Creator Commentary: George Floyd and Derek Chauvin [+Update]

Thanks so much!

Matt Orchard

New comment old video I'm a new patreon member. Weirdly enough, not a true crime guy. I do love high quality videos commentary and essay format. I live in Minneapolis. Have for a while. Some would say born here. Matt, the original video and this clearly showcase a deftness and empathy that is not lost on us. I'm secretly an advocate that the original video should be used in local highschools. You did well on this one. I found it meaningful

Hunter Sax

51 mins in - DC on the spectrum - no, agreed the look is blank/shock and potentially he has an empathy problem but I think that is a symptom of being in the police and being trained to think everyone is lying to you and out to get you. I assume he's thinking "grow up man, it's not that bad just my knee. Why is there a crowd forming, don't they know this loser is overreacting, better keep an eye on them". Also there is research to suggest people on the spectrum have more empathy than the NTs. But I love spit balling Matt, and respect you trying to think outside the narrative.

TinTicket

44 mins in you speak about the prosecution having a range of use of force experts and how they muddy the waters with their different "this is when they should have stopped". I think that is covering their bases - if you have one and the jury goes "nah that's too soon" you've put all your eggs in one basket. Also you can argue "yeah there's lots of different opinions of when but they all agree they should have stopped. And that is stronger (imo). Also potentially stops a post conviction argument of "they pretended there is one clear answer and over simplifying the issue and this is a railroad!" As for the they should have stopped in the back seat - I get that view point. Like he's not a danger sit him down reason with him work with him - it's not a race to arrest him. I think the real "this is when they should have stopped" has to do with how much power you think the police should have in how they treat people. They were escalating pushing him into the seat when he was freaking out - they should be skilled enough to know to stop, give the man some time and calmly get him in the car. Yes there will be times when force is needed but a guy shouting "i'm claustrophobic" who could potentially panic is more a danger to himself than them or the public - the goal is not to get him into the car at all costs now, but to get him safely into the car and if you need to stop and take baby steps into the car then you do that. De-escalation is a skill the police should be top tier at but they're not and that. So I get the view that from getting into the back of the car is when they should have stopped - there was no imperative, or public/police safety need to get him into the back of the car right then so they could have slowed down and worked with him not ramped it up. In a perfect world I agree, in the world we live in where the police are basically fuck scared of everything and are taught they will be shot in the face any second - and they have to be proactive with their safety rather than reactive then I can understand why they saw the "i'm scared" resistance of Floyd as something dangerous to be dealt with (think the self defence defence, they don't have to actually be in danger but think they are) but once he was on the floor then they needed to stop.

TinTicket

I completely agree with everything you said there. It seems like an instance of people being convicted for the outcome more than their actions. Again with the caveat that I haven't been versed in the specific legalese of their cases. At face value though, I don't see what they did as criminal.

Matt Orchard

Yeah, I felt that way too as it was going on. ESPECIALLY when Kueng was on his third shift ever as a police officer--and Chauvin was his training officer. I completely understand someone new on the job not (a) knowing what the 'norm' is for on-duty service, so (b) assuming your training officer knows what he's doing, and (c) not being comfortable to speak up to your superior, especially when you've drawn a crowd of people watching and protesting. Now, then again, the footage is brutal to watch, and it should be crystal clear that Floyd is in real danger or at least real pain. But are they criminally responsible for not making that judgement call? Meanwhile Lane had been on the force for 4 days so was basically as green as Kueng. It's such a perfect storm of novice officers under the purview of someone who had a dodgy history of violence against racial minorities. That sounds more like the fault of the Minnesota Police Force for assinging Chauvin as a training officer. At least Lane was released from prison quite recently actually, and it sounds like Kueng will be in half a year. I'm very amenable to the suggestion that their sentencing had more to do with symbolic reasons than the legal actualities.

