MSNBC stopped live broadcasting the Chauvin trial this afternoon a few minutes after reporting that one of the jurors had fallen asleep during testimony. Personally, I think it's pretty good TV, and was watching even though the Twins were playing on another channel. I didn't have an opinion on cameras in courtrooms but I now think it's a good idea and a public service. For example, if you were to go into cardiac arrest in my presence, I think I would now do a better job, thanks to watching this trial, of getting your blood to circulate while the ambulance was on its way—a hundred chest compressions per minute, and don't worry about mouth-to-mouth, right? Saying that reminds me: I thought the import of the one paramedic's testimony was underreported. He said that, on arriving at the scene, he walked up to the man he called his "patient" and immediately thought he was already dead. Yet Chauvin was still "restraining" him. The paramedic had to ask Chauvin to get off him so that he could be loaded into the ambulance. WTF?
I understand the defense attorney is doing his job, but the argument about the intimidating crowd on the curb is lame-o. Was it even a crowd? Were there ever as many as ten?—and more than a couple teenagers, a 9-year-old, a 60-something gentleman, more women than men, including one indignant female firefighter who had just finished meditating in the community garden on 38th Street. An angry mob! Some were using bad language! Oh, my!
If that's all it takes to scare the police, go ahead, defund them.
Besides, the causal chain is backwards. Chauvin didn't assault Floyd because there was an angry crowd. There was an angry crowd because Chauvin was assaulting Floyd. More than just assaulting him, as the angry crowd could tell without benefit of the medical training Chauvin received from his employer, the city of Minneapolis. Well, the firefighter had the training. Under cross examination, she readily acknowledged having called Chauvin a "bitch." Is it the worst word she knows? By applying a misogynist slur to a male cop, did she mean to insult his manhood? Neither option is unattractive, though the second would be more to her credit. If she's a "mean girl," the defense is desperate.
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