Roy Exum
I have been in the news business as a writer my entire life and the main cornerstone of any story is the truth. Later, as an opinion writer, I was enabled to interject exactly that, my “opinion,” which sometimes will differ from that of the readers, yet the strongest point in all arguments is fact. As a vociferous reader, I am becoming more concerned over the bias in the mainstream media, so it is more important than ever that we seek the truth.
When George Floyd died this past Memorial Day (Monday, May 25,) it triggered the most unprecedented racial turmoil our nation has ever experienced. The protests opened many eyes to what many perceive as our racial imbalances. The accompanying riots, no question criminal conduct, were further eye-opening, and cost our country over $2 billion (with a ‘b’). A horrendous video appeared to show a white police officer – to be blunt – “killing” an unarmed black man. Make no mistake, the graphic video really happened.
But not until Minneapolis – the scene of the tragedy -- was ablaze, along with other of our biggest cities since found to be sorely lacking in safe and sane leadership, was it learned that Floyd’s lungs upon autopsy weighed 2 ½ times what they would have for a typical six-foot-eight human being. Every physician I have asked ever since has told me that any patient in a similar condition will almost certainly complain, “I can’t breathe.”
The size of a person makes no difference in respiratory distress. George Floyd’s lungs were so filled with his own body fluids it was darn-near impossible for him to breathe before he ever saw the first policeman. The lab chemistry profiles – hardly hearsay – proved he had a “lethal amount” of a drug known as fentanyl, as well as illicit methamphetamines, in his system.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tell us that fentanyl is 50-to-100 times more powerful than morphine. Just one grain, the size of a grain of sand on the beach, will kill an adult-sized police dog. It very swiftly affects the brain, the respiratory system, the heart, and all else in the human body.
On Sept. 18, 2020 – last Friday – an article appeared on “The American Thinker” website that I believe every American thinker should read. The article was written by Don Brown, a former U.S. Navy JAG officer, who is the author of the book “Travesty of Justice: The Shocking Prosecution of Lieutenant Clint Lorance.” (NOTE: “JAG” is a military term for the “Judge Advocate General's Corps.”
Brown is one of four former JAG officers serving on the Lorance legal team. Lorance was pardoned by President Trump in November of 2019. Brown is also a former military prosecutor, and a former Special Assistant United States Attorney. (In short, I personally believe he is an expert on ‘the whole truth.’
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“WHO (REALLY) KILLED GEORGE FLOYD?”
Written by Don Brown, this article appeared on the website, americanthinker.com/articles/2020/09/who_killed_george_floyd.html on Sept. 18,2020)
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If they get a fair trial, a questionable proposition at best, Minneapolis police officers charged with murdering George Floyd should be acquitted.
Let's consider new, undisputed evidence, beyond the initial bystander’s video that we’ve all seen, to understand why.
On Memorial Day, around 8 PM, Minneapolis Police are called to a local convenience store. Two suspects passed a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes. When police arrived, the shop manager pointed across the street, where three suspects sat in a parked vehicle. George Floyd sat behind the wheel.
When the officers crossed the street to investigate, two other suspects, another man, and a woman, both black, stepped from the car and politely cooperated.
But George argued and disobeyed ten (10) separate commands from officers to keep his hands up. After the tenth order, he finally put his hands on the steering wheel as instructed.
As George protested, police walked him across the street to the police cruiser, the vehicle shown in the bystander’s video.
That bystander’s video, isolated alone, implies that the officer cruelly forced George onto the ground, then callously put his knee on George's neck, causing George to cry out, pitifully, “I can't breathe.”
But when a Minnesota judge authorized the release of police body cam footage, a completer and more different story emerged. First, the police never wanted George on the ground at all, and frantically tried getting him into the back of their squad car.
But Floyd, a strong six-feet-eight-inches tall, fought police every second, and tried pushing his way out. Police video shows George repeatedly saying, “I can't breathe” long before he was on the ground, and before Officer Chauvin employed the infamous knee-restraint tactic.
This is crucial.
Claiming to be “claustrophobic” as they ordered him into the back seat, George Floyd demanded to be placed on the ground. So, the officers did not thrust him down to the ground and then put their knee on George’s neck, as the bystander’s video suggests.
Let's delve into the evidence.
From Officer Thomas Lane's body camera, at 8:09 PM, officers approached George's vehicle, tapped on the window, instructing him to either put his hands up or put his hands on the steering wheel. But George refuses.
Ten separate times, police either instructed George to let them see his hands, or to put his hands on the wheel. Finally, George puts his hands on the wheel, protesting he had “not done anything.”
At 8:17 PM, officers walk George across the street. He keeps arguing, as they order him into the back of the squad car.
“I'm claustrophobic,” he claims, twice, resisting as they again order him to sit in the back seat. He screams, fights and resists getting in the squad car.
At 8:18:08, still standing beside the car and fighting the officers, he says, for the first time, with no knee on his neck, “I can't breathe, officer!” At this point, police are still ordering him into the back seat.
A bystander urges George to stop fighting. “You can’t win,” the bystander says.
George fights anyway.
