> the initial autopsy found no evidence that Floyd died of strangulation and traumatic asphyxia
Strangulation: "Forensics The act of suffocating a person by constricting the trachea or upper airways"[1]
Traumatic asphyxia: "Cyanotic asphyxia due to trauma; the extravasation of blood into the skin and conjunctivae, produced by a sudden mechanical increase in venous pressure, analogous to the Rumpel-Leede test; common in those who have been hanged and seen occasionally in crush injuries."[2]
So what that initial statement says is that the knee did not directly suffocate him by blocking blood or air flow, nor was Flody's chest crushed.
Keep in mind that breathing when you're face down on the ground can be difficult in itself, especially if you're not thin. And it is made a lot harder by having the upper part of your chest pinned to the ground.
But even if the officer did not pin him to the ground with the knee, and just left him on the ground facing down, they should have checked on him when he said he couldn't breathe and that he was dying. Not doing so would be highly negligent.
[1]: https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/strangulati...
[2]: https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/traumatic+a...
> Floyd was then told to step out of the car and handcuffed, and "actively resisted being handcuffed", according to body cam footage obtained the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
When we have video evidence that suggests quite the contrary from a shop nearby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Tqs06YN_A
edit: yes, I know that maybe he resisted in invisible ways. And yes, I saw him fall over when he was getting in the cop car way up at the top of the screen at the end of the video (partly hidden by the 'watch next!' videos); but is that really sufficient 'active resistance' if you can call it that?
Even if someone WAS "actively resisting" - which was obviously not what happened in this case as seen in the above video evidence - intentionally strangling someone for 8+ minutes after they they are on the ground under the control of multiple officers is still murder!
Some people seem to believe that "resisting arrest" is a capital offense that the police can punish immediately as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. The police say someone (usually black) "resisted", so fsck due process and execute them? -sigh-
That's just it, though. According to the coroner's report, he wasn't strangled.
I'm not an expert on medical terminology; there may be a more accurate term to use to describe the cause of death. I'm only using the term in the colloquial sense, which (in my opinion) is a good description of what happened according to the video evidence.
But again, so what? Even if the death was technically caused by some other mechanism, it's still patently manslaughter when someone uses their knee to crush someone's neck for ~4 minutes until they stop moving. When that person continues using their knee to crush someone's neck for an additional ~4 minutes while ignoring the please from multiple bystanders to at least check for a pulse after he stopped moving, that demonstrates the intent and mens rea necessary to upgrade the charge of manslaughter to intentional murder.
The technicalities of a medical report are not relevant. If this was some sort of freak accident, the officer should have stopped what he was doing and checked vital signs. If he didn't intend to kill, the officer should have been very surprised and/or concerned when the person under his knee stopped moving and calling for help.
And your video doesn't show what happened up until the time where the cop had his knees one him. There was actually 3 cops on him at that point. How do you think they ended up that way?
George Floyd seemed to be alive and walking around before he had his airway closed off.
( not a doctor... been reading a loooot of Reddit )
It is puzzling why the society still allows police to apply chockhold, neck pressure, etc. - such actions affecting breathing and circulation are naturally causing involuntary convulsions which police happily interprets as "resisting", and thus they get and use their right to escalate the pressure/hold until the "resisting", ie. the convulsions, stop which frequently means death.
That isn't what the autopsy report said.
The ME also claimed that the initial autopsy found no evidence that Floyd died of strangulation and traumatic asphyxia after Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes.
Correct, he didn't die of strangulation or asphyxia. Someone who can't breathe can't say things like, "I can't breathe." Instead, Floyd died of circulatory insufficiency, subsequent to having a knee pressed on his neck for almost nine minutes.
The medical details are completely irrelevant when it comes to determining responsibility for the outcome. [1] The officer is equally responsible regardless.
According to the top post on this Reddit thread, written by a self-proclaimed restraint trainer and the major replies to them, this is absolutely, positively not the case:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/gsdwky/if_you_...
Apparently this is an old saying and is completely wrong.
edit: to visualize this. One of the steps in death via a python is suffocation. During that process, you could speak many times, all the way until your lungs are out of air, but you'll never get air in your lungs again.
Is having your ability to breathe severely reduced (say 10-20% capacity. Enough to exhale out words) not accurate enough for "I can't breathe" to be true?
Point being, it doesn't matter in the least what the autopsy report says. He died of having a knee pressed down on his neck.
Agreed. I was making a bit of a side comment about something I've learned through this whole story because I also thought that being able to speak means you're not choking (for example), when apparently that is not true.
Video taken by a bystander,
now seen around the world,
shows a police officer
kneeling on Floyd’s neck
for approximately five
minutes as he struggles,
telling officers he can’t
breathe.