Chauvin Murder Trial

[Rev. Rye]

And for those of us in the cheap seats, among others, the prosecution cited EIGHT current and former police officers (Ret. Sgt. David Pleoger, Lt. Richard Zimmerman, Chief Medaria Arradondo, Inspector Katie Blackwell, Sgt. Ker Yang, Lt. Johnny Mercil, Sergeant Jody Stiger LAPD, Seth Stoughto) who all testified that the sort of restraint exhibited at the scene was well beyond any reasonable standard (Blackwell is the commander of the Training Division of the Minneapolis PD, by the by), and SIX medical and chemical professionals who testified that what they found with Floyd was a death consistent with, well, what the Mainstream Media is saying (Susan Neith, Michael J. Tobin, Daniel Isenschmid, Bill Smock, Lindsey Thomas, Andrew Baker, and Jonathan Rich), and the ones I put in bold were there to specifically testify that the facts of Floyd's death are not consistent with a fentanyl overdose. And when people started floating the idea that it was car exhaust that killed him (even though the car in question, a Ford Explorer, is a hybrid whose gas engine wouldn't even turn on when it's idling), Tobin was there to explain that the Carbon Monoxide levels in his blood were at normal levels. Also, Baker was the author of the notoriously obtuse official Hennepin County coroner's report that Chauvin's defenders claim exonerates him, even though it really doesn't, and he outright stated it. So, we have 8 officers who testified that Chauvin's use of force was too extreme, and 6 medical/chemical professionals who pointed out that he was asphyxiated and his death wasn't due to fentanyl. And that's less than half of the witnesses for the prosecution.

Meanwhile, here's the total list of the defense's witnesses:

• Scott Creighton and Michelle Mosang, an officer and paramedic involved in Floyd's 2019 traffic stop, something that could not have been known by Chauvin at the time, and, if you're claiming the fact that he claimed claustrophobia in both cases demonstrates a pattern, need I remind you that one of those times, Floyd fucking DIED.
  
• Shawanda Hill, A woman who was in Floyd's SUV and woke him up to inform him of the cops.
  
• Peter Chang, A Minneapolis Park police officer who thought the bystanders were too aggressive towards Chauvin.
  
• Nicole Mackenzie, A police officer who explained what excited delirium was and had previously been called by the prosecution.
  
• Barry Brodd, A former police officer who claimed that Chauvin was acting with a reasonable standard of self-defense and in accordance with Minneapolis PD policy and current standards of law enforcement, in apparent defiance of the aforementioned 8 cops, including several current MPD officers whose area of expertise is use of force, a number that is, coincidentally, more than the total number of witnesses called for the defense.
  
• David Fowler, a former who appears to be one of those "experts for hire" who'll tell the jury what they think whoever's paying them wants them to hear, in this case, that it was Floyd's bad heart that killed him and not Chauvin, and gave the same testimony for a very similar case in 2018.
  

And, bear in mind, that's literally everyone the defense called to the stand. And I'm not even getting into the videos of the event entered into evidence.

So, yeah, just keep telling yourself the jury made their decision because they feared for their lives. And not because the evidence pointed strongly towards a guilty verdict.