You are leaving out the fact of his knee being on his neck so those videos would really mean a lot. And you know they might not exist at all.
I imagine lives would be saved if they did actually do more than shove a knee in the neck after pulling someone scared to death from a car, who never resisted arrest beforehand. They tried to calm him, but his fear took over. He was terrified. Obviously that didn't work. You have no idea what some people fear, as irrational as it may seem. Fear is fear, and excessive force was the reality of the situation. Twenty dollars should never be a death sentence or reason to treat someone like that. Justify it how you want, but thank God the jury didn't include guys like you.
I talked about that when the trial 1st started, I had not dawned on me until they kept talking about why the cops where called and then I wondered was this even a arrestable offense because how do they know Floyd knew it was counterfeit. The kicker I can't find anywhere if the bill was actually counterfeit. The policy before this was to issue a citation, how can you arrest somebody if you don't know if it's actually counterfeit or that you just got the bill from another store?
I would like to know the cop's reasoning for having his gun drawn. If cops are doing this for normal traffic stops now... God help us all. The story sounds like something out of a Harry Bosch novel or TV show too. And some wonder why people fear the police...
What initial charge? Passing a counterfeit bill is something that usually is delt with by issuing a citation. Why were arresting him in the 1st place? The initial has a great bearing on this case because he should never have been arrested how did they know he had not gotten that bill from another store down the block. https://www.sctimes.com/story/news/...th-minneapolis-counterfeit-police/5310999002/ In Minnesota, the highest penalty for knowingly using counterfeit money less than $1,000 is up to 1 year in prison and a fine up to $3,000. Cup Foods owner Mahmoud Abumayyaleh questioned whether Floyd even knew he used a counterfeit, in a statement posted on Facebook Sunday. He told TRT, a Turkish public broadcast service, that normally officers ask a few questions about counterfeits, "put it in a bag and take it." "As a check-cashing business, this is a routine practice for us: we report forged money, then the police come and ask patrons about the bill to trace its origin. Upon receiving a counterfeit bill from George Floyd, one of our employees called the police in accordance with this procedure," according to the statement on Facebook.
The televised trial. The political commentary. Not sequestering the jury in such a big media case. The first big televised trial under COVID protocols. Doing a trial in a venue where people are actively rioting over the subject matter of the trial and having the jurors walk through the rioters. It is pretty unusual. Most cases, even homicide cases, don't have many people watching. It is rare to see anyone that isn't a family member of someone involved in the case in the court gallery, sometimes students to observe court. Yeah, I would say the circumstances around the case are pretty unusual.
Did you miss the whole Trayvon Martin thing or the trial of the guy who shot the kids in the car in Florida? Or how about a chanel that was called court TV? All of those cases have had political commentary and non sequestered jury's. The bolded part makes me wonder if you have ever seen a trial the more publicity a case has the more people other than the family are in the court. I'm surprised this case was not more bizarre.
You DETAIN for reasonable suspicion. Reasonable suspicion happened when the clerk called the police. When you resist detention, that is a new crime. One for which you can, and almost always will, be arrested. I have had many cases where the officers made a stop to investigate something, the person resisted, and they ended up charged only with resisting. It doesn't matter at that point if he knew, because they are detaining him for their investigation. Normally they don't interact with the person because the person isn't there anymore. In this particular instance, Floyd was still sitting in a car across the street when the officers arrived. When you have a suspect on scene, you detain them and investigate them. That's why officers pull you over to the side of the road in a traffic stop. They have reasonable suspicion that you have committed a crime and are detaining you until their investigation is complete. They are not conducting a trial at that point. They are gathering information.
Yes, all of those cases are the exception, not the rule. It is very rare to have people not directly connected to the case in the courtroom. Those were unusual cases as well. As was OJ, Casey Anthony, Jody Arias, the Menendez brothers, Jeffrey Dahmer, etc. There are many thousands of criminal trials every year. You have not heard of 99.99% of them. Court TV had to change it's programming to add stuff like COPS and Homicide:Life on the Streets because just showing trials didn't drive ratings. Something about the case has to be strange or emotionally charged to get people to watch court, otherwise it is quite boring.
I don’t know you dude, but please don’t try this as an experiment. I have enjoyed reading the debate in this thread. The one thing that I don’t think has been given enough play here is that jurors do their best to weigh the evidence, but they are often moved by what is visceral, what they think is right, what is common sense. The video was going to get a conviction. The testimony of other LEOs sealed it. I suppose maybe they could have found not guilty on second degree, but the video plus the other LEOs testimony was too powerful. The defense knew it and was throwing up Hail Marys.
Police all over the country are rethinking their tactics today, they now realize that they can go to jail, and others are now more willing to testify against their dirty brethren - this should be the start of a reform of policing....and it needs it badly. DD
So walking up with a gun pointed at his face is what you call investigating and detaining a suspect? This wasn't a call to cops about some armed and dangerous man. This was a call over 20 dollars! This started off bad, and ended up in murder. These cops were bad cops. Hopefully all of them spend years behind bars. Maybe then, cops like that will think twice about using excess and unnecessary force, treating humans like rabid animals, or using scare tactics because they get off on their power.
I hope they worry and fear for their lives between now and then. I bet they try a plea bargain though, after seeing Chauvin's verdict.
