ON BENDED KNEE

The whole world knows that Devin Chauvin, the evil police officer in Minneapolis, put his knee on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, killing him. Except, yesterday, we learned that this is not what happened at all. This should have been obvious to everyone, but it wasn’t. Almost everyone jumped to conclusions based on one video that may have presented a very inaccurate view of the event. There was other evidence, but it was ignored even after the defense attorney is his opening statement said that Devin Chauvin had his knee on George Floyd’s shoulder, not his neck.

All the reporting was based on one video, shot by a teenager, from one angle. The video from the body camera, worn by another officer, is much closer and from a very different angle. It tells a completely different story. This sure seems to show that Officer Chauvin did not have his knee on George Floyd’s neck at all, it was on his shoulder. The Police Chief, who ripped Chauvin a new one saying that putting his knee on George Floyd’s neck was a violation of procedure, had to admit, after watching the new video, that his knee was on the shoulder, not the neck. How is that possible. Didn’t anyone in the police department look at that body cam footage?

I do a lot of work as an expert witness in state and federal court. It is extremely important to learn the facts and to use them to form your opinion. There are two sides to every issue, but usually one set of facts. In this case, the facts are obvious, and they have been available since day one. It is likely that the first thing anyone looked at was that body cam video. That is, after all, the whole point. Yet, incredibly, no one appears to have even pretended to do an objective evaluation. The MSM came out shrieking that the “murder” of George Floyd was impossible to defend. Even Donald Trump said this was unacceptable. They were all wrong. They all rushed to judgement, based on a video that we now know was at best, misleading. People burned down parts of Minneapolis because of the reporting on this. There have been protests all over the country because of this. There are threats by BLM to burn down the country if officer Chauvin is not convicted. They are already working up a lather.

This reminds me of the time I played in a Golf tournament with Joey Kocur. At the time he was the enforcer for the Detroit Redwings. He and Bob Probert were known as the “Bruise Brothers.” They even made a video about him and other enforcers, called Ice Guardians. Off the ice, Joey Kocur was a very friendly guy. He was fun to be around. He was very muscular, about 6ft and 220 pounds of raw muscle. He could hit the golf ball a mile, but not necessarily in any expected direction.  On one of the holes, he accidentally hit his drive straight down our own fairway, over the heads of the foursome in front of us. I am sure this was unintentional. Suddenly, I looked up and saw a guy heading toward us in a golf cart, beet red, looking to pick a fight. In the meantime, Joey Kocur was standing next to me, hyperventilating to get his pulse up. I quickly realized the friendly Joey was turning into a Bruise Brother. I jumped in my cart and headed off this guy.  I got out of my cart, put both my hands in the air, apologized profusely and said I am very sorry, but you need to know that the person who hit that ball is Joey Kocur and you really don’t want to mess with him. The other guy knew about Joey Kocur, and when that sunk in, he went from beet red to lily white, turned his golf cart around, and went back to playing golf. Joey quickly promised to avoid hitting into them again.

The irresponsible reporting by the MSM has made the George Floyd death more than explosive. People are genuinely angry because they believed this reporting. The entire Ohio State Basketball team knelt during the National Anthem in memory of George Floyd. Now, we are in an impossible situation. If Devin Chauvin is convicted, it very well could be a miscarriage of justice. Even if he is convicted, a higher court is likely to overturn that verdict.  But in the meantime, this will have a devastatingly negative impact on police all over the country. The people who will pay the highest price for that will be the people victimized by black-on-black crime. There will also be the enormous damage caused and to be caused by BLM inspired riots. All of this could have been avoided. All that was necessary was responsible reporting that waited until all the evidence was in before rushing to judgment. Incredibly, Minneapolis has already given the George Floyd family $26 million in settlement of his claim.

It is long past time to start holding people accountable for their actions. It is not a minor problem when the MSM not only fails to tell the truth, but they also frequently deliberately misrepresent known facts. The hit piece by CBS 60 minutes on Governor DeSantis is a classic example of that. This was so bad that even the Democratic Mayor of Miami quickly rose to DeSantis defense.

I do think there are cases where police over-react resulting in unnecessary injury and even death. For example, sending a swat team to arrest Roger Stone was a case study in abuse of power. But the solution to this must start with the facts. One of those facts is sometimes if police don’t act with overwhelming force very bad things happen. In this case, just imagine if George Floyd had drove away in his car. That very likely would have resulted in a tragic automobile accident, potentially injuring innocent people. Would you want to deal with someone like George Floyd?

There is no easy solution to this, and no solution at all unless everyone starts dealing with facts and evidence. We also need to bend a knee and be much more careful before jumping to conclusions.

TDM