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I don't think we can say these comparisons are right. In the George Floyd killing, it was the police who were responsible. In this killing, it was a civilian. Now did the police get the situation utterly wrong? Absolutely. But this is quite different from the police actually killing Nowak.
That's a point very much in contention. Floyd responded to his arrest by swallowing a bunch of drugs to avoid possession charges. His tox screen showed more than enough fent to kill a man. He actually had a nearly identical situation 13 months prior, where he was arrested for being a general lowlife criminal, swallowed all his drugs, ODed and nearly died, but in that instance the ambulance arrived in 4 minutes instead of 9 and he was revived.
It is not in contention. Multiple autopsies confirmed George Floyd's death was caused by homicide. A court found the police officer who sat on his neck guilty of second degree murder. You clearly do not like the man, but that doesn't change the facts.
Ultimately, I don't know what best practice for maximizing a fentanyl-overdose patient's chances of survival looks like, but I would be very surprised if it looks like pinning him down in a chokehold, any more than best practice for a stab victim is to try to handcuff him. Whether Floyd died from physical choking or as a result of the drugs he'd ingested doesn't let Chauvin off the moral hook; in Floyd's as in Nowak's case, it would still leave us with officers who wasted time "restraining" an already-dying man instead of trying to save his life.
The biggest difference is that Floyd was human excrement. The world was better off with him not in it. Novak wasn’t committing a crime. Novak wasn’t tweeking from hard core drug use. Novak wasn’t acting fucking wild when the police showed up. Novak doesn’t have a history of home invasions where Novak held a gun to a pregnant woman.
The police’s job with Floyd was to restrain him because he was a criminal who was acting very wild. Notably the police did not start with kneeling on his back. That’s the first video that came out but if you watch the bodycam footage the police tried a lot before kneeling on him.
As I said in my other reply, by saying Chauvin was responsible for his death, I am not necessarily saying that he acted wrongly. Prioritizing the safety of the innocent over that of the guilty can be the correct utilitarian choice in a fraught situation. But you're still responsible for pulling the trolley lever. Even if it wasn't you who tied the person you sacrifice to the trolley tracks, you still made that choice; you can justify your actions, but they are your actions.
Floyd was exuberantly resisting arrest and either lying about being unable to breathe or having a medical episode well before anybody laid a finger on him. Chauvin followed the department handbook (He could have attended to him earlier on the ground, sure, but he also likely didn't have a reasonable expectation of the guy overdosing) on how to restrain somebody resisting arrest. I don't mind a court finding him negligent for not checking Floyd but murder is an absolute miscarriage of justice
Oh, I agree. I'm just saying that "(partly) responsible for his death" is a much lower bar than "guilty of murder".
Coase made the point that any conflicts in rights are bilateral monopolies. That is, my factory is only a nuisance to your home because your home is there.
It is true that without the police Floyd may have lived that day (or may not have). But it’s also true that Floyd’s actions also caused his death. That is, there isn’t a single party responsible but multiple parties.
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