 replies on “George Floyd Murder Defense: Cops Did Their Job, Floyd Died of Fentanyl and Heart Condition”
“Everyone who saw the video was shocked by it and I trust that reaction….”
Yes Bill, watching a man fall unconscious from a drug overdose is not fun to watch. You do realize of course that he did not die there on the street right? I only ask because it seems like 99.99% of the people that have a strong opinion on this case don’t appear to know that. George Floyd died at the hospital at 9:25 PM May 25. Here is the autopsy report. People do not die from strangulation from a knee on the rear of the neck period and they especially don’t die from strangulation from a knee on the rear of the neck after the knee has been removed and hours after they’ve been transported to the hospital AND intubated.
The problem with reacting on the emotional toll of watching that video is it tells you only a fraction of the facts. I think very highly of you Bill but I do not think very highly of your opinion on this matter because your apparent primary consideration is the emotional knee jerk reaction even when a fairly cursory examination of the facts rules out murder entirely. You used the example of if it were you or someone you loved in that position, but if it were you or someone you loved in that position it’s almost entirely sure that you would be just fine. Let’s be honest though, if you watched the actual bodycam footage, you know damn well you never would have been in that position in the first place. I do very much appreciate what you said about an innocent man being freed regardless of the consequences.
Now I still think Chauvin failed in his duty in that he should have modified his position and rendered first aid the moment Floyd fell unconscious and with his apparent record of misconduct he very likely should be fired, but murder in any degree is a flat miscarriage of justice and is clearly at this point no better than political railroading.
I will let you have the bully pulpit on many topics, aerospace etc. However, in this situation, I believe you have missed the mark. As a physician of many years, having reviewed as many videos and data that are available in the popular press, I believe that this man died not as a result of the police intervention. Unfortunately, the court decision will not be applicable to “real justice” IMHO. This was a man under the influence of drugs from the initial contact with the police. I would suggest that Bill might be able to see all the video prior to putting him on the spot. I agree that the most important issue is the “political prisoner” situation. God Bless you guys
This was already mentioned by Richard, but not fully appreciated. Punishable criminal conduct is based on the defendant’s actual state of mind. The more culpable the state of mind, the more serious the charge and penalty. The defenses related to police procedure are being raised, I think, to show the officer(s) did not have the requisite state of mind for the charged second (and perhaps third degree) murder. This might fly, it might not, but what it is is a defense to the particular legal charges being brought.
I’ve heard that an autopsy revealed that there were none of the tell-tale discolorations of gums and other tissue that are always present in cases of asphyxiation. Surprised they didn’t acknowledge that.
That is correct. The autopsy specifically mentions there were not petichea present anywhere. These do not always appear in asphyxiation, but are very common. The autopsy stated there was no physical evidence that would confirm asphyxiation (by any means) or traumatic strangulation. The neck muscles, cartilage, vertebrae showed any damage. The mucous lining the inside of the throat and airway was intact. There were no broken bones, except for a postmortem rib break from CPR attempts.
I am wondering more about the character and demeanor of these video segments (and maybe especially this one). Part of the reason we (or at least I) come to and support BWDC is because Bill’s spoken (or written) moral outrage is like a fire clearing out the PC BS underbrush, allowing us a clearer view of the forest of core republican conservative constitutional principles we all endorse and wish to see continued indefinitely. But the other part is that that outrage is backed up with a solid presentation of facts, history, personalities, etc. If the drama of the outrage overtakes the core facts then things take an unhappy turn.
Thus I concur with him on his remarks that a fully proper due process trial by jury should render their verdict while ignoring the potential for riots and violence. The possible violence is secondary to the core legal and cultural right to a fair trial judged by one’s peers. But any emotional reaction that would be justified based on the initially available Floyd video should be moderating as alternative evidence or mitigating issues come to light.
