I hate to be the one to lay this on you, but unless the jury in Minneapolis is Woke to the nth degree, Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who held his knee on the neck of George Floyd until his death will more than likely not be convicted of Second-Degree Murder, Manslaughter, or Third-Degree murder.
I also do not believe the other three officers who were there will be convicted of anything. For example, the Asian cop, Tou Thao, was assigned to crowd control during the incident where police officers were arresting Floyd. Tending to Floyd was not his assignment. He could not do his job of keeping the spectators back and at the same time keep an eye on what was going on with Chauvin and Mr. Floyd. The other two officers were rookies with one being on the job for just days. One of the rookies rendered aid in the ambulance. For these reasons, I do not think any of the three other officers on the scene can be convicted for just being there.
Let’s go over it. The first charge we’ll look at is Second Degree Murder. In some states there doesn’t have to be an intent for Second Degree Murder, but in Minnesota there does. This is crucial to the charge against Chauvin.
Here is the statute straight from Minnesota’s website.
The prosecutors are not charging Chauvin with Intentional Murder under Second Degree, because they would never ever get a conviction for that because the whole incident was on film and the whole world saw it.
The prosecution is charging Chauvin under subdivision 2, Unintentional Murder under Second Degree Murder.
Under this section, it says “Whoever does either of the following is guilty of unintentional murder in the second degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 40 years:” So if Chauvin is convicted of this he will serve prison time for 40 years.
The important thing we’re going to do here that the Fake News networks like CNN and MSNBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times et. al. are not going to do is read the statutes because in the real world it matters. The real world has absolutely nothing to do with what you want it to be, how you think it should be even if you really, really, really, REALLY want it to be.
Under Clause 1 it says the following:
(1) causes the death of a human being, without intent to effect the death of any person, while committing or attempting to commit a felony offense other than criminal sexual conduct in the first or second degree with force or violence or a drive-by shooting; or
When you read that statute, knowing what you know about the case from the perspective of what you saw in the video, it will be very difficult for the prosecution to prove that Chauvin was committing a felony offense during the arrest of George Floyd.
BUT he had his knee on Floyd’s neck!
If we had an honest news media you would know by now that an officer holding his knee on the neck of a suspect who is down on the ground with officers trying to get the suspect to comply with the arrest is how Minneapolis police officers are trained. There is a training video that shows a photo slide with the instructor using his knee on the neck of the helper lying down acting as the suspect.
You didn’t know any of that because Fake News outlets have an agenda that is anything but producing the truth. Officer Chauvin was using his knee as a technique of a trained use of force policy.
With that said, an argument can be made that Chauvin used that trained technique use of force a little too long, and that could be true, however, according to the “science” already established by the coroner’s office, Floyd had over the lethal dose of fentanyl in his bloodstream and he had methamphetamine in his blood as well. The defense will argue that George Floyd killed George Floyd when he ingested that many drugs at one time. Let’s be real here. As much fentanyl that Floyd had in his system, and it doesn’t take much at all, which you’ll see in a minute, will kill you. This is indisputable and you will never hear the CNNs of the world point it out.
Clause 2 of Subdivision 1 doesn’t apply here.
“(2) causes the death of a human being without intent to effect the death of any person, while intentionally inflicting or attempting to inflict bodily harm upon the victim, when the perpetrator is restrained under an order for protection and the victim is a person designated to receive protection under the order. As used in this clause, “order for protection” includes an order for protection issued under chapter 518B; a harassment restraining order issued under section 609.748; a court order setting conditions of pretrial release or conditions of a criminal sentence or juvenile court disposition; a restraining order issued in a marriage dissolution action; and any order issued by a court of another state or of the United States that is similar to any of these orders.”
I set in bold the important part of this statute to point out that the statute has to do with an order of protection otherwise known as a restraining order.
Let’s move on to Manslaughter. The Minnesota statute for Manslaughter in the Second Degree is as follows:
Manslaughter, as defined in Minnesota statutes will be easier for the prosecution to prove and if Chauvin is convicted I believe it will be for this over the other charges.
“A person who causes the death of another by any of the following means is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than ten years or to payment of a fine of not more than $20,000, or both:”
So, instead of 40 years, Chauvin would spend 10 years behind bars if convicted in Minnesota for manslaughter. The prosecution will try to use a Manslaughter conviction to beef up the chances for a Second Degree Murder conviction. If he is solely convicted of Manslaughter and only has to do ten years, the people in Minneapolis will go crazy. Folks, no matter what happens there will be more riots. I don’t know if this time around the Democrats will encourage them as much as they did willfully or stupidly over the summer, but they are coming so be prepared.
It appears that the prosecution is attempting to prosecute Chauvin on the first clause:
“(1) by the person’s culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another; or”
That is the only one the prosecution can really work with under the statute. When you go down the other four it’s patently obvious
“(2) by shooting another with a firearm or other dangerous weapon as a result of negligently believing the other to be a deer or other animal; or
(3) by setting a spring gun, pit fall, deadfall, snare, or other like dangerous weapon or device; or
(4) by negligently or intentionally permitting any animal, known by the person to have vicious propensities or to have caused great or substantial bodily harm in the past, to run uncontrolled off the owner’s premises, or negligently failing to keep it properly confined; or
(5) by committing or attempting to commit a violation of section 609.378 (neglect or endangerment of a child), and murder in the first, second, or third degree is not committed thereby.”
The part in the first clause they will try to prove is that Officer Chauvin went on to “create an unreasonable risk” that led to the death of George Floyd. However, it should be easy for the defense to show that it was not unreasonable since we have video of the arrest that shows George Floyd was resisting arrest, he was kicking, crying, and screaming, and overall refusing to get into the back of the police vehicle while he was hyped up on drugs and acting crazy. I think the defense can prove that it is not unreasonable when Chauvin used a trained police policy use of force to subdue Floyd with the experience the officers just went through trying to arrest him.
The state added Third Degree Murder back into the list of charges.
If the prosecution is going to push for Third Degree Murder I believe they will try to prove the first clause.
“(a) Whoever, without intent to effect the death of any person, causes the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life, is guilty of murder in the third degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 25 years.”
The problem here is that the prosecutors will have a difficult time arguing Officer Chauvin was revealing a “depraved mind” by using a trained police policy use of force to subdue Floyd. There was noting depraved about using a policy that the Minneapolis police department trains officers to use under the exact circumstances that George Floyd himself created.
There you have it. I’ve said since the beginning that the fact that George Floyd died is a tragedy that should never have happened, but according to Floyd’s toxicology report, he took enough drugs that had he never gotten arrested he would have died at the same time only somewhere else. Did Floyd see the police approaching his vehicle and feared they were going to question him about passing off a counterfeit bill at the store across the street from where he was when police approached and fearing getting arrested if the cops found the drugs he just quickly ingested them to get rid of the evidence? Either way, it doesn’t appear that Chauvin was the cause of his death. I saw doesn’t appear because I don’t have all of the information so I don’t know if there are some other facts that the prosecution will bring up at trial that will change the evidence we do already have.
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