Trump's Kenosha visit highlights his reelection message: Only Trump will keep you safe https://news.yahoo.com/trumps-kenos...-only-trump-will-keep-you-safe-200727989.html With protests continuing to rage in Kenosha, Wis., over the Aug. 23 police shooting of African-American Jacob Blake, President Trump will travel there Tuesday on a visit to the key swing state that will echo his “law and order” campaign message. On Monday, Trump reiterated what he asserted at last week’s Republican National Convention: that he is the only person keeping the country from descending into chaos. Except under extraordinary circumstances, National Guard units are controlled by state governors, not the president. Trump has been calling for the Guard to be activated in numerous places that have experienced disorder, but he had no authority to “insist” that Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers take that action, which he did on his own on Aug. 24 after protesters set cars on fire and smashed windows in response to Blake’s shooting. Two days later, he increased the deployment from 125 troops to more than 600. That same day, 17-year-old Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse drove to Kenosha from his home in Antioch, Ill., to join a group of vigilantes who claimed to be protecting businesses from violent protests. According to police, Rittenhouse shot three protesters, killing two. He was arrested in Antioch and is being held pending extradition to Wisconsin. Trump announced last week that he would travel to Kenosha, prompting Evers to write him a letter discouraging the visit. “I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state. I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together,” Evers wrote. “I am likewise concerned that an in-person visit from you will require a massive re-direction of these resources to support your visit at a time when it is critical that we continue to remain focused on keeping the people of Kenosha safe and supporting the community’s response.” Asked Monday why Trump was heading to Kenosha despite the governor’s request that he stay away, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, “The president wants to visit hurting Americans.” Exactly which “hurting Americans” he seeks to comfort was not specified. According to the White House, as of Monday morning he had not yet spoken with Blake’s family. McEnany was also asked whether Trump would condemn Rittenhouse’s actions in Kenosha. “The president is not going to weigh in on that,” McEnany said. Joe Biden, meanwhile, has offered his condolences to Blake’s family and delivered a speech in Pittsburgh on Monday in which he blasted the president’s trip to Kenosha as little more than a publicity stunt. “We need to heal,” the Democratic nominee said. “The current president wants you to live in fear. He advertises himself as a figure of order. He isn’t, and he’s not been part of the solution thus far. He’s part of the problem.” Yet Biden also made clear that he had shared Trump’s view that the violence in Kenosha and other cities needs to stop. “I want to be very clear about this: Rioting is not protesting, looting is not protesting, setting fires is not protesting. It’s lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted,” Biden said. Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian, who said Sunday that he would prefer the president not visit his city “at this point in time,” told reporters Monday that his police chief was coordinating with the Secret Service as to the details of the president’s trip. “I think that Kenosha at this present time needs peace and needs to heal and needs people to allow us to do that,” Antaramian told reporters at a press conference. The mayor also noted the political dimension of the president’s visit. “Everyone’s going to be always doing this with the politics of what’s happening because you have a presidential election,” Antaramian said. “At this point in time, you know what, I care about my community and I care about the people in my community, and that’s what my focus is and that’s what I’m going to focus on.” For both candidates, what happens in Kenosha could weigh heavily on the November election. In 2016, Trump won Kenosha County by just 232 votes. He took the state by a margin of just 22,748 votes. Black Lives Matter demonstrations have occurred sporadically since the death of Eric Garner in New York City in 2014 and have become pervasive since George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis in May, putting pressure on both presidential campaigns to formulate a response. Biden’s message is that the president refuses to take responsibility for the problems that have continued on his watch. Trump is claiming that his opponent has failed to condemn “Rioters, Anarchists, Agitators, and Looters.” (More including Tweets at above url)
Wait till George Floyd officers all get off because Anti American Islamist Keith Ellison tried to get cute.
