Bottom line is the guy died. It shouldn't have happened no matter what drug or whatever Mr. Floyd was on.
The thing is that they kept holding him down with the charged cop’s knee on his neck after he'd become non-responsive, for nearly 3 minutes, and after he’d released his bladder and stopped breathing. IMO I think Floyd resisted getting into the back the car but he was in in the car and cuffed. I think it pissed the cops off and they pulled him back out and got him on the ground as they wanted to teach him a lesson, you know - “Respect My Authority†ala Eric Cartman. In the original video, when the EMT finally shows up and takes a pulse (the cop still with his knee on Floyd’s neck), you can see there was no sense of urgency and they basically threw him on the gurney, because by now they, as in they all knew, he was already dead.
FWIW Floyd was arrested under suspicion (read that again – suspicion) of passing a counterfeit $20 bill. Not for a violent crime nor was he armed.
Yes, he had a prior record but as far as I know, had served his time and had no outstanding warrants. If the tox report is correct, he was on drugs but passing a fake bill even if he was “high†shouldn’t be a death sentence. And cops are not supposed to be judges, juries or executioners.
It seems to me to be way too many cases of cops, regardless of the races involved, going to the max amount of force when sometimes de-escalation techniques, like, simply talking to the suspect and calming him down while still protecting themselves, might prevent a lot of these deaths. But today the police are not to serve and protect but act more like a military unit were every suspect is treated as an armed enemy combatant.
And here I’m also thinking of the Daniel Shaver case. FWIW, Shaver, a white guy, was drunk at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaverwww.youtube.com/watch?v=VBUUx0jUKxc&bpctr=1591131728There were no mass protests over Daniel Shaver’s death, but IMO there should have been. Especially after the cop got off for murdering this man.