Uh oh…
This isn’t good news for BLM… or for our major cities.
During the trial, the defense played NEW video footage that shows George Floyd saying:
I ate too many drugs.
So this raises the question: was it the drugs or Chauvin who killed George Floyd?
BREAKING: Chauvin lawyer plays clip of George Floyd, asks if he is saying “I ate too many drugs” pic.twitter.com/JiUDVQMjUf
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) April 7, 2021
Wow
Chauvin's lawyer just played a short excerpt of George Floyd – while being held on the ground – screaming out "Ahhh! I ate too many drugs!"
This trial shouldn't be happening
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) April 7, 2021
We are now learning that George Floyd, a career criminal and drug addict, died of an overdose by drugs supplied by his longtime dealer.
The same Democrat tyrants that gave him a state funeral and his family $27 million made your relatives die alone and destroyed your business.
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) April 6, 2021
Of course…
There will be BLM radicals out there who claim that Floyd died because Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s neck.
However, there is new video footage from another angle showing Chauvin’s knee apparently on Floyd’s shoulder blades instead.
Decide for yourself:
Minneapolis Police Chief Arradondo agrees that Derek Chauvin's knee appears to actually be on George Floyd’s shoulder blade in the close-up body-cam video footage. #BLM pic.twitter.com/syr0QFcrW1
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) April 6, 2021
BREAKING: Chief of Police admits Chauvin knee may have been on George Floyd’s shoulder blade after shown body cam video from another perspective side-by-side pic.twitter.com/xam9FwKqY2
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) April 5, 2021
The Minneapolis Police Chief himself admits that it appears Chauvin may not have been kneeling on Floyd’s neck at all.
This is why we should wait for the facts to come out before rushing to judgment!
The New York Post confirms this shocking twist in the case:
George Floyd can be heard admitting on videotape that he took drugs before his fatal arrest, the lawyer for ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin claimed at the former officer’s murder trial Wednesday.
Eric Nelson made the assertion while questioning Los Angeles Police Department use-of-force expert Sgt. Jody Stiger, a paid expert called by state prosecutors.
“Did you hear what he said?” Nelson asked Stiger during cross-examination.
“No, I couldn’t make it out,” Stiger said.
“Does it sound like he says, ‘I ate too many drugs’? Listen again,” Nelson said.
The LAPD sergeant said he still could not make it out, prompting Nelson to add, “In the chaos of a situation, things can be missed, right?”
“Yes,” Stiger answered.
Stiger, who has testified that Chauvin and other Minneapolis cops at the scene of Floyd’s fatal encounter with police on May 25 used unnecessary force, conceded that the officers’ initial use of force was “reasonable.”
In particular, Nelson noted that two cops were already on scene when Chauvin arrived.
“You would agree that from the time Officer Chauvin gets on scene until the time that Mr. Floyd is prone on the ground, Mr. Floyd was actively resisting efforts to go into the back seat of the squad car?” Nelson asked.
“And the officers were reasonable in their use of force in their attempt to get him into the back of the squad car,” Nelson said. “Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Stiger replied.
But Stiger also testified that Chauvin and the other cops used “deadly force” while restraining a handcuffed Floyd — and kept him pinned down for too long.
“He was in the prone position,” Stiger told prosecutor Steve Schleicher. “He was handcuffed, he was not attempting to resist, he was not attempting to assault the officers — punch, kick, anything of that nature.”
Stiger, who said he is being paid nearly $13,000 for his testimony, also said Chauvin is seen on viral video using a “pain compliance” hold on Floyd — squeezing his fingers and bending back his wrist against his handcuffs after he is down and not resisting.
He said pain is a technique used to force suspects to follow cops’ orders.
“What if there’s no opportunity for compliance?” Schleicher asked.
“Then at that point it’s just pain,” Stiger replied.
Stiger’s testimony came on his second day on the stand at trial, in which Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s police-custody death.
This news should change the narrative a lot.
But we have a feeling that the mainstream media will refuse to cover it.