Bill is obviously very busy with many topics and news tracking, and perhaps the protocol here is that Bill is purposefully presented with topics where he is not expected to be fully knowledgeable as to the details. But I was surprised he was not aware that the neck pressure was applied to the side rather than the front of the neck, purposefully to avoid throat constriction issues. For those of you not already aware of her blog, TheNewNeo had a good posting on the restraint training: https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/08/12/chauvin-lane-kueng-and-thao-were-doing-what-they-had-been-trained-to-do/.
Let me add that I am more fully appreciating Scott’s role here as developer/ presenter of discussion topics, devil’s advocate, and general raconteur. He is doing a great job given our tumultuous political and social environment. As are all three of our amigos, who I hope will measure their level of outrage appropriately for the topic under consideration.
Wow, a lot of great comments today, too: from Grace, Bob Fields, Richard Reck, et al.
Bill’s argument is emotional. Fair enough. They’ll get off due to “beyond a reasonable doubt,” etc. chaos and mayhem will reign throughout the nation. Hopefully the verdict will come down after the election.
For the first time in the history of the world Bill is wrong. In both cases (King and Floyd) the officers followed, exactly, the training they received. Everyone was shocked by both videos because police work is ugly. If there are villains, it is the people who set up the training at the police academy. Blame them. But in both cases, the bosses and political leaders cut the men lose to protect themselves. Bill, direct your anger at the right people.
If you look at the evidence carefully, you will find more acts of police malfeasance than you’d prefer, BUT in very few cases are there obvious cases of racial bias, racial animus. A great example is the Breonna Taylor case- a no-knock warrant exercised at O dark hundred. We still do not know how well the police identified themselves, but Taylor’s BF who was staying over had a weapon, heard the commotion, went to see what was going on, shot one cop in the leg, and a hail of bullets ensued, 8 of them finding their way to Ms. Taylor. It’s a tragedy, and bad policing. But it is NOT the “white cops shooting black people for sport” narrative so common at BLM rallies. If we mis-evaluate the problem, we will affect an incorrect solution, and this is a GREAT example (there are MANY more) where you can take the “police brutality” story and blow it up. Or you can try to understand it in context, and solve the problems that need solving without stirring up racial animosity. IMHO
A lot of people here and beforehand how can someone say “I cannot breathe” if they cannot breathe. One: they may mean they have a hard time breathing. Two: they seem to be short of breath. A personal example: Years ago when bars still allowed smoking and I did not yet know how allergic I was to cigarette smoke, I went into a bar with some friends. My throat began to close up immediately. I left and some the next 2-3 minutes using every bit of strength I had to inhale. I exhaled, and thus could speak, normally. Each breath got a bit easier until I could breath normally. Really scary, and now avoid smoke or hold my breath while walking through.
And as to the video, first thing I thought was how horrible it looked and wondered what the rest of the story was. There are always two sides. One could be lying if mistaken, but there is more than one side. Still waiting for all of it.
This is a classic case of framing by media. A partial video of such an event excludes multiple factors that will inform a correct finding. Much misinformation has been added to the public perception of this event as well.
Here is a question I don’t have the answer to, but would like to know. Has this particular officer been found to have used excessive force in the past or has he been merely the recipient of excessive force complaints that were never substantiated? What actual disciplinary actions have actually been taken for what type of misconduct? I’m not interested in any letters of admonition for punching out early or being late on a form or report. How many citations for exemplary performance has he received?
It is common for frivolous charges of officer misconduct to be made as leverage for reduction of charges, intimidating cops from making future arrests or other legal advantage including civil law suits by suspects. Such reports are commonly filed in the officers’ personnel files even if the charge is found to be unsubstantiated. Usually the only way it gets kept out of the records is if the complainant withdraws it. Hence the leverage regarding the charges of the suspect. Cops with such complaints in their files are limited in competing for promotion, special assignments and training.