They have the video showing George Floyd putting the fentanyl pills in his mouth during the arrest in attempt to avoid being arrested for drugs. Officer charged in George Floyd's death argues drug overdose killed him, not knee on neck Floyd's May 25 death prompted nationwide protests. https://abcnews.go.com/US/officer-charged-george-floyds-death-argues-drug-overdose/story?id=72711824 A defense attorney for the fired Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in connection with the death of George Floyd is asking a judge to drop all charges, arguing the 46-year-old man's death was allegedly from a drug overdose and not caused by the officer planting his knee in the back of Floyd's neck. Defense attorney Eric J. Nelson filed the motion in Hennepin County, Minnesota, District Court on Friday, claiming prosecutors have failed to show probable cause for charging Derek Chauvin with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Chauvin has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Nelson contends Chauvin acted on his training from the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) in the use of a "Maximal Restraint Technique" and did so out of concern that Floyd might harm himself or the officers struggling to arrest him. The Minneapolis Police Department policy on "Maximal Restraint Technique" says it "shall only be used in situations where handcuffed subjects are combative and still pose a threat to themselves, officers or others, or could cause significant damage to property if not properly restrained." Nelson also included Minneapolis Police Department training materials on the proper use of the "Maximal Restraint Technique," in which photos show demonstrations of officers simulating putting their knee on a handcuffed subject's neck. Nelson argued the training material appeared to contradict a statement made shortly after the incident by Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo that he had not seen "anything that says you place your knee on someone's neck when they're facedown, handcuffed." "Thus, any risk created by Mr. Chauvin's conduct lies largely with those who train MPD officers and those who approve such training," Nelson wrote in the motion filed on Friday. Nelson also cited the autopsy conducted on Floyd that found fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, a combination of drugs Nelson says is known as a speedball. He noted that the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's post-mortem report showed Floyd had arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease, hypertension and sickle cell trait. Floyd also purportedly told the officers that he had contracted COVID-19 and was still positive for the virus at the time of his death, a claim confirmed by his autopsy. "Put simply, Mr. Floyd could not breathe because he had ingested a lethal dose of fentanyl and, possibly, a speedball. Combined with sickle cell trait, his pre-existing heart conditions, Mr. Floyd's use of fentanyl and methamphetamine most likely killed him," Nelson argued. "Adding fentanyl and methamphetamine to Mr. Floyd's existing health issues was tantamount to lighting a fuse on a bomb." Nelson added a footnote quoting Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker saying, "If [Mr. Floyd] were found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes, this could be acceptable to call an OD." A Sept. 11 court hearing before Judge Peter Cahill has been scheduled on the motion filed by Nelson. The attorney for Floyd's family, Benjamin Crump, did not respond to an ABC News request for comment on the motions. Previously, Crump stated regarding the drugs in Floyd's system, "The cause of death was that he was starving for air. It was lack of oxygen. And so everything else is a red herring to try to throw us off." An independent autopsy ordered by Floyd's family found his death was a "homicide caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain." A viral cellphone video of Floyd's fatal arrest on May 25 showed Chauvin with his knee on the back of Floyd's neck while he was handcuffed and prone on the ground next to a police patrol vehicle. Two other officers, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, are seen in the footage helping Chauvin restrain Floyd, whom they initially confronted when they responded to a 911 complaint that Floyd had allegedly used a phony $20 bill to purchase cigarettes at the Cup Foods store in Minneapolis. The footage of Floyd's arrest showed him repeatedly saying "I can't breathe" and calling out for his dead mother before his body went listless. Floyd was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Floyd's death sparked nationwide outcry and massive protests across the U.S. and around the world against racial injustice. The episode, the latest in a string of police killings of unarmed Black people in the United States, has become a rallying cry against police brutality and part of a call to defund law enforcement agencies. Lane, Kueng and Officer Tou Thao, who arrived at the scene with Chauvin when back-up was requested, have all been terminated from the Minneapolis Police