George Floyd Leaked Bodycam footage

[Pirata]

Doc, if you could can you take another look at the video and give me your assessment whether you think he was kneeling on the side of the neck.

My understanding of the unconscious chokehold is that you apply pressure to the side of the neck to try to cut off blood circulation to render them unconscious. You don't try to cut off the air circulation.

testing this out on myself it seems no matter how hard I push on the side of my neck I don't have any interference in breathing.

I'm not trying to defend their actions or what happened but given that you are a physician I'm curious if you have any comments on that.

my thought is that he didn't die of suffocation from the knee,he died from them failing to realize something else was wrong and they didn't get him help.

 

[doctorcb12]

This is a good question. So with chokeholds you are correct that there are two ways that you could potentially cause loss of consciousness. If you cut off circulation by crushing someones carotid artery you are disrupting blood flow to the brain. The brain tells your body when to breathe. If it has no blood flow you don't breathe. It basically is like giving your brain a stroke and if George Floyd had been revived he would had some severe neurological deficits. Crushing someone's "windpipe" for a sustained period of time would also result in passing out as well. Hard to say what specifically happened with George Floyd. They said there was no damage to his trachea, but in cases of asphyxia according to medical examiners that evidence may not always be there.

 

[SH_Alum]

but i think the point is that he had ample opportunity to comply, stated he couldnt breath long before the knee was dropped, had multiple drugs in his system, and his autopsy revealed that the knee was a possible but unlikely cause of death.

there has been a ton of disgusting police behavior caught on camera the last few months. i think chauvin is disgusting based on history alone... but this case has a legitimate shot at acquitting them and potentially for good reason.

They killed an unarmed, cuffed man. End of story.

 

[cernjSHU]

They killed an unarmed, cuffed man. End of story.

While this is true, it gets more nuanced as to the criminal charges. The prosecution decided to charge felony murder as the most serious crime. I don’t know how Minn law is, but in NJ, there are enumerated felonies that are serious crimes that will trigger this. Essentially, if a person purposely or knowingly commit an arson, robbery, kidnapping, rape, terrorism, and a death results out of that crime, you are guilty of murder even if you did not intend to have anyone die.

In NJ, this would not qualify for felony-murder. Therefore, the most likely charge would be aggravated manslaughter which is the person recklessly causes death under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to life.
I quickly looked up Minn’s statute and is more broad than NJ. It also covers when there is an unintentional death when the person is committing a first or second degree crime with force. This is extremely broad felony murder statute.

People think that if a person dies at the hands of someone that is murder and that is not necessarily true. It can be justified, ie self defense, it can be accidental, it can be manslaughter and it can be murder. We need to better educate the public.

 

[Pirata]

This trial will be highly monitored, watched, sensationalized. It will be interesting where they end up having it and what the make up of the jury is.

My opinion is that it will end up with some form of manslaughter, unless there is some nexus between Floyd and Chauvin that supports premeditation. I recall that the two were acquainted as co-workers in a night club.

I agree with doctorcb12 that we need a better protocol to handle people who are clearly mentally disturbed, high on drugs, etc.

We just had a trial which found a local police officer not guilty. He shot and killed an unarmed mentally disturbed Hispanic male who was on a 45 mph 4 lane road attacking cars as they slowed to avoid him. A sole young police officer arrived on seen and before backup could arrive the guy made advances toward him. Long story short, the cop shot him.

Tragic hindsight suggests the guy could have been restrained without gunfire.

https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/lehi...cle_f5d0a250-6a04-11ea-babf-6754a7ad5394.html

 

[doctorcb12]

While this is true, it gets more nuanced as to the criminal charges. The prosecution decided to charge felony murder as the most serious crime. I don’t know how Minn law is, but in NJ, there are enumerated felonies that are serious crimes that will trigger this. Essentially, if a person purposely or knowingly commit an arson, robbery, kidnapping, rape, terrorism, and a death results out of that crime, you are guilty of murder even if you did not intend to have anyone die.

