The endlessly played Rodney King video hid the same part of Floyd’s arrest that’s being withheld today. Doesn’t anyone else wonder how Floyd ended up on the ground? Where are those videos?
"The arrest certainly looks awful. Everything is going along relatively peacefully as Floyd is walked to a police van, then there’s some commotion out of sight of the camera –- and suddenly you see Floyd pinned to the ground, an officer’s knee on his neck. How did that happen?
"One reason some of us are waiting for all the facts is that we suspect the media may not be extra scrupulous in cases that give them the opportunity to wail about “systemic racism.”
"It turns out, for example, Floyd didn’t die of asphyxiation. According to the Hennepin County medical examiner’s report cited in the criminal complaint charging Officer Derek Chauvin with murder, he died of a heart attack. The autopsy also found Floyd had fentanyl in his system, had recently used methamphetamine, had coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. Two weeks ago, this would have been another COVID-19 death.
"According to Nexis, these official autopsy findings have not been reported at all on MSNBC and only briefly — to be explained away — on CNN. (The family’s private autopsy concluding Floyd’s death was caused by strangulation has been widely reported.)
"It could still be murder, but the “I can’t breathe” slogans aren’t quite accurate. Aw, they’ve already made their protest signs, and we’d have to re-do the chyrons — does it really matter?
"There also hasn’t been loads of reporting on Floyd’s five years in prison for armed robbery. I know the guy has just died, and he seemed to have turned his life around, but the media isn’t holding a memorial service. They’re supposed to be reporting news. How about an interview with Floyd’s victims? Wouldn’t that be a newsy segment? . . .
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