The four policemen charged in George Floyd’s death acted entirely according to the training and guidance provided them by the Minneapolis Police Department.
It is said that, in every large organization, the fecal
matter flows downhill. Anyone who has ever worked in government can attest to
the truth of that statement. But, for dramatic proof of that proposition, take
a look at this picture.
This is an
illustration from the Minneapolis Police Department’s official training
materials on how to safely and properly subdue a suspect suffering from
“excited delirium,” a potentially lethal medical condition which, due to the
rising use and abuse of illicit drugs, has grown to epidemic proportions on the
streets of America.
Look closely. The depicted suspect is flat on the ground
with his head turned to the side in what the illustration calls “the recovery
position to alleviate positional asphyxia.” The officer on the left is kneeling
on the side of the suspect’s neck.
Look familiar?
Could this and related parts of the officially approved
and mandated Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) training curriculum be why
former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin saw fit to kneel on the side of
George Floyd’s neck? And could it be the reason why former officers
Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thao assisted Chauvin as he knelt
on the side of Floyd’s neck?
As will be explained in detail below, throughout Floyd’s
confrontation with the police, he was at imminent risk of death from sudden
cardiac arrhythmia caused by excited delirium. So it was that these officers
followed the MPD’s official procedures for how to properly and safely subdue
someone in that life-threatening condition. In doing so, they were not only
keeping Floyd in the prescribed “recovery position” to alleviate his risk of
asphyxiation, they were also keeping an agitated and delirious Floyd from
harming himself as they awaited the arrival of the ambulance that they had
twice summoned to provide medical aid to him.
So where are these well-intentioned, well-trained, and
dutiful public servants today? They are in jail awaiting trial on murder
and aiding and abetting charges after having been universally condemned in the
news media and used by neo-Marxists and opportunistic criminals across the
country as a pretext to riot, loot, and burn. And, while they sit in their
cells, not one Minneapolis official, from Mayor Jacob Frey to Police Chief Medaria
Arradondo or any member of City Council, has come forward to acknowledge that,
in subduing Floyd, these law officers were acting in meticulous accordance with
the MPD training and directives designed to reduce the risk of harm to persons
suffering excited delirium.
In fact, after Chauvin, Lane, Kueng, and Thao were
summarily fired by the MPD, Chief Arradondo apologized to
Floyd’s family and acknowledged his department’s purported role in creating
“the deficit of hope” that he claims existed in Minneapolis even prior to
Floyd’s death.
“I am absolutely sorry for the pain, the devastation and
trauma that Mr. Floyd’s death has left on his family, his loved ones, our
community in Minneapolis and certainly across the country and the world,” Chief
Arradondo announced in a news conference.
For its part, the Minneapolis City Council has
acted to defund and dismantle the police department.
All of this, mind you, from the very officials who are
ultimately responsible for the training and directives that the defendant
officers followed to the letter in their attempt to safely
subdue Floyd, who was under the influence of a massively lethal overdose of
fentanyl and exhibiting the unmistakable signs of the deadly excited delirium.
By their hypocrisy and cowardice, these blame-shifting
public officials, desperate to preserve their political careers and places
at the public trough, have tossed these police officers to the howling
mob.
As I explained in my recent American Spectator article
“Who
Killed George Floyd?,” “the physical, scientific, and
electronically recorded evidence in the case overwhelmingly and conclusively
proves that these defendants are not guilty of the charges and, in fact, played
no material role in bringing about Floyd’s death.”
That article spelled out in detail certain key facts,
including, but not limited to, the following:
(Read full text at link below.)
As I have tried to make clear, by calling twice for an
ambulance, the officers did all that they could to, in the words of the above
training illustration, combine their “law enforcement control measures” with
“immediate sedative medical intervention to attempt to reduce the risk of
death.” In short, the brief and disturbing video that launched a thousand riots
did not show police officers brazenly and sadistically killing Floyd. It in
fact showed them following their training to do the best they could to save
Floyd from the consequences of his own self-destructive behavior and drug
abuse.
In terms of the
criminal charges against them, the very existence of the foregoing MPD training
materials and protocols and the defendants’ strict adherence to them in their
treatment of Floyd refute any notion that they had criminal intent or desire to
cause him harm. The officers’ compliance with their official training proves
just the opposite.
Despite the fact that these wrongfully accused men
deserve to have all charges dismissed immediately, it would be the rare judge
indeed with enough courage and integrity to call a halt to this hideously
ill-conceived and corrupt prosecution. Their fate most likely will come down to
the roll of the dice in a jury trial. That they will be forced to gamble their
liberty in such a torturous and unpredictable game of chance is in and of
itself an outrage and disgrace.
But, beyond the fate of these innocent defendants, there
are broader questions to be asked. To what extent did Minneapolis officialdom’s
cowardly and hypocritical rush to abandon and condemn these police officers
lend credibility to the neo-Marxist lie that “All Cops Are Bastards” and fuel
the anti-police passions that have been stoked by professional agitators across
the nation? Would the agitators have been so successful in causing nationwide
mayhem if Mayor Frey, Chief Arradondo, or even a single member of the
Minneapolis City Council had publicly acknowledged the plain, undeniable truth
that, far from murdering Floyd, these police officers were acting pursuant to
their official MPD training to reduce his risk of sudden death? Could that
possibly have given the frenzied news media pause or helped to counter the
anti-police propaganda?
Think about those questions and the possible answers the
next time another George Floyd memorial riot breaks out.
George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor. From
1978 to 1983 he was the Chief of the Police Brutality/Misconduct Unit of the
Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, which investigated and prosecuted use
of deadly force by police. He blogs at knowledgeisgood.net and may be reached
by email at kignet1@gmail.com.
https://spectator.org/george-floyd-police-training-minneapolis/