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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   37166 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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The police are almost always justified in these cases. Best to wait, like in the case of George Floyd, it usually is not as it appears

The Floyd case was exactly as it appeared once the video was made public. The key thing that came out later (that Floyd had ODed) might get Chauvin off the hook for homicide based on reasonable doubt as to the cause of death (under correctly applied Minnesota law, it doesn't and didn't) but it doesn't change the fact that Chauvin culpably used dangerously excessive force while making an otherwise-lawful arrest, thereby contributing to an avoidable death.

Chauvin was following a police-department-approved procedure for subduing Floyd.

The police are almost always justified in these cases.

In such cases, the bodycam footage is usually the most dispositive evidence. Here we have the bodycam, and it looks pretty damning. Bad shoots happen. Asshole cops happen.

The police are almost always justified in these cases

It's not a bad heuristic, but it shouldn't replace the evidence of your eyes. We have two unedited video recordings of the event. I'm having a hard time conceptualizing what exculpatory evidence would even look like. Perhaps she pulled a gun from her drawers at the last second?

Maybe there's earlier video of her acting erratically which would allow the cops to argue that they feared just that except with a weapon.

I still think this is going to rate at least Murder 3 (if they have that), seems very hard to conceive of this not being reckless disregard for human life even if you can frame the video as her throwing the water and everyone gets their story straight.

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