It often happens a reporter or lawyer will refer to such excess force charges as if they were found to have been substantiated. For the lawyer this is calculated, for the reporter it could be ignorance or calculated. My intuition is that cops who are willing to make arrests on the street in dangerous areas can get such complaints commonly. Who are the bad cops here?
Cops tend to follow explicit procedures for their administrative and legal protection. If they deviate based on their own judgment, they are completely vulnerable if anything goes bad. An environment that produces risk adversity and rote behavior. Violating established protocol in a situation that results in a civil suit against the jurisdiction is a career ender.
Regardless of how this case comes out, these four officers are done in law enforcement. They are now high profile social justice targets.
Michael, here’s the Minneapolis police department’s chronicle of complaint cases against Officer Derek Chauvin, and their resolution.
Thank you!
Looking at the evidence, I conclude that this officer on one occasion used bad language and had a bad attitude when dealing with someone on the street. God only knows how the person was treating him.
Thank you, Scott and Michael. Bill, I’ve heard you say, more than once, that the police officer had a number of ‘excessive force’ complaints on his record. I’m not sure that’s correct. I count on you to be factual AND skeptical; it’s one of the reasons I’m a longtime loyal member. I’d like to request that you continue to ask the tough questions: How do we know? What hard evidence exists? What’s the larger context? Who benefits? Who decides? Who pays?
“Has this particular officer been found to have used excessive force in the past or has he been merely the recipient of excessive force complaints that were never substantiated?” Exactly.
Chauvin had 18 complaints filed against him over a period of almost 20 years service. Only two of those complaints. Two of those were “closed with discipline”. There is a summary of the complaints with a bit more detail than Scott’s list provided:
https://tinyurl.com/y42f2y6z (Bottom of article has bio section on all 4 officers)
Chauvin was involved in several incidents that resulted in shots fired. None of those cases received discipline and one resulted in a departmental medal. He served a long time in a very tense position as a patrol officer.
Bill threw me a curve – I didn’t expect him to take a position against Chauvin. When I first saw the video something didn’t seem right – how could Floyd be suffocating when he was talking most of the time he was on the ground subdued by the knee on his neck? Honestly, I thought it looked staged, though by whom and for what reason didn’t hold up to scrutiny. It also didn’t make sense to me that so many bystanders did nothing to prevent what appeared to be callous and unmerciful behavior on the part of Chauvin. Even his fellow police officers made no attempt to stop what was happening. Chauvin appeared calm and even rather bored during the entire event.
If I were a juror I believe I would have to vote Not Guilty. George Floyd died as a result of life-long bad decisions leading to criminal behavior which culminated in his death. He accidentally killed himself with drugs in tandem with an accident caused by the police acting in accordance with their training.
Really, can we believe what we see? It’s a tricky question.
I must vehemently disagree with Bill’s “trust” (approximately at 7:30) for any emotionally-charged conclusion that procedure must be questioned-in-real-time when a police officer is faced with potential harm from a suspect. Procedures exist for such scenarios in which taking time for conscious thought can get one killed; whereas, a programmed response will save lives — particularly the lives of the officers and bystanders.
Add to that, remember that NO paramedic would have been in the position of the officers, because the suspect was fundamentally uncooperative until the point he was rendered unconscious and then dead shortly thereafter.
The dismissal of such realities is based wholly upon an emotional reaction to a series of unfortunate events initiated by the suspect’s usage of a deadly opiate. Emotion should not rule the officer’s day when he is dealing with potentially-violent suspects.
Letting emotions rule individual and collective responses has resulted in the violent riots in many cities like Portland, Oregon. I refuse to accept this as reasonable.
Floyd was a criminal and treated as such
And when I am walking down the street and a thug is acting crazily (I think that’s why the police were called), I need for the police to have a way to subdue that person in order to protect me and all the other people in the area. We must give the police the power to subdue dangerous people, and it’s not going to be by sending a social worker to investigate. Personally, I think he died from preexisting conditions and drug abuse.