We also have a feeling that BLM will refuse to share these new facts as well.
If you want to help us spread the truth, then be sure to share this article with your friends!
Derek Chauvin did not kill George Floyd.
George Floyd killed George Floyd.
— Mark Lutchman 🇺🇸 (@marklutchman) April 7, 2021
Chauvin’s lawyer just got the prosecution’s paid use-of-force expert to state that the officers could have tased George Floyd because of how he was actuvely resisting arrest
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) April 7, 2021
There is, at a very minimum, reasonable doubt about how George Floyd died and what role the drugs played in his death. Derek Chauvin should therefore be acquitted. You don't have to like him or believe he is innocent. Reasonable doubt is the standard. That's all that matters.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) April 7, 2021
The prosecution (George Floyd’s side) is having a terrible time in court.
Things are not going their way.
FACTS and new EVIDENCE are being brought before the court on a daily basis.
Of course, the media is refusing to report on this new material.
Fortunately, the experts at Legal Insurrection have a brilliant analysis:
Welcome to our ongoing coverage of the Minnesota murder trial of Derek Chauvin over the in-custody death of George Floyd. I am Attorney Andrew Branca for Law of Self Defense, providing guest commentary and analysis of this trial for Legal Insurrection.
Today was a terrible, horrible no good, very bad day for the prosecution, to a degree that I haven’t seen since the trial of George Zimmerman.
If you have no more than an hour to watch the video of today’s proceedings, then I urge you to spend 44 minutes watching the cross-examination of state witness Johnny Mercil, the state’s use-of-force training expert, and 22 minutes watching the cross-examination of Nicole MacKenzie, the state’s medical care training expert. In both instances the result can only be called a train wreck of a disaster for the prosecution.
Indeed, after the judge dismissed Mercil from the witness stand, Prosecutor Schleiter appeared visibly shaken and angry—and he ought to have, given the mauling his case just received. At one point Mercil testified the he himself had personally kept a suspect physically restrained until EMS had arrived on scene, behavior which the state has been arguing for over a week was misconduct on the part of Chauvin.
Even worse, not only did the cross-examination of MacKenzie by the defense also go badly for the prosecution, it went so badly that Nelson informed the court that he intended to re-call MacKenzie as a defense witness when he presented his case in chief.
But first some housekeeping. Before the jury was brought into the courtroom we heard some discussion about the complication of Morries Hall, the reported drug dealer in the Floyd’s Mercedes SUV, announcing he was going to plead the 5th if called to testify in the Chauvin trial.
Hall has a real problem. If he provided Floyd with the drugs that likely were actual cause of death, under Minnesota law Hall is looking at 3rd degree murder. Naturally, he doesn’t want to testify in the Chauvin trial only to have that testimony used against him in his own trial.
There’s no doubt that Judge Cahill will respect Hall’s right to assert the 5th. The only question is whether there might be some areas of questioning in which Hall could participate that do not incriminate him.
This seems to me unlikely, and of course Hall’s own attorney doesn’t want him to be compelled to say a word about anything, but Judge Cahill has asked the defense and state to write down the questions they’d like to ask Hall, and Cahill will decide if any of them will be allowed.Incidentally, it’s worth noting that Hall “appeared in court” via video, and his background looked like jail to me—cinderblock walls, visitor notification signs, etc.
In any case, that’s where things sit with Mr. Hall.
I’m not going to spend much time here on Sergeant Yang, both because his testimony wasn’t very interesting, and because I want to get right to the juicy cross-examination of Mercil, and MacKenzie. I’ll only note that Yang’s testimony, focused on crisis intervention policies of MPD, did little to advance any narrative of guilt for the state, especially after the defense on cross of Yang was able to get him to concede that all these policies were contingent on practicability and safety of the scene.
OK, with Yang out of the way, let’s jump into the first explosive state’s witness of the day, MPD Lieutenant Johnny Mercil, presented as the state’s expert on MPD use-of-force policy and training.
