I'm surprised there is not a thread on this.  WTF is going on?  This is fucking ridiculous.  This is straight murder.  Not sure which degree, but this is murder.

I am not sure how anyone could really defend this.  They already had 2 guys holding him down, and then this fuck decides a knee to the neck with full weight for 8 minutes was needed? He should be tried for murder and the other 3 should be fired. 

posted by like_that

He should be tried for murder and the other 3 should be fired. 

They have all been fired. I haven't seen anyone defend this and I think once investigated, the guy will be tried. There is no point to sit on a guys neck for that long. Cuff him and take him in if he was even resisting (other angles don't show him doing much). Also, this was all over a $20 forgery, that he may or may not have even known. Terrible.

Have you seen the videos of the looting in Minneapolis?

I agree with the sentiment so far. The cop should be tried for murder (not 1st degree) and the others charged as accomplices. I'm glad they were fired, but that's not even close to enough.

posted by justincredible

Have you seen the videos of the looting in Minneapolis?

Yes.  It would be a good time to own a gun if you live in Minneapolis. 

posted by justincredible

Have you seen the videos of the looting in Minneapolis?

Yes, they're trash and the police need to do more to disperse it or you're going to get civilians killing them (one already did at a pawn shop). Then there were some dumbasses in LA protesting in the highway too.

posted by justincredible

I agree with the sentiment so far. The cop should be tried for murder (not 1st degree) and the others charged as accomplices. I'm glad they were fired, but that's not even close to enough.

THese guys have a strong union.  I am sure they werent "fired" that quickly.  Likely they used that term to try to quell public opinion (which obviously didnt work) .

I would guess these guys are still getting paid till the investigation is over.  I would bet that the other 3, if they didnt use illegal tactics, wont be fired but reassigned.

Ma'am, this is a Wendy's...

posted by Spock

I would bet that the other 3, if they didnt use illegal tactics, wont be fired but reassigned.

I could see some sort of gross negligence charge.  No way are they not fired, and I'd be surprised if they escape charges.

IMO, there's a much bigger issue of dumbass cops bad at their job than inherently racist...but the other officers had a duty to step in and could have prevented this.

On second thought, you could be right.  I've never heard of a similar incident, and it won't surprise me if we learn training instructs them this is a completely safe restraining techinique.  The other officers don't even appear to be remotely concerned (excessive force question aside, which is another issue).  On the other hand, other officers didn't do anything while one of them was choking Eric Gardner to death.

The officer looked so relaxed I thought he was going to light up a smoke. 

posted by justincredible

Just glad he's wearing a mask.

Agreed they all need locked up for life. But it’d be interesting to know what on earth the one kneeling was thinking. I assume he was just racist and wanted to kill the poor guy? Or he wanted to punish/scare and took it way too far. 
 

The looting thing is stupid and without fail always seems to happen. The people protesting on highways is always scary and a massacre waiting to happen. 

As someone who took BJJ for 3 years, and has a few police officer friends who have explained how their self defense training is operated by BJJ specialists...

This was murder. You learn in week one of BJJ the difference between blood chokes and air chokes. You learn how long it takes a person to pass out and how long it takes for them to die from each.

For reference, blood chokes (literally cutting off the blood/corotid artery to the brain)can make someone pass out in literally seconds, think UFC chokes (almost all used are blood) and how fast the defender taps out or is passed out once the hold is properly "sunk" in. They take about 3 min to kill someone but only 1-2 min to cause permanent brain damage. Air chokes take about 3-4 min to make someone pass out and only another couple minutes to kill (call it 5-6).

If you watched the whole videa, as gut wrenching as it was, you see the man pass out at about the 4 minute mark, which points to the air choke timing I mentioned, 3-4 min. He was still alive at that point, but probably died a minute or 2 later.

Knee to the neck is a valid thing to do in order to subdue a resisting suspect, but there are a few things that all trained officers are told about knee to the neck:

1. It absolutely can and will (depending on pressure/weight of officer) cut off the air/breathing of the suspect. So it is an air choke (see timings above).

2. They should ONLY use it to subdue IN AN EMERGENCY. It is not their first, second, or third form of subduing a resisting suspect. 

3. They are also told that AS SOON AS the suspect is subdued (in cuffs) that the knee to the neck has to be removed. 

All of that means the knee to the neck should be applied for no more than 30-60 seconds during the actual "struggle" and removed as soon as the suspect is in hand cuffs.

Either this officer was SEVERELY undertrained or he KNEW what he was doing and murdered this man.

It's simple, he gets fired either way. If he went through ANY ground fighting training he would have been trained on this. I seriously was explained all this during WEEK ONE of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training and BJJ experts train most police forces in ground fighting. If he was trained, then he should be charged with murder.

Also, the other 3 officers should be fired, and if they were trained they should be charged with manslaughter for not stopping the knee.

Murder, life in prison

Fire other 3 and make them walk the streets alone and unarmed for 100 hours. Must be done during dark hours.

The looting was the predictable, stupid response that does nothing but distract from the murder, both in public discourse and on this site. Want to make a stand, just do the same sort of "MUH RIGHTS!!!!" protests that people were doing in opposition of corona-shutdowns where you yell a lot and get in peoples' way.

As for the murderer and his accomplices, what SHOULD happen is that all four get the absolute maximum charges for murder (in the case of the killer) and accessory to murder (for the other three) as their actions were essentially a betrayal of those pesky "to protect and serve" oaths they took to get their badges and then conveniently forgot. With how police unions tend to protect their guys tooth and nail regardless of what they did, while acting like anyone voicing criticism is an ungrateful bastard who doesn't deserve their service, that most likely won't be happening, but a person can dream.

Not sure how legit this is, but I just saw it posted on twitter.

Yeah there’s no defending this guy. I would guess he gets 2nd degree or manslaughter. The rioting is stupid as well. I haven’t seen one person defend the cop. I also don’t think one bad egg represents how all cops are.

Individual cops can be good, but the institution itself is bad.

Also, what about the 3 cops that watched him kill the guy? That's 4 bad cops. 100% of all in attendance.

Yeah the one bad apple thing gets no credence from me. There are a lot of bad apples, and the cops who do nothing about them are also bad.

This incident has finally woken me up.  To action?  Yet to be determined.  But I'm not changing the channel on this one.  I'm ashamed that I've changed the channel up to this point.

posted by ernest_t_bass

This incident has finally woken me up.  To action?  Yet to be determined.  But I'm not changing the channel on this one.  I'm ashamed that I've changed the channel up to this point.

For me, it was Philando Castile, but yeah, this is an actual problem.  It's more than just a few bad apples.

The institution seems to attract too many of the wrong element, which really isn't surprising.  If you give a position authority and make it available to corrupt people who would misuse authority, they're going to pursue that position.

As a non racist white person.......everytime this crap happens I just think, "well fuck, I am going to look racist/white again for the next few months."

As for the incident, I have seen the 2 videos...what happened between the 2?  Likely this rogue cop instigated some sort of resisting from the guy and he pushed back a little, and the cop decided to restrain him in a way to really harm him.  Hell by the look on the cops face, it looked like he knew he was killing him.

So does he get off with lesser charge if the guy resisted?

I've often said if you just don't resist, there wont be an issue. But, Im not sure how legit that is anymore. When there is no threat (like this, Garner, etc) I just dont see how its anything but cops trying to inflict pain.