And I am convinced that the riots have nothing to do with this incident. They were preplanned and paid for and set up by some terrible people, in order to destroy the USA.
I have to go with the defense on this. Over 40 years of being both a prosecutor and a criminally defense lawyer, Bill mistakes “mitigation” with a defense to second degree murder. There are legal definitions that differ from one state to another, so it can be hard to tell without all the evidence. I don’t care if one is shocked be watching a partial video, as Bill seems to be, that is not the full case. A jury cannot use prior acts to conclude that the defendant acted in accordance with those acts. They are instructed to that. I really would like more restraint on hot takes before trial.
Scott the American Spectator writer is “GEORGE PARRY”
Thank you, Quentin. Apparently, I cannot read my own handwriting.
I know the problem well. 🙂
Bill you are basing your judgement totally on the last 2 minutes of this incident and the bystander video. Virtually nothing useful can be determined from observing that little snippet. The whole incident took over 20 minutes from 8:02pm to 8:27pm. Chauvin and Thao were on the scene for less than 8 minutes before Floyd died.
Yes the restraint looked bad, but it was a non-lethal restraint used by MPD over 230 times in the past 5 years with zero fatalities. It was considered non-lethal because it explictly did not apply any pressure to the front part of the throat and neck. The fact that Floyd was articulating, talking and breathing heavily until he passed out is proof he was not being choked and his airway had to be open.
Tou Thao BodyCam https://tinyurl.com/y34oqon8
Thomas Lane BodyCam https://tinyurl.com/yxrbwpls
JA Kueng BodyCam https://tinyurl.com/yyc8kqa3
Chavin’s Bodycam was dislodged and recorded only audio for the last 8 minutes. It has not been released.
The effect of the fentanyl of Floyd’s body was to slow his heart rate and blood circulation down by 50% or more. This is why he felt he was short of breath; his blood was not delivering oxygen to his brain and heart. This eventually led to arrhythmia outside the squad and with his struggle and agitation to cardiac stoppage on the ground. He did request to come out of the squad and they obliged placing him on the ground in the normal prone position for restraint. Up to that point he had been struggling and resisting a lot. EMS was called as soon as he came out of the squad and arrived at 8:27pm. Lane accompanied the ambulance and did CPR until the mechanical CPR machine could be activated.
All of the defense motions for dismissal against Lane and Ellison’t rebuttal to deny are found here: (Clock on lind to go to Evidence section) The official autopsy report is there as well. Baden’s “autopsy” was a fake. He looked at the bystander video, made some assertions and never saw the body, toxicology or any of the autopys evidence. He was hired by Benjamin Crump, a anotorius race hustler and ambulance chase, to provide evidence for the civil suit, which he has already filed. This is nothing more than a shakedown. Crump was the attorney in the Trayvon Martin case in which he put fake “witnesses” on the stand and comitted several other felonies.
https://tinyurl.com/y42f2y6z
A “homicide” is specified whenever a suspect dies while in police custody. It is not a judgement of any sort in the legal sense. There were zero signs in the autopsy of asphyxiation or traumatic strangulation. There was zero damage to any portion of Floyd’s neck, neck muscles, cartilege, or airway. It was noted that the mucous lining the throat and airway was intact and had not been damaged. Floyd had major blockages on two important arteries delivering oxygen to his heart; one was 96% blocked and the other 76%.
Floyd’s cause of death was cardiac arrest, compounded by the drugs he ingested and his actions with the police. They were totally self-inflicted. He refused to acknowledge or tell the police he had taken any drugs. The procedure they followed in the case that he was suffering “excited delirium” were appropriate. They had no indication of his heart issues or how many drugs he ingested. He lost consciousness at 8:24:24 and was brain dead within a few seconds. The only way to revive him would have been electro-pulmonary resuscitation, which was not available.
