George Floyd's Arrest and Cause of Death

Sometimes during slow nights at work, I like to pass the time by watching YouTube videos. One type of video I like watching are police-related vids - high speed chases, dash cam videos, officer involved shootings, etc. It's like watching a cop show, but for realzies. 

Anyway, I've watched hundreds of videos of officers arresting people, getting involved in shoot-outs and foot chases, perps resisting arrest, etc. 

So my first thought on seeing the video of George Floyd was that he probably violently resisted arrest, so the cops were holding him down firmly. Cops do this all the time with violent offenders. Since he was talking, it was clear that the knee on his neck wasn't actually choking him, despite that being the widely-accepted narrative. This is also something that suspects do all the time - resist arrest, then cry and complain when the cops take them to the ground. I typically don't have a lot of sympathy in those cases (of course, normally, they aren't actually dying). 

But there are more videos out there of the Floyd arrest that give a bit more context than the one that has been most widely circulated (the one with the knee on the neck). These include surveillance videos and another cell phone video, both of which actually show part of the initial arrest. 

So here are my thoughts after watching all these videos, and applying what I know from working in hospitals and from watching lots of these kinds of videos.

1) There's nothing in any of these videos to suggest that Floyd died because of anything the cops did. Pressing a knee to the back of someone's neck doesn't choke them. And the fact that he was speaking proves beyond any reasonable doubt that he could breathe. 

2) The arrest videos show that he was not violently resisting arrest, as I had initially assumed. However, he does appear to be giving trouble to the officers, because it takes two of them to get him out of the car and handcuff him. It's impossible from the videos to say why or what kind of trouble he was giving them. But it wasn't a simple arrest situation. 

3) He appears to already be in some kind of physical distress while being arrested. This may be why he was giving them trouble. After handcuffing him, he staggers to the sidewalk before collapsing against a wall for several minutes while a cop talks to him. Then the cop helps him to his feet and escorts him across the street to his squad car. There, he collapses a second time and multiple cops help lift him and take him around to the other side. Once there, he collapses for the third and final time. Unfortunately, you can't see on the videos what happens after that. The next video available shows him with the knee already in his neck. Perhaps body worn cameras will clear that up, but none have been released yet. 

4) Initial reports said cops thought he was drunk. Based on the arrest videos, I can see why. Instead of being drunk (or maybe in addition to being drunk), he was probably already having whatever medical emergency caused his death. Based on his age and size, he may have been having a heart attack. He may have already been in the middle of it before the arrest even started. 

5) None of this explains why the cops were pinning him down or why the one cop kept his knee on the man's neck for so long. Again, hopefully body cams can clear that up. What's clear is that they shouldn't have laid on top of him as long as they did. The cop with the knee almost seems to be defying the crowd. You get the impression he didn't want to look weak by moving after they demanded it, so he just stayed in place for no good reason. Despite that, I don't believe his knee caused Mr. Floyd's death. There's certainly nothing in the available videos to suggest that.  

An inability on the part of the public for calm, rational analysis of things like this is why we have riots and looting afterward. And unfortunately, the press, politicians, voices on social media - all these people make matters worse by instantly starting a bandwagon on one side or the other, and everyone seems to just fall in line. In the end, people like me are left wondering if anyone on either side of the political aisle has the ability to think sensibly or impartially anymore. 

A Lesson from Fred Flintstone

When I was a kid, I LOVED cartoons. I would wake up at 6:30 on Saturday morning JUST to watch cartoons. In fact, my whole Saturday morning was arranged around a strict cartoon schedule that ran from 7 to 11 and culminated with a glorious 90-minute binge of the Smurfs.   

During the mid-1980s, TBS aired old Flintstones reruns in the afternoon. My daily routine during those years was to get home, get a snack (usually microwaved hot dogs), and head in to the family room to watch the Flintstones - two thirty minute episodes (that is, unless a Cubs game was on WGN, in which case I chose baseball over cartoons).  

I can say with fair certainty that I've seen every Flintstones episode multiple times. 

There's one in particular that I am constantly reminded of these days. In this episode, Pebbles has recently been born to Fred and Wilma. Fred, being a doting father, has fallen head over heels for his new baby. Intent on documenting her childhood, he immediately runs out to a store and buys a fancy new video camera. 

He proceeds to become obsessive about making home movies and showing them to everyone he can find. At first, it's all great. Barney and Betty and the others really enjoy coming over, hanging out with Fred and Wilma, and watching videos of cute little Pebbles. 

But, as usual, Fred doesn't know when to stop. The behavior continues, day in and day out. Barney and Betty begin to grow fed up with the non-stop barrage of Pebbles vids, even as Fred's obsession grows stronger. They begin avoiding him to keep from getting corralled into another home movie session. 

Then Fred really goes overboard and secretly plans to show Pebbles videos to all the members of the Water Buffalo Lodge. Telling them it's a "bathing beauty" video, the lodgers are naturally put out when it turns out to be videos of Pebbles in her baby pool. 

More zany cartoon drama ensues, before Fred finally learns his lesson and hangs up his video camera for good.  

Believe it or not, there is a point to retelling this plot from a 1960s cartoon. You probably already have an idea of where I'm going. I am constantly reminded of this episode by certain people on social media who don't seem to realize that no one wants to see a constant barrage of pictures of their kids/daily lives/vacations/dinners, etc. If the writers of this episode could see where society has gone, they'd turn over in their graves. We've got 100 million Fred Flintstones running around the country now, posting every photo and video in their camera roll to Instagram and Facebook. 

I'm obviously not gonna name names, but I've got several followers on Instagram who I swear to God post dozens of pictures of their kids every week. One of these people is worse than all the others. Since Friday, she has made 15 posts on Instagram (as of this hour), with a total of 29 pictures and 1 video. Among these are 3 pictures of wine glasses, two pictures of legs laying out in the sun, pictures of fire pits and backyard pools, and two dozen pictures of her kids and husband.

This is pretty much a normal three-day stretch for her. Not everyone is quite that bad, of course, but several others come pretty close. I've got one follower who I swear must post every picture in her camera roll when she goes on vacation. Each day it will be multiple posts of dozens of photos, including some that aren't even good pictures. It's obvious she's just going through her camera roll picture by picture and posting them all, so that we can enjoy her Disney or beach trip right alongside her. 

What, precisely, is going on in the minds of these Fred Flintstone wannabes? Why do they think their hundreds of Instagram contacts want to see ALL of those pictures? I get that maybe your mom might want to see the pics of her grandchildren, or your best girlfriend might want to see what you did on vacation. But you've got 700 followers! Why IN THE WORLD would you post all these pictures or think that ANYBODY wanted to see them? 

I realize the answer here is to just unfollow them. Like Barney and Betty, avoidance is the key. But these are friends and acquaintances of mine, and I like to see SOME pictures of them. I mean, that's why we follow people on Instagram in the first place, right? 

I guess I see this sort of thing as breaking the unwritten rules of society. Like Fred, who couldn't see that no one was as interested in his own kid and his own life as he was, some people just don't seem to realize that they and their kids aren't the center of everyone else's lives. Yes, there's such a thing as too much.