wat0n wrote:How was George Floyd actively resisting under MPD policy? I'm asking because the policy in place when the whole thing happened defined "active resistance" in a very specific way and I don't think his actions objectively fit it well. It seems to me like he was passively resisting, which did not warrant the use of neck restraints.
Yes, law enforcement has to do its job. And that doesn't limit to simply catching those for who there is a reasonable suspicion (or probable cause) of similar behavior, but to also not actually break the law in doing so.
This is what Andrew McCarthy has pointed out about it:
Though prosecutors tried some misdirection, the video and audio recordings are clear: Floyd, at six-foot, four-inches and 223 pounds (according to the autopsy report), was so determined not to be placed in the back of the squad car that, even though he was handcuffed, four grown men — police officers trained in the use of force, and pushing and pulling for all they were worth — could not get him to take a seated position.
This does not mean the officers’ prolonged restraint of Floyd later on, as his life faded, was justified. That is the central issue the jury will have to resolve. ...
What’s more, it was not the idea of the arresting officers to place Floyd in a prone position on the street. Rather, after propelling his way out of the squad-car rear seat that four cops unsuccessfully struggled to place him in, Floyd insisted that he preferred to lie down on the street. The police restrained him in the position in which he put himself, which was not the position they wanted him in (they wanted him in the car). Reasonably convinced that Floyd was high on drugs (a conclusion supported by his erratic behavior, the accounts of witnesses, and later toxicology tests), the police called for paramedics to take him to a hospital, rather than continuing to try to thrust him in the squad car and take him into police custody.
National ReviewI think it can be said that there was an active resistance to
being placed into the back of the car. As it is described somewhere else:
New CCTV footage has emerged of Minneapolis Police officers in a violent struggle with George Floyd in the back of their car before he was later pinned to the ground and died.
While the 46-year-old father-of-two cannot explicitly be seen in the video from May 25, one officer leans into the back of the car and his legs shuffle around as he visibly struggles with someone in the back seat.
news.com.auSo, it was justified to put him in some form of restraint, yes?
The real issue is about the fact that there was a prolonged use of the prone restraint with the knee to the back of the neck.
The knee-to-the-back of the neck is banned by some departments, but...
The knee-to-neck move is banned by several major metropolitan police departments, but Minneapolis police allow police to restrain suspects' necks if they're aggressive or resisting arrest.
...
It's a dangerous position, Stoughton said, because it's known to cause what's called positional asphyxia.
Someone in that position can draw enough breath to gasp or speak in spurts, but they can't breathe fully, so they gradually lose oxygen and fall unconscious.
MSNIt is known that this can increase the likelihood of death:
Prolonged (particularly resisted) restraint, obesity, prior cardiac or respiratory problems, and the use of illicit drugs such as cocaine can increase the risk of death by restraint, according to a 2001 article in American Journal of Emergency Medicine.[12]
Positional asphyxia via Wikipedia
... So a real issue here, is if the MPD allows for the use of this technique, and Chauvin was never specifically trained to avoid certain situations, it could be said that this is a death that occurred due to faulty police protocol, and Chauvin's responsibility is diminished, and therefore, he is innocent.
to answer @noemon as well... This is not a clear case of murder if we recognize that Chauvin was using an allowed hold.
But I think it could be said he was reckless because he applied it for such a long time, and should have been aware that this has been a
contributing factor in people's deaths. The death of Eric Garner comes to mind -- though not an identical hold, in which a legal process was invoked and the officer was fired and removed from police work, but was never held criminally responsible for the death(
Wikipedia blurb about the termination of ex-officer Pantaleo).
I think if the Garner incident were to happen today, it would play out much differently, and if the Floyd incident had happened immediately in light of the Garner incident, it would also have to be treated differently.