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First and foremost, anyone who defends Derek Chauvin’s actions that caused the death of George Floyd is either a racist or grossly uninformed, or both. I graduated from the Sacramento Sheriff’s academy in the year of 1982. And from that training, I saw excessive force being applied on a handcuffed suspect, George Floyd. J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao also bear responsibility for the death of George Floyd. Upon the arrest of a suspect, that suspect becomes the ward of the arresting officer. The arresting officer is responsible for the well-being of the suspect.

For instance, if it is either 110 degrees or -40 degrees outside, the arresting officer is not permitted to place the suspect in his patrol vehicle without having the vehicle provide the necessary heat or cooling. Lt. Richard Zimmerman, a homicide detective pictured above, described the three tiers of force from his training. The third tier of force encompasses the uses of deadly force. Zimmerman said Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck fell into the third tier of force. “Holding him down to the ground face down and putting your knee on the neck for that amount of time, is just uncalled for,” he said. 

At the same time, Chauvin was kneeling on Floyd’s neck, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane had their bodies’ weight pressing down on Floyd’s back. Floyd was cuffed and he was NOT struggling. This excessive use of force just took eight minutes to kill Floyd. Even more damaging to the defense’s case is the fact that an EMT is seen on a video recording pleading with the officers to render aid unto Floyd amongst the witnesses. Officer Tou Thao pushed her, the EMT, back to the sidewalk. Even after Floyd stopped breathing, Chauvin remained on Floyd’s neck, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane remained on Floyd’s back. It is hard to not come to the conclusion that these four police officers meant to kill Floyd.

And of course, the defense will bring up the coroner’s report in which it shows Floyd had an overdose of fentanyl in his system. I’ll remind you the courts have ruled it’s still murder to kill a person even though the person is expected to die within an hour’s time. It’s unlawful to go into a hospice care facility to kill those who would die that day. In Floyd’s case, had the officers followed procedures, they would have removed Floyd from the patrol vehicle and sat him up on the sidewalk to await the paramedics, and likely, Floyd would still be alive. The bottom line; the officers violated Floyd’s constitutional right to due process by executing him for a non-capital crime.