Interestingly, Mercil testified at the start that he was currently on medical leave. A prior state witness police officer, Sergeant Evans, I believe, who took over the Floyd scene from Sergeant Ploeger, had also testified he was on leave. Maybe just a coincidence.
In any case, when not on medical leave Lt. Mercil works in the MPD training division in charge of use-of-force training and policy instruction. He was active in that capacity during the period preceding the Floyd events during which Chauvin would have received his department use-of-force training and policy instruction, which is what makes Mercil’s testimony relevant.
Mercil is also a genuine fan of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), saying (as many practitioners do, in my experience) that he had “fallen in love with the sport.” This was elicited on direct, led by Prosecutor Schleiter, no doubt to buttress Mercil’s credibility, as was the direct testimony of Mercil about his expertise in hand-to-hand force techniques as both a trainer and a street cop, and his mastery of MPD use-of-force policies. Little did Schleiter know how Mercil’s credibility would shortly boomerang on the prosecution.
Schleiter did his usual routine, where he portrayed use of force options as being cast in absolute and binary terms. If A, then B, if X then Y. Any variance of this was either out of MPD policy or at least “untrained by MPD” (an entirely different matter than being outside policy), and hence “wrong-act.”
Schleiter made use of the MPD use of force continuum, and presented it in the most childish and sterile context possible. If at this level of the continuum, officer can do this, but not that, correct. Mercil dutifully answered in the affirmative. But if at that level of the continuum, officer can do that, but not this. Again, yes.
Schleiter would also pose simplified and hypothetical scenarios only minimally representative of what occurred with Floyd and ask if the use of, say, a neck restraint in that hypothetical would be reasonable. Of course, the answer from Mercil, as intended that narrow and specific question, would be, no, unreasonable.
Missing from all of this direct, of course, was any context around the complex dynamics and circumstances that often surround a police use of force event. That Schleiter wants to avoid any such discussion is understandable, because doing so provides an appearance for at least reasonableness, if not outright justification, for Chauvin’s use-of-force decisions and conduct with respect to Floyd.
Another common routine from Schleiter when doing direct on state’s witnesses who have any purported use-of-force expertise is to show them the photo of Chauvin apparently (but perhaps not actually) kneeling on Floyd’s neck and asking, “Is this an MPD trained neck restraint?” Invariably the answer is in the negative.
That makes for a good headline, but in fact it’s not very informative on the actual issues of the case. Why? Because just because a technique may not be an “MPD trained” technique does not make it outside of policy, does not mean it was legally unjustified, and certainly does not mean it contributed to Floyd’s death—which is what the trial is supposed to be all about.
Once again, Schleiter touched on positional asphyxia, and once again I feel obliged to note that this doesn’t really help the state prove Chauvin’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in the context of Floyd’s ingestion of a three-fold fatal dose of fentanyl. Certainly, if I had to choose between two situations, one in which I was placed in a prone position while handcuffed for 10 minutes, and another in which I was forced to ingest a three-fold fatal dose of fentanyl, I know which I’d pick, and quickly. There’s simply no reasonable comparison between those two risks to life.
So, the direct of Mercil was really just more of the Schleiter show we’ve already seen with other state’s witnesses. Kind of checking the boxes, but not even all the boxes needed to support the state’s narrative of guilt—and always by only exposing the jury to half the context, which is a dangerous ploy.
Basing your narrative of guilt on only half the context is a dangerous ploy because we, thank God, enjoy an adversarial legal system, and that means the defense gets to pop right up and expose the jury to the other half of the context, the half consistent with a narrative of innocence—and, in this case, they get to do so with your own witness.
And that’s precisely what happened with Mercil, and in a big, big way.
Anyone paying attention should know the new facts that are coming to light.
More importantly, anyone paying attention objectively will see that Chauvin appears to be headed towards an easy acquittal.
The sad part?
Because the media isn’t reporting the truth, many BLM radicals will be caught off guard and will take to the streets to riot.
So help us spread the word.
Share this article with your friends.
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