If Chauvin had taken the stand, the first question I think I would have asked him is that if in his employment at the same club Floyd worked in, did he know him or of him. And, if the answer was yes, ask what he knew about him. Sure was a coincidence that Chauvin chose to brutally restrain a man that worked at the same location he did.
...I can see where you're coming from with this, @bobrek... ...but honestly, I could see this having done more to acquit Derek Chauvin than actually helping to convict him. One of the best things about the legal pursuit of this case, from my perspective, was the types of charges brought. Dead is dead, at the end of the day. Premeditation is another possible layer on top of the actual act itself, and much more difficult to prove in this particular case...but George Floyd died all the same. What's heinous and ghastly is the manner in which this crime happened. Whatever personal contact or acquaintance either of them may or may not have had with one another prior to this...the line of demarcation, to me, was the authority Chauvin had in this moment as a police officer. Chauvin was just as responsible for George Floyd's life, as he may have believed he was appropriate in detaining him for what was ultimately a trivial offense, if Floyd was even aware of it. Human beings are human beings. It is not unreasonable to go to the conjecture (especially with the way this entire horrible episode unfolded) that Chauvin may have had a personal animus towards Floyd, stemming from some prior encounter...and that that prior encounter, coupled with the uniform and badge that Chauvin wore, provided him with the opportunity to "settle an old score"...right in broad daylight. I've seen worse television episodes. Maybe if you could have gotten Sam Waterston to prosecute this, you could maybe have gone for a murder one charge. Or, maybe Tom Cruise could have gotten Chauvin to tell him the truth, whether he could handle it or not. The truth that is undebatable...the truth that is irrefutable...the truth that matters...is that George Floyd is dead. And George Floyd should not be dead. And he should not have died in the manner in which he did die. And the person most responsible for that death was Derek Chauvin. Who had his knee in the back and neck of that man who was laying handcuffed on his stomach for eight minutes and forty-six seconds. As George Floyd suffocated. While Derek Chauvin had his hands in his pockets. And wearing the look of a man who knew he could do about anything he wanted to do in that situation and not face any consequences for it. Not some carbon monoxide exhaust. Not some dosage of narcotic in George Floyd's bloodstream. Not some 17-year old girl filming the whole thing with her camera phone that wouldn't have frightened anybody with an ounce of sense. Derek Chauvin. Contempt isn't a far-too distant relative of premeditation to me, either. So I believe I may understand your meaning here, @bobrek. Which is why I'm a little more interested, personally, in how the sentencing in this case goes. The sentencing (and someone I'm sure will correct me if I'm wrong here) is totally at the judge's discretion here. All three counts for which Chauvin was found guilty total a maximum penalty of seventy-five years in prison. Those sentences are not consecutive. They are concurrent. Meaning that, if the judge so desires, he can choose to sentence Chauvin to the least amount of time of the three convictions (since they all represent the same crime). And if what some trial lawyers and correspondents I've heard comment on this are saying is true, the possibility exists that Chauvin might not do even half of the time of the most strenuous of those charges. If the judge so decides. We'll see. Getting away with murder, like a lot of things, might just be a matter of perspective...
Good post and I agree with it. The issue of whether Chauvin knew Floyd or what connection they may have had through El Nuevo Rodeo was very unclear. One former employee claimed that they did but later recanted when other staff including the owner said they didn't That doesn't mean that there wasn't a connection but without more definitive evidence I think that would've clouded the issue if the prosecution pursued that. The prosecution did an outstanding job with the evidence they had putting in an argument that they didn't have a lot of evidence would've given the defense another avenue to attack. If they tried to pursue a 1st degree murder charge to claim that Chauvin had premeditated the murder of Floyd based on a prior connection that could've risked losing the whole case.
Except it's role wasn't to inflame people's passions - it was to provide the full story of what happened and inform the jury of the circumstances around the whole scenario. It's purpose was to help get a conviction.
I hope they catch the nasty racist who did this. I hope there is a camera somewhere to catch a picture of that creep's face and arrest the punk. GEORGE FLOYD MURAL IN DOWNTOWN HOUSTON VANDALIZED WITH RACIAL SLUR https://abc13.com/george-floyd-mura...ed-defaced-n-word-lives-dont-matter/10537771/
What are you talking about? That makes no sense. What do racist remarks on a mural of George Floyd have to do with alt left? This guy was murdered, and some disgusting racist with no sympathy for the man, or his family puts those nasty words on his mural. This isn't a party thing. Don't make it out to be. This is about human decency and respect for others.
Sadly the original George Floyd mural in Minneapolis has also been vandalized before. One reason why volunteers have been guarding it for the past year.
I was watching a documentary on Mark Twain on Amazon Prime and in 1864 the same issues we have today bothered him. He was working for the Morning Call newspaper in San Francisco and wrote an article denouncing white violence towards Chinese immigrants and the editor of the paper wouldn't run it. He later wrote an article attacking corruption and police brutality in the San Francisco Police Dept., and again his editor wouldn't run it. His editor quietly let him go a few months after hiring him. In some ways we have made great progress, but hate towards immigrants, racism, and police brutality are all still big problems in our country. Ignoring it or defending it with some type of twisted justification will never be the right thing to do. People speaking out against hate crimes, racism, or police brutality aren't radical leftists, woke mobs, or all a bunch of looters. They are people desperately wanting their voices to be heard, and for changes to be made, so people don't have to live in fear or be treated as "less than human", or differently than anyone else.
...and if there could be anything worse than watching an officer of the law kill a person like that... ...at best (by what he was charged with and convicted of) with depraved indifference... ...or at worst, with malice and intent... ...it was that the local newspaper was already prepared to run a "news" story essentially adding this sadism to the statistics that show how wanton and criminally inclined black people are. ...and if not for the actions of that girl who chose to capture this on video... ...I wonder how many people wouldn't have been up in arms about "fake news" or lying liberal media about this. They would have taken those numbers and statistics, and done what most people who are biased and incurious and vapid usually do with those numbers and statistics...exactly what they want to do with them. I shudder to think how often something like this happens, and how often the municipality and the precincts and anybody else so inclined conspire to hide or cover up something like this. Especially something like this involving black people. And people wonder why Minneapolis had been such a powder keg surrounding this incident...
In-custody death reports under former Maryland medical examiner to be reviewed after he testified Chauvin did not kill George Floyd https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/c...html?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true
Listening to MN AG Keith Ellison right now. Ellison assembled an outstanding team for the prosecution but one thing I didn't know as that the lead prosecutors were working pro-bono.
