Tick, tick, tick…
On Monday the George Floyd Murder trial finally got underway with opening statements being delivered on a day that set the clock ticking down to the inevitable explosion of mayhem that could make last summer’s violence pale in comparison.
Given multiple factors including the Minneapolis city council’s pre-trial $27 million wrongful death settlement, the media’s saturation coverage of Floyd’s unfortunate demise and the judge’s refusal to honor the defense request for a change of venue out of real concern of a poisoned jury pool, former police officer Derek Chauvin could be facing a stacked deck before what amounts to a kangaroo court along with an angry lynch mob outside of the courthouse.
Following a rip-roaring rally on Sunday night at a local church led by the Reverend Al Sharpton, the proceedings which will be watched closely by a nation on edge and given a daily squirt of racial accelerant by a corrupt media that are greatest instigators of violence in America today kicked off with the expected emotional grandstanding by Keith Ellison’s prosecution team.
Sharpton and race-baiting ambulance chaser Ben Crump engaged in a bit of early gaslighting over the defense’s likelihood to shine a spotlight on the deceased’s fondness for illegal drugs including fentanyl, which he was flying higher than a kite on at the time of the fateful encounter.
Family attorney Ben Crump on first day of Derek Chauvin's trial:
"They're going to try to assassinate his character. The fact that they found a trace amount of drugs in his system is just a distraction … The thing that killed George Floyd was an overdose of excessive force." pic.twitter.com/5RFa5M14xw
— The Recount (@therecount) March 29, 2021
Some of the best and most unbiased coverage of the trial has been provided by Andrew Branca of Legal Insurrection who summarized Monday’s opening statements:
The state’s opening argument was presented by Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell, the video of which is embedded below.
The state’s opening consisted largely of the kind of hyperbole, emotive pleading, and half-truths that we’ve grown to expect from politically motivated prosecutions, and relatively little focus on the facts required to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in order to secure a just conviction.
For example, Blackwell quoted extensively from the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) policy manual, but only quoting the “soft” portions of the manual that refer to treating suspects with respect and not using excessive force.
Blackwell somehow neglected to mention the portions of the MPD policy manual that explicitly permit the use of neck restraints, including knee to neck, when dealing with resistant and non-compliant suspects, as well as the portions calling for full-body restraint of suspects believed to be undergoing potentially deadly excited delirium syndrome.
Similarly, Blackwell acknowledged that Floyd had drugs in his system, but only the opioid portion of the drug cocktail on which Floyd was intoxicated. He argued to the jury that Floyd’s opioid (fentanyl) toxicity could not have contributed to his death because opioids make people sleepy, and Floyd was clearly not sleepy (indeed, he forcibly resisted arrest, but Blackwell slides over that awkward reality).
Blackwell neglected, however, to mention that the reason Floyd and his vehicle and passengers were still on scene when the police arrived was because Floyd had passed out in the vehicle and his passengers were unable to rouse him despite their fear that police were about to arrive.
Blackwell also failed to note that Floyd wasn’t merely on fentanyl, the pills he had ingested were a combination of fentanyl and methamphetamine—and as the name suggests, methamphetamine is a powerful stimulant.
Check out all of Legal Insurrection’s coverage HERE.
It didn’t take long for the day to descend into the type of hyperbolic racial parody that was expected by many with the state’s introduction of a witness who is an MMA fighter who accused Chauvin of using what he called a “Blood Choke” on Floyd in reference to the restraining tactic that is a standard part of Minneapolis police training.
“He looked at me when I said it was a BLOOD CHOKE. When I said it, he acknowledged it.” The witness, a professional MMA fighter, Donald Williams said Derek #Chauvin knew what he was doing when he put his weight onto George #Floyd's neck. pic.twitter.com/2CqdyCbtZ3
— WatchTower (@WatchTowerGW) March 30, 2021
Via The Wrap, “MMA Fighter Testifies Derek Chauvin Used ‘Blood Choke’ on George Floyd”:
Donald Williams, a mixed martial arts fighter, testified on the first day of the Derek Chauvin trial that he witnessed Chauvin use a “blood choke” on George Floyd and described the arrest as being “torture.”
“I watched the position 1) of where the position of the knee was on the neck, 2) what body movements was going on while the knee was on the neck and 3) what was the condition of George Floyd as he was going through this torture,” Williams testified. “I felt the officer on top was shimmying to actually get the final choke in while he was on top.”
Williams explained that a blood choke “specifically attacks the side of the neck and particularly cuts off the circulation of your arteries and stops the blood flowing from the top of your head to the bottom of your head.”
“Sometimes you could get in a blood choke and not know you’re in a blood choke until you’re unconscious,” he added.
Look for the prosecution to go for the emotional jugular right from the get-go as the mob brays for Chauvin’s blood.