Jonathan Gill

Without having actually having seen the arguments made at their trials, I'm not sure about Kueng and Lane being criminally culpable. Police ranks operate much like a military structure where 99.9% of the time it is expected that you follow your superiors commands. Yes there are carve outs for when you're instructed to do something illegal, but I think that with all that was going on, for either Kueng and Lane to actually interfere or openly reprimand Chauvin would have been more than the right thing to do - it would have been outright heroic. I'm not comfortable with the idea of imprisoning people for merely *not* being heroic.

Matt Orchard

Oh yeah I remember what you're talking about - got distracted. I was going to say (without having actually having seen the arguments made at their trials) that I'm not sure about Kueng and Lane being criminally culpable. Police ranks operate much like a military structure where 99.9% of the time it is expected that you follow your superiors commands. Yes there are carve outs for when you're instructed to do something illegal, but I think that with all that was going on, for either Kueng and Lane to actually interfere or openly reprimand Chauvin would have been more than the right thing to do - it would have been outright heroic. I'm not comfortable with the idea of imprisoning people for merely *not* being heroic.

Matt Orchard

Late comment, I know, but I'd be really curious to hear your thoughts on the other 3 police officers involved in the crime. You began to broach the topic early in the commentary, but I don't think you return to it later.

Jonathan Gill

I'm coming in late to this commentary, on account that its a hard video to go through again for me. One part of the story that I don't feel comfortable with is the federal charges that the other cops were convicted of, especially Kueng and Lane, do you think that was justice?

Xocastle

saw the following in a book recently (Barbarians at the Gates): "With their niggling questions about cost cuts, the bankers were a nuisance"

humdinger

I feel like when say that certain stuff that was clearly in the trial wasn't in the trial, It's just them having a problem with how it was argued in the political sense rather than just within the trial and not being able to see them seperately. Personally I think it's weird how it was argued that this crime was racially motivated, too. Given that mr. Floyd was well known by the officers it seems way more plausible that they had a personal thing against him ("sigh, not this guy again" type shit) rather than a racial bias. However that has nothing to do with my belief that Chauvin should absolutely be convicted for at least 2nd or 3rd degree murder. Either way really like what you did with the case and the commentary.

Jan Piet

I haven’t seen it, but I have seen what I refer to in the commentary as “revisionism” of the case here and there and it looks like that’s a part of that. Basically taking facts that were presented at the trial and insinuating it’s somehow secret, suppressed information. In reality they just didn’t stand up to scrutiny in light of the full context of everything that happened during that incident. For instance, the TFOM website leads with Floyd saying “I can’t breathe!” In the back of the squad car in their bullet points of supposed unanswerables. Not only was that pointed out at trial, it was made public when the state promptly released the full bodycams shortly after the incident. Chauvins’ conviction was sound and by the book.

Matt Orchard

Matt have you seen Fall of Minneapolis and if so do you have an opinion on it.

Big B

Hey, autistic person here. You can be a cop and be autistic, however there are IQ limits and a lot of autistic people are high IQ, and if they've been evaluated for autism they're more likely to have been IQ tested as well. Also many autistic people are averse to authority/institutions of authority (otoh we're highly moralistic so if someone autistic agreed w law enforcement they would probably take it all the way).

EZ

Schleicher said he "enjoyed himself during that [cross exam]" in an interview he had after the trial. I like the idea that he was having a lot of fun during that cross-examination, too.

Sonseed

This is a pretty depressing video but I really like this video because of all the different examples of great-lawyering you highlight. For example, I absolutely love the Steve Schleicher's cross-examination of Barry Brodd example you provide. I've watched that part several times it's so entertaining.

Sonseed

I agree. This trial was very thorough, and it was presented really well. It was the first trial I had ever watched. It randomly auto-played in the middle of quarantine, with Eric Nelson questioning jurors during voir dire- the most boring part of any trial (I didn't know who's trial it was, or even if Nelson was defense or state). I started watching it because of how Nelson questioned people. I usually don't like defense attorney's but, Nelson is brilliant. Can't wait for your piece on the Apple River stabbing. That was a rough one.

Kailee C

That's on the list of potentials. I'm guessing it will probably happen one day, though I haven't even done a general background read at this point. Guy may or may not have killed his girlfriend, people feel very strongly about it and he's out now is about as much as I know.