In NJ, this would not qualify for felony-murder. Therefore, the most likely charge would be aggravated manslaughter which is the person recklessly causes death under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to life.
I quickly looked up Minn’s statute and is more broad than NJ. It also covers when there is an unintentional death when the person is committing a first or second degree crime with force. This is extremely broad felony murder statute.

People think that if a person dies at the hands of someone that is murder and that is not necessarily true. It can be justified, ie self defense, it can be accidental, it can be manslaughter and it can be murder. We need to better educate the public.

I agree with you. This is not an easy case for either side. It will be interesting to see how this plays out next year.

 

[sami]

I think the funniest thing here, with second being Merge linking the cnn article, is the implication that police were looking for a plate without having the description of the vehicle.

uh, go find plate XYZ 123 as it is a stolen vehicle. Not gonna tell you what type as it isn’t explicit in the registration. Might be a motorcycle, might be an SUV, could be a crane truck for all we know, but FIND THAT PLATE.

 

[donnie_baseball]

This is a good question. So with chokeholds you are correct that there are two ways that you could potentially cause loss of consciousness. If you cut off circulation by crushing someones carotid artery you are disrupting blood flow to the brain. The brain tells your body when to breathe. If it has no blood flow you don't breathe. It basically is like giving your brain a stroke and if George Floyd had been revived he would had some severe neurological deficits. Crushing someone's "windpipe" for a sustained period of time would also result in passing out as well. Hard to say what specifically happened with George Floyd. They said there was no damage to his trachea, but in cases of asphyxia according to medical examiners that evidence may not always be there.

You'd have to squeeze both carotids to cut off blood supply, and what of the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the pons and medulla, the areas of the CNS responsible for breathing? Unless anatomy has changed since I went to medical school. There's an old saying about choking - if you can say "I'm choking" -- you're not choking.

 

[NYShoreGuy]

https://nypost.com/2020/08/14/new-video-of-george-floyd-death-shows-cop-tou-thaos-perspective/

#Disgusting

 

[Pirata]

Definitely raises some questions.

 

[cernjSHU]

You'd have to squeeze both carotids to cut off blood supply, and what of the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the pons and medulla, the areas of the CNS responsible for breathing? Unless anatomy has changed since I went to medical school. There's an old saying about choking - if you can say "I'm choking" -- you're not choking.

Well, medical school didn’t teach you this. I am sure this is not your specialty. There is a reason why police are specifically trained not to place a handcuffed person on their stomach. When they are handcuffed they are trained to sit him down. Why? Because people have a hard time breathing. When a knee is placed on the neck, this exacerbates the problem resulting in asphyxiation. I don’t pretend to know the medical reasons why this happens but this is a big no no. Those of you trying to justify the officer’s conduct are way wrong. There is no justification. The question becomes is it criminal and if it is, whether it is felony murder or manslaughter. I believe that this is a manslaughter.

 

[doctorcb12]

Well, medical school didn’t teach you this. I am sure this is not your specialty. There is a reason why police are specifically trained not to place a handcuffed person on their stomach. When they are handcuffed they are trained to sit him down. Why? Because people have a hard time breathing. When a knee is placed on the neck, this exacerbates the problem resulting in asphyxiation. I don’t pretend to know the medical reasons why this happens but this is a big no no. Those of you trying to justify the officer’s conduct are way wrong. There is no justification. The question becomes is it criminal and if it is, whether it is felony murder or manslaughter. I believe that this is a manslaughter.

This is spot on with what I was going to say. The "you can talk, you can breathe" statement is a myth that has been disproven for years. Many first responders and physicians for that matter have gotten themselves into trouble assuming that just because someone is talking that they can breathe. This could not be further from the truth. If you inhibit someone's ability to inhale, because you are putting pressure on their back and chest you are preventing air from entering the lungs. Yes they can still talk because phonation is a different mechanism but they are not getting enough oxygen into their lungs or their brain.

You can still cause episodes of passing out by pressing on the carotid artery. The carotid artery has baroreceptors that when stimulated can cause a drop in blood pressure that can cause you to pass out. Even if you occlude just one of the carotid arteries you can still have brain damage. It is similar to when you have a clot in your carotid artery and it causes a stroke even though the other carotid artery is not occluded.