Texas

Well, that's it for testimony. On Monday the jurors will hear closing arguments, be given the jury instructions, and the ball will be in their court.

The defense is well and truly screwed here. That "expert witness" they put on the stand who set forth his opinion carbon monoxide contributed heavily to George Floyd's demise did far more harm than good. The cross-examination of that expert was brutal. Not only was the CO theory shredded, it turned out that expert kind of cherry picked his information while making some far fetched and unsubstantiated claims about asphyxiation in general.

I don't know who dropped the ball here. Whether the defense did not fully vet that expert, the expert failed to cover all his bases, or all of the above, someone really fumbled the ball here. That expert did more damage to the defense than all the prosecution's expert witnesses combined. However it is kind of telling that was the best the defense could get while the prosecution had experts lining up to testify for free on their behalf.

Proposing those kinds of ridiculous theories opened the door for the prosecution to recall one of their expert witnesses, Dr. Martin Tobin. This man has 46 years in pulmonology and he quite literally wrote the book on it. Seriously, he did: https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Practice-Mechanical-Ventilation-2nd/dp/0071447679/

Dr. Tobin put the final nail in the coffin around the defense case. He did it with clear, concise explanations in just about 30 minutes.

Here's a little bit of reality. If anyone resists arrest with force, as George Floyd did, the odds are greater than zero that person is going to be injured, and possibly killed. Those odds go up when your health isn't all that good in the first place.

Those officers had every right to hang on to George Floyd and take him to the ground. Especially after he exited the police car. They are trained to do so. We saw pages from the MPD training manual complete with pictures.

The police officers in this case lost focus on their prisoner as people started yelling at them. In a confrontation like that the human internal time scale dilates. It is easy to not realize how much time has passed. Chances are those officers felt like they only had Floyd on the deck for a couple minutes.

But all that aside, there is a saying among law enforcement that varies from department to department. That saying is words to the effect of, "In your custody is in your care." These officers failed to notice their prisoner stopped breathing. In fact, they may have misinterpreted a brief anoxic seizure as further struggling rather than a sign Floyd's heart just stopped. They further ignored people telling them he stopped breathing and denied an off duty firefighter, who recognized what was happening, a chance to begin CPR.

Frankly, I think Chauvin is going to go down a lot harder for this than is warranted. However, no matter how hard he goes down, this city is going to burn again. No question about it. The Brooklyn Park shooting was the tipping point.

Trecdom2 wrote:

The last pieces needed for my promotion package finally fell into place. Everything was sent up the chain of command so hopefully it will all go through sometime this summer.

What will you be getting promoted to?

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@ Fort Verden - We are happy to see you poking your head out occasionally this week Verner. That is a good sign. Get well soon!

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Trecdom2 wrote:

Blue shirt? I don't see myself in the sciences. I'll be promoted to Staff Sergeant (E5) which is the first level NCO rank in the Air Force

Nice.
Ill be hitting Specialist (E4) later this year.

Gig em Aggies wrote:

I was basing it off of the OG Star Trek color code

I figured that. Blue is still Medical/Science. That's pretty much stayed the same throughout the various shows