The autopsy has some surprising results. However, it doesn’t negate what we already know about guilt and innocence in this case.
Maybe new evidence will emerge that helps to explain or exonerate the actions of the Minneapolis police officers who apparently murdered George Floyd last week, but I very much doubt it. The video that we’ve all seen is utterly compelling, straightforward, and clear-cut.
For more than eight long and fatal minutes, Officer Derek Chauvin dug his knee into Floyd’s neck while Floyd lay prostrate on the ground. Three other Minneapolis police officers, meanwhile, either joined in, or watched and did nothing to stop Chauvin. Floyd then died.
The autopsy reportedly found that Floyd died “from a combination of heart disease and ‘potential intoxicants in his system’ that were exacerbated” by the unrelenting police pressure on the carotid artery in Floyd’s neck.
Thus, according to the autopsy, Floyd did not die from asphyxiation or strangulation caused by the police.
From a medical standpoint, that may be significant; but in terms of law and public policy, it is largely irrelevant, and for two reasons:
What Chauvin and his fellow officers did was obviously and manifestly wrong. Floyd was handcuffed and subdued. Thus there was no reason to risk killing him through unrelenting pressure on his carotid artery.
Any properly trained police officer (or military veteran for that matter) knows that unrelenting pressure on the carotid artery is a surefire way to kill someone because it cuts off the supply of blood to the brain.
Chauvin either was grossly stupid and ignorant, or he was malicious and sadistic. Either way, he is legally culpable for wrongdoing—whether or not it resulted in Floyd’s death.
From the standing of public policy: within our judicial system, the police have a limited and prescribed role. The police are tasked with subduing a dangerous suspect, handcuffing him, and taking him into custody.
That’s it. The police are not tasked with meting out justice, real or imagined, outside the confines of the judicial system.
If a dangerous suspect cannot be subdued, then the use of deadly force is prescribed. This typically happens when a suspect is free and on the loose, and the deadly force most often employed involves a firearm or weapon.
But Floyd was not free and on the loose. Quite the opposite: he already was subdued and handcuffed! So there was absolutely no need to employ deadly force against him.
In short, Chauvin may not have intended to kill Floyd (thus he was charged with manslaughter and third-degree murder as opposed to first- or second-degree murder); but neither did he intend to do his job in the manner that he surely had been trained and prescribed by the Minneapolis Police Department.
And Chauvin’s fellow officers who stood by and joined in, or who did nothing to stop him, are equally culpable and disgraceful.
Justice. In the United States of America, no one is above the law, not even the police.
In fact, police officers in the United States are rightly held to a higher standard of conduct than ordinary Americans precisely because they are entrusted with the use of deadly force to protect the weak, the vulnerable, and the innocent.
Officer Chauvin and his fellow officers will be represented by counsel and they will have their day in court. They will be forced to explain themselves and justice will be served, American-style. Thank God for that.
In the meantime, our hearts grieve for Floyd’s family and we weep for the stain of shame inscribed on the thin blue line.
We Americans know better and we Americans deserve better. So, too, did George Floyd. RIP.
Feature photo credit: New York Daily News.