In any case the evidence revealed so far indicates there was not a scintilla of racial motivation involved in his death by any of the officers. J.A. Kueng is a black man; he was next to Chauvin behind the squad holding down his mid-section.
Thanks, Quentin. Very informative.
Mr Police Officer’s guilt or innocence (or some shading in-between) cannot turn back the clock on all the riots, looting, destruction of buildings, etc that has occurred. BLM was overtaken/over-shadowed by AntiFa, and the results are to be seen (and still occurring).
BLM was never “overtaken” by anyone. They are a violent, communist organization. They condone and engage in violence on a regular basis.
Reading a transcript of George Floyds last 10+ minutes time line probably will make you question many of the events reported in the weeks since his death.
The article referenced is from the American Spectator by GEORGE PARRY “Chauvin, Lane, Kueng, and Thao: The George Floyd Fall Guys “
George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor. From 1978 to 1983 he was the Chief of the Police Brutality/Misconduct Unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.
The transcript of Mr Floyds lasts minutes was taken from audio recordings of the officers involved in his arrest.
The actual procedures that these officers used to subdue and protect George Floyd are included in the article to give insight into what these officers were attempting to do.
https://spectator.org/
Yes, the article was also posted (link) above the video. I had the happy occasion to read the article before watching above video, which definitely colored my viewing and commenting.
Bill was ‘blindsided’ as he usually is by Scott… but in fact, Scott had the benefit of reading the article (audio timeline, autopsy reports, etc) and knowing more of the facts than Bill.
17:30 Bill is finally getting some light on the issue: this is a politically ginned up riot-producing incident. In this case, it doesn’t matter what the ‘facts’ are, what matters is what ‘facts’ (e.g. video) are shown to the public in order to get the public to rise up and adjudicate the case w/ riots vs courts. G.F.’s ‘murderer’ is being tried in the court of public opinion. This is the democrat’s modus operandi…
Is this a case of reversal of roles? Scott taking the rational, informed role, and Bill the reactionary, emotional role? If so (but I doubt it…), bravo guys…
But… I’m only halfway thru, let’s see how it plays out!
I don’t think so. Scott had all the facts and Bill looked lost.
I wrote a rather long essay here about hypothetical what-if-they-had-done-this-instead sort of arguments, but I came to the conclusion that none of it matters because Floyd didn’t die of asphyxiation. If there is no causal link between what the policeman did and how Floyd died, there is no crime. (If they had beaten him to death, there would be a cause and effect.)
It seems to me that the only thing anyone is upset about in this unfortunate death is the physical hold that the policeman used to hold him down, and the length of time for which he held him down while Floyd was claiming he couldn’t breathe. The recently-revealed context–such as Floyd begging not to be put in the car and claiming he couldn’t breathe at least half a dozen times before he was put on the ground–shows that the officer had rational reasons for doing each of those things.
If it turns out that this was because the police officer’s training was faulty, then the only thing you can blame him for is for not disregarding his training at some point. Some much-lesser-than-murder charge and punishment might be appropriate because as a society we do expect policemen to be able to judge such things, and the “rational man” standard isn’t enough.
When I first saw the video of the police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, I thought “That’s a really bad idea!”. The follow-up stories lead me to believe the officer was following his training. I’ve listened to the police cam audio of Floyd saying “I can’t breathe” while he was still on his feet, hands handcuffed behind his back. Video shows they went to put him in a cruiser but he thrashed about, then officers put him in the ground.
All this said, it was a “horrible visual effect” seeing the officers kneel on Floyd’s neck.
Rioting, looting, arson by Antifa, BLM, and local criminals had nothing to do with Floyd! These actions were too fast, too well organized, and immediately too violent! They have all the markings of a George Soros organized Marxist riot!
he had in his bloodstream over three times the potentially lethal limit of fentanyl
Case closed! George Floyd killed himself. It would have made absolutely no difference what the Police did, George Floyd was a dead man walking BY HIS OWN HAND.