Police push him in the back seat. He keeps resisting.
Nine seconds later, fighting from the backseat of the police car, George says three times, in rapid succession, beginning at 8:18:19, “I want to lay on the ground! I want to lay on the ground! I want to lay on the ground!” He repeats it a fourth time, five seconds later, “I want to lay on the ground!”
Then, as if he knows he is dying, says, “I’m going down.”
At 8:18:39, fighting in the backseat, he again says, three times in rapid succession, “I can’t breathe!” Then again,” I can’t breathe.” And then, again, at 8:18:50 repeats, “I can’t breathe!”
At this point, George had demanded to be laid on the ground four times and said “I can't breathe” at least six times, while in the back seat of the squad car, with no knee on his neck.
At 8:19:06, he again says, “I can't breathe,” for the seventh time.
Of course, he can’t breathe. A fentanyl overdose stops a man from breathing.
George fought the officers non-stop for over ten minutes before officers finally removed him from the car and put him down on the ground, beside the squad car, as George himself demanded.
Bystanders then film George on the ground, declaring, “I can’t breathe,” as if this was the first time George said, “I can’t breathe,” and as if Officer Chauvin’s knee (not the fentanyl) caused George’s breathing problems.
Fox 9 in Minneapolis reported that Chief Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker, in a memorandum filed May 26 concluded, “The autopsy revealed no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation.”
In other words, Dr. Baker initially ruled out Chauvin’s knee as causing George’s death.
In a second memorandum filed June 1, Baker described Floyd’s fentanyl level as “pretty high,” and a potentially “fatal level.”
Dr. Baker reported Floyd had 11 ng/mL of fentanyl in his blood, adding, “If he were found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes, this could be acceptable to call an OD. Deaths have been certified with levels of 3."
In other words, while levels of 3 ng/mL have caused fatal fentanyl overdoses. George ingested nearly four times that amount, or 11 ng/mL of fentanyl, in his bloodstream. In another document, Dr. Baker said, "That is a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances."
Granted, mounting political pressure led to subsequent private autopsy reports, paid for by the family, showing the cause of death as a combination of both fentanyl and asphyxiation from the officer’s knee.
Of course, they do.
But the prosecution, to obtain a conviction, must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They must prove that the officer’s knee, and not the massive fentanyl dosage, killed George Floyd.
That’s a tall order.
Not only that, but the infamous, “knee-technique,” which should be banned, was authorized by the Minneapolis PD. Officer Chauvin followed authorized procedure, a technique for keeping a suspect on the ground, after George Floyd had fought officers for over ten minutes, and after, only -- and this is the kicker -- George requested, repeatedly, to lay on the ground.
But Chauvin’s knee is a red herring. The issue here is fentanyl.
Here's how the respected website, WebMD, describes the effects of fentanyl:
“[F]entanyl has rapid and potent effects on the brain and body, and even very small amounts can be extremely dangerous.
“It only takes a tiny amount of the drug to cause a deadly reaction,” ... “Fentanyl can depress breathing and lead to death. The risk of overdose is high with fentanyl.”
Here’s what the CDC says about fentanyl. “It is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.” https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/opioids/fentanyl.html
Of course, George couldn’t breathe -- because fentanyl, mixed with methamphetamines, kills breathing. Despite the bad optics, “I can’t breathe” was not because of the officer’s knee.
The medical examiner’s statement on lethal fentanyl, and the previous protestations of “I can’t breathe,” even before he got into the back seat of the squad car, and long before Chauvin applied the notorious “knee” technique, shows that George was already dying from the lethal fentanyl overdose before officers put him in the back seat of the car.
That fentanyl, with methamphetamine ingestion, and cannabinoids -- that’s right, George popped some meth alongside the fentanyl, plus a little reefer too -- raises more than a reasonable doubt in favor of these policemen.
Here’s the prosecution’s problem - proving beyond a reasonable doubt that it was the officer’s knee, and not the massive fentanyl overdose, that killed George.
No one can prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, not in this case, that Chauvin killed Floyd, not with any intellectual honesty. George overdosed on fentanyl, and mixed it with meth, and reefer. That’s why he’s dead. Without the overdose, George Floyd would still be alive. The officers should be acquitted.
Which begs the question, who killed George Floyd?
Sadly, George Floyd killed himself.
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GEORGE FLOYD TRIAL DATE SET FOR MARCH 8, 2021
A Hennepin County (Minneapolis) District Court Judge Peter Cahill has set the date for the first trial of the four former Minneapolis police officers charged in the death of George Floyd as well as other deadlines in the case. The first trial will commence on March 8, 2021 at 9 a.m., according to a scheduling order released in July. The location of the trial will be determined at a later date.
The scheduling order says the order of the trial for the individual defendants, and whether some or all of them will appear together will also be determined at a later date.
Derek Chauvin, the officer seen in a widely publicized video kneeling on Floyd’s neck as he cried out that he couldn’t breathe, is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. The other three former officers involved in Floyd’s death - Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng - are charged with two counts of aiding and abetting.
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The truth is undefeated, and ever better in its total form.
royexum@aol.com