Department and charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder in the death of Floyd. Lane, Kueng, and Thao have not yet entered pleas -- in court documents, attorneys for Thao and Kueng said their clients intend to plead not guilty to the charges. Attorneys for Lane, Kueng and Thao have also asked that charges against them be dropped. Cahill has yet to render a decision on those motions. Prosecutors in the case filed a notice on Friday saying they intend to seek an "upward sentencing departure" from state judicial guidelines if the defendants are found guilty at trial, tentatively scheduled for March 2021. "Mr. Floyd was treated with particular cruelty," prosecutors wrote in their notice. "Despite Mr. Floyd's pleas that he could not breathe and was going to die, as well as the pleas of eyewitnesses to get off Mr. Floyd and help him, Defendant and his co-defendants continued to restrain Mr. Floyd." But Nelson argued in court papers that Chauvin and the other officers were trying to protect Floyd, who he alleged was acting erratically and resisting arrest, from injuring himself by "falling and hitting his head on the sidewalk, being struck by an oncoming vehicle, or in his struggles, injuring himself against the squad car." "Mr. Chauvin demonstrated a concern for Mr. Floyd's well-being -- not an intent to inflict harm," Nelson wrote in the motion. He said Chauvin was "clearly being cautious about the amount of pressure he used to restrain Mr. Floyd" and pointed out that in the video Floyd was able to raise his head several times while he was prone on the ground. "If Mr. Chauvin's knee had been on the structure of Mr. Floyd's neck, he would not have been able to lift his head," Nelson wrote. He also claimed that as the officers were restraining Floyd they requested a "code 3" response from emergency medical services requiring an ambulance responding to the scene to use lights and sirens, and that the officers together decided against the using a hobble restraint device on Floyd "which would have significantly delayed the transfer of Mr. Floyd into the ambulance and also have required an MPD sergeant to respond to the scene." Nelson again cited the autopsy report that found no bruising or evidence of trauma on the back of Floyd's neck, his neck muscles or his back. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's office ruled Floyd's death a homicide, finding he perished as the result of "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression." Floyd's death has been roundly condemned by law enforcement, politicians and protesters nationwide and has been held up as an exhibit of excessive use of force by police. Just days after the incident, President Donald Trump expressed the "nation's deepest condolences and most heartfelt sympathies to the family of George Floyd." "Terrible, terrible thing that happened," Trump said on May 29, adding that he had asked the U.S. Department of Justice to expedite a federal investigation into the death. "We all saw what we saw and it's very hard to even conceive of anything other than what we did see. It should never happen. It should never be allowed to happen, a thing like that. But we're determined that justice be served."
"He pointed to a frame from video of Mr Floyd’s arrest. “Look closely at Mr Floyd’s mouth,” he wrote in a court filing this week. “There is a white spot on the left side of his tongue.” He wrote that Mr Floyd turned his head away for a moment and “the white spot is gone”." News report after news report after news report citing this including the frames from the video. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/wo...s/news-story/048680432dbf412588492b3fcd7a214a Mr Gray pointed to an exhibit “illustrative of what 2 milligrams of fentanyl, a lethal dose, looks like” and then wrote: “The court may draw inferences from the facts.” He noted that a toxicology report confirmed the presence of fentanyl, methamphetamine and the active ingredient for marijuana in Mr Floyd’s blood. Separate coroners have differed on the causes of Mr Floyd’s death. Pathologists hired by Mr Floyd’s family concluded that he died of “mechanical asphyxiation”, finding that the knee on Mr Floyd’s neck interfered with his breathing and blood flow. However, a county medical examiner’s finding appeared less conclusive on that point, suggesting Mr Floyd died from a heart attack. Prosecutors have conceded that Mr Floyd had heart disease and there was evidence in his blood of fentanyl and “recent methamphetamine use”. However, they said the coroner “opined that the effects of the officers’ restraint of Mr Floyd, his underlying health conditions and the presence of the drugs contributed to his death” and concluded “the manner of death was homicide”. Mr Gray pointed to a finding that Mr Chauvin’s knee did not cause bruising to the neck. He said Mr Floyd had been arrested a year earlier, in May last year, by officers who found him “acting extremely nervous” and failing to listen to their commands. He had “put something in his mouth” as they attempted to arrest him and had to be physically removed from the vehicle, Mr Gray wrote.