"the coroner said it wasn't asphyxia that killed him (despite all the videos) and a private autopsy found that's not true[1]."

The county coroner's report was technically true in a way meant to imply a false result.

Floyd didn't die from lack of airflow, he died because the knee stopped blood flow to the brain, that is the brain couldn't receive Oxygen despite the body being able to breath.

The county coroner carefully checked that Floyd could breathe, but not blood flow to the brain. Once asphyxia was ruled out (not really, since strangulation is not the only way to get it), the coroner was free to imply whatever was comfortable to the police.

I wonder how many other autopsies done by the same coroner were also misleading, and whether other cases will need a retrial.

You are correct. I found this great analysis of the official report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egRf84EqaJI

The autopsy was purposely vague so as to give as much leeway as possible to the police.

Was this the coroner or medical examiner? I didn't think the coroner did a report. The medical examiner released their full report shortly after the preliminary one and did state the death was ultimately due to asphyxiation. I read that the initial medical examiner's report didn't go this far b/c they had not completed their review and they needed to get a report out quickly so that the officers could be charged.

IIRC we're talking about the initial report. Later on, they backtracked, but their original report was patently flawed. Given the direction and obviousness of the flaws, one must question whether the flaws were only due to haste.

This officer claimed he feared for his life. No charges were brought. The dashcam video is supposed to be exculpatory, but that's not how I see it.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/04/zachary-hamm...

In the video I watched (the one with multiple viewpoints from security cams, dash cams, etc.), Floyd did resist when they attempted to take him out of his car, and then again when they tried to put him in their car the first time. Of course, none of that should have resulted in a death sentence.

> Sure, clearly the cops handled this wrong, but what got Floyd there in the 1st place?

What? Seriously, what? Are you suggesting that the police should be free to pick and choose who they kill based on whether they are a "model citizen/saint" or not?

"Do not kill a person unnecessarily" should be a universal rule the police work to. It doesn't matter one bit who they are interacting with.

Between this attack and the flamebait in your other comments, you're crossing into bannable territory. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.

An Attack? Pointing out the truth is an attack and flame bait? I see - only the hive mind is allowed.

"Do you have a reading comprehension disability" is plainly an attack.

"Pointing out the truth" can certainly be an attack or flamebait. It depends on which truth and how it's used. One middle schooler "pointing out" the acne on another's face can be quite an attack. The hardest substance (truth) makes the sharpest weapon. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23381247 on the "it's a fact" defense, the most beloved of trolls.

For example, let's assume that your comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23396054 was factual and that George Floyd was intoxicated when he was killed. Bringing that up in this context, as if it somehow mitigates anything about his killing, is certainly flamebait, true or not.

Re "I see - only the hive mind is allowed" - that's also a common response. Everyone always feels like the mods are against them, secretly siding with the opposition: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... We oppose your favorite sports team too, and conspire with the highway patrol to make sure it's always you who gets the speeding ticket.

I can’t respond to your earlier comment: but people aren’t saying he’s a saint; they’re making him a martyr of sorts. He died from police brutality, and instead of trying to fix that (over the past few decades), the police and President have waged civil war.

Black leadership has been bombed, assassinated, and jailed. Their neighborhoods are targeted for predatory financial extraction and are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards like waste processing plants, dumps, etc.

The Black Panther party had significant leadership and unification, social programs like food, educational programs, etc. They were killed. Bombed in fact. Prominent leaders were shot in their beds by the government.

Black Wall Street existed, utterly peacefully in fact, and they were utterly destroyed by white riots.

The black community has tried repeatedly to address things and in every turn they were beaten back down.

What do you recommend?

It will take a long time, generations, to fix this. I remember the 1981 race riots in London.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Brixton_riot

There was a public inquiry afterwards that led to the creation of a Police Complaints Commission. But that was largely ineffective for at least 20 years afterwards.

Ultimately I think integration and education are the only solution. My parents didn't meet a non-white person until they were in their late 20s. At my school there were a few black families. At my kids school there was a lot of diversity; and differences in race, sexuality and religion seem to be "old people's problems" to them now.

Integration has been resisted with violence- see busing.

Maybe they could try respectfully taking a knee at football games? Surely that'd work? /s

Deflections are not really a productive discussion tool.

That aside, why do you think that is? Could hundreds of years of systemic economic repression have any causual effect on that? Do you have any suggestions how we as society could bring those numbers down?

Lastly, how in bleeps name does that justify police violence?

Then why does it matter whether he is a "saint" or not? I could see your argument if he was angrily brandishing a gun and they had to make a quick decision to act, but that's very obviously not the case.

Exactly. He could have done whatever criminal things prior, but it has nothing to do with the specific scenario. He wasn't resisting arrest and was unjustly killed. Whatever he has done in the past has no bearing on it.

People tend to forget that others are just mere humans, and no one is a saint. Ffs, even MLK, for all the great progress he brought about, was cheating on his wife, which is imo pretty immoral and universally condemned. But it doesn't diminish his accomplishments in any way.

He plagiarized part of his thesis too, but this kind of begs the question what constitutes plagiarism in theology.

Even if he was DUI, no one has canceled due process. And even with due process, I don't think we give people death sentences for DUI.

Please don't attack another user or post in the flamewar style like this to HN, regardless of how wrong or provocative another comment is. It only makes this place even worse.

Note this guideline: "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." That's our indirect version of please don't feed the trolls. Other users flagged the comment, and it was rightly flagkilled. That would have happened sooner if you had followed the guidelines also.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I don't always agree with you, but damnit, do I respect you. Thanks for the work you do, esp. if you aren't getting compensated.

I'm compensated, which I mention because it's relevant to the health of HN. When people aren't paid to do something, they extract compensation in other ways, and that would exercise a distorting influence if it happened here. Being paid is part of what allows us to be relatively neutral. Also, the job can be a little intense, so one needs to remind oneself that one is choosing to do it, and being paid makes that relatively easy.

FFWD a couple months and Trump will be praising the police while fixating on the original coroner report.

First, this evidence there was 'no resistance' is not evidence at all, in fact, the claim by CNN is 'the lie'. There are many minutes of the interaction we don't have insight into, in particular the moments leading up to the 'kneeling'. That doesn't mean the police are not lying, but it definitely means the 'proof' offered by CNN is not 'proof'.

Also, city coroner made one claim, the coroner hired by the family made a different one, the claim that somehow the coroner hired by the family is 'correct' is just flat out inappropriate. Personally, I'm slightly more inclined to believe the city coroner, and that there were probably some complications. When the victim initially came out of his vehicle, it seems he fell to the ground in a manner that didn't seem to be due to a struggle, which would indicate something was wrong, physically, already at that time, obviously exacerbated by the police brutality.

The county coroner changed their report and labeled the death a homicide after the outcry that the original report was a cover-up. They no longer have any credibility.

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867219130/george-floyd-indepe...

> In charging documents released last week, prosecutors said that preliminary results from an autopsy "revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation."

>However the new report from the medical examiner did not include such language.

If this is true, it's all very terrible, it makes me dubious of the entire situation and I would hope that there would be an external (Federal? Non-Barr appointed?) investigation.