Matt Orchard

Well it may actually be that I'm not using it 100% correctly! I seems "Niggly" is more accurately used to describe pedantic criticisms, where as I'm using it kind of mean "very tricky and dependent on lots of small but important details" - "Finicky" might be more appropriate.

Matt Orchard

on a slightly less depressing note, I would love to see you cover the case of Adnan Syed/ the killing of hae min lee which was covered on the serial podcast, interesting case with a lot of open questions

cool_ranch

just a deplorable indifference to a person's life here, he used counterfeit money and he's being treated like a mass murderer. even worse is the failure to just have the common sense to acknowledge "this was not handled properly" which added fuel to the fire of division in the States, then and now.

cool_ranch

Dreading (sorry Matt!) did a lengthy vid on that case, if you have a few hours to kill. 😇 Totally diff style though. Minimal commentary, he (they) lets the story evolve through courtroom footage. It’s a commitment, but of you have the time, it’s an interesting way to learn about the case without bias (sorta).

YESwayTED 024

You scared me! I am wholly unfamiliar with the term “niggly”. In California, that word is far too similar to another word that no one should use, so my heart jumped when I read it, esp. in light of the content! Now I can’t stop thinking of slang from your country and using niggly in my day-to-day: representin’ MO. Thank you for your kind updates. Looking forward to your next release and doing my best not to research the case in advance!

YESwayTED 024

Made it to the end now I feel dumb 😄

derek schommer

Looking forward to it, almost sounded like past tense in your commentary here I thought maybe I missed something or it's another channel

derek schommer

It's the project I'm currently working on

Matt Orchard

What's this about the apple river stabbing? Is that a future video or have I missed it somehow?

derek schommer

Looks like an interesting case - I'll keep an eye on it.

Matt Orchard

Getting really above my pay-grade now, but I could imagine a "don't blame me, blame my [possible] Asperger's " defense could be an extremely risky play and have the potential to really blow up in your face. It would also be offering an explanation for your wrongdoing, which would sort of require conceding the wrongdoing. Unless there are carve outs in the law that would make relatively common developmental issues potentially mitigating factors for felonies I'm not sure there would be much upside in trying to bring that in. This is all assuming my out of the box theory is right in the first place, which it very may well not be.

Matt Orchard

I'm stoked for the next video. It's a tough one cuz I used to be an obnoxious teen like that, but with my knowledge of the law I side with the defense. Keep up the good work matt. Your content is exceptional including your commentary vids. Also I heard you do radio work, that'd be a fun topic to touch on in a vid. I like to learn about creators as well as watch their creations. Peace matt

Gizmo

Yeah, sometimes with exploring legal arguments/strategies and so forth it's easy to forget a lot of these situations really aren't rocket science.

Matt Orchard

I hear that a bit, though I do find this a particularly odd one to fall asleep to!

Matt Orchard

Wouldn't it be cool if you did a fentanyl specific video based on the case of kouri richins? Lost a lot of friends on fentanyl because they didn't understand tolerance and that'd be a great case to cover regarding that issue

Gizmo

Joel Dellavalle

wot m8

Warren Commission Test Skull

I think the damming point is that there was a point where it would have been very very obvious that Floyd was not resisting in any capacity. The second that 3 different officers should have felt a lack of resistance is where it becomes negligence and murder. Everything up to that point is fair use of restraining methods. If you have ever pinned someone to the ground or have been pinned to the ground from a friend or sibling, it is incredibly easy to tell when the pinned person stops fighting. Night and day difference

Yonder

This case was a big one. You covered it fantastically. I like the longer videos also cuz I watch them to sleep sometimes.

Gizmo

holy moly.... altho the use of a certain n (with the hard iggle) word may be seen as a little unfortunate for people with bad faith agenda's, à la the jeremy lin chink in the armour, really just windmill tilting with a columbo already wearing his jacket and hat and ready to wait until the very last conceivable second to james hoban this whole coping. these videos make one a much more contentious citizen outside of the legal parameters and also happen to on that front give an education that is worth more than monet can buy

Dylan Hanigan