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African-American George Floyd's death has led to marches, demonstrations, acts of violence, and looting across the USA and in other parts of the world. Emotions are running high. We will not attempt to accuse or defend anyone here. Just attempt to lay out the information we have and offer it up for the community to discuss. Many comments about this incident have been posted to unrelated stories on this site. This is, therefore, an attempt to provide one place on SoylentNews where people are encouraged to discuss it. So as to not derail other stories on the site, I kindly ask you focus those comments here.
Wikipedia has a page about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd (permanent link to the page as it appeared at the time of writing):
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an African-American man, was killed in the Powderhorn community of Minneapolis, Minnesota. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Derek Chauvin, a white American Minneapolis police officer, kept his knee on the right side of Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds; according to the criminal complaint against Chauvin, 2 minutes and 53 seconds of that time occurred after Floyd became unresponsive.[3][4][5][6][7] Officers Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas K. Lane participated in Floyd's arrest, with Kueng holding Floyd's back, Lane holding his legs, and Thao looking on and preventing intervention by an onlooker as he stood nearby.[8]:6:24[9][10]
The arrest was made after Floyd was accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill at a market.[11] Police said Floyd physically resisted arrest.[12][13] Some media organizations commented that a security camera from a nearby business did not show Floyd resisting.[14][15] The criminal complaint filed later said that based on body camera footage, Floyd repeatedly said he couldn't breathe while standing outside the police car, resisted getting in the car and intentionally fell down.[16][17][18][19] Several bystanders recorded the event on their smartphones, with one video showing Floyd repeating "Please", "I can't breathe", "Mama", and "Don't kill me" being widely circulated on social media platforms and broadcast by the media.[20] While knee-to-neck restraints are allowed in Minnesota under certain circumstances, Chauvin's usage of the technique has been widely criticized by law enforcement experts as excessive.[21][22][23] All four officers were fired the day after the incident.[24]
[...] Charges: Third-degree murder (Chauvin) Second-degree manslaughter (Chauvin)
This has been extensively covered by the media. Some outlets attempt to put their own interpretations on their coverage with their selection of video footage and with their commentary. It is difficult to find a simple video of the incident. Here is one that has coverage from the time of initial encounter of the police the officers with George Floyd up through his being taken away by ambulance. The video is a composite of shots from a restaurant's surveillance camera (Dragon Wok), Officer body cam, and bystander cell phones. YouTube footage: Full George Floyd Available Footage (21:12). If anyone has more complete footage of the arrest, please mention it clearly (with a link) in the comments.
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(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:25PM (3 children)
You're coming off as a real jackass in here. Attempts to explain why Chauvin HAD to murder Floyd because he was "resisting" and now protesters are just bored emotional people with too much time? There were similar protests in 2014 for Eric Garner, there have been similar protests happening for decades.
Yet still cops get away with very clear murder and we keep letting them use excuses to get away with it. I think we should remove firearms from police, let them use their riot shields and group tactics to subdue criminals. Also, any death of someone in custody is a minimum of 5 years in prison, if there was an underlying cause then it is on the police to seek medical aid immediately.
Stop downplaying these events please.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:43PM (2 children)
No question Chauvin used excessive force, and had total disregard for Floyd's well being, but no way did Chauvin intend to kill Floyd. No way. Disregard for life to the point of criminality, yes, absolutely, but labeling intent is 1) insane and 2) zero chance of being upheld in court.
However, somewhere news said the 2 of them had worked together, so it'd be interesting to learn about their past interactions. That could shed light on intent, and must be investigated.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:57PM
He intended to apply force of lethal degree. Whether or not the actual death was intended, the infliction of lethal-degree harm clearly was intended. He was told George Floyd was bleeding from the nose and unconscious and he continued to apply force that he knew would likely lead to permanent brain damage.
If there had been no video he would've gotten away with literal murder.
Anyways, tl;dr you're a troll and lying.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:21PM
That's quite a coincidence and leads to the possibility that Chauvin may have had a motive for killing Floyd - such as Floyd owing money or being a witness to something. For example, consider this scenario: Chauvin and the rest have this good thing going - drugs, protection racket, theft of police resources, whatever; Floyd who gets in on this action becomes unreliable when he drinks; this group of cops hear the 911 operator call out about a drunk man causing trouble and figure it could be Floyd; they call in to become the first responders; then when they get there and rough him up a bit, they determine he's too dangerous to let live; and Chauvin kills him while pretending to merely engage in a bit of police brutality for the cameras. That's Murder One though it might be very hard to prove if the police aren't interested in investigating it. In another thread [soylentnews.org], I stated that I thought it likely that Chauvin merely intended serious harm to Floyd and accidentally killed him. But this could be a case of crooked cops and a problem that needed erasing. In which case, the murder may well be premeditated.