For MPR News, Jon Collins, Riham Feshir, Brandt Williams and Matt Sepic report: “The actions of Minneapolis police to restrain and subdue George Floyd as officers arrested him ‘tipped him over the edge’ from life to death, Hennepin County Medical Examiner Andrew Baker testified Friday in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin. … Baker, who conducted the autopsy on Floyd’s body, ruled the man’s death a homicide last year … Baker’s report also identified ‘hypertensive heart disease,’ ‘fentanyl intoxication’ and ‘recent methamphetamine use’ as other ‘significant conditions.’ On Friday, he stood by his findings and described Floyd’s health problems and the drugs in his system as contributing — not direct — causes of his death.”
A trio of New York Times reporters write: “In a trial where many key figures have spent hours on the stand, the prosecution whipped through one of their most anticipated witnesses, the doctor who performed George Floyd’s official autopsy, in a mere 50 minutes on Friday. The reasons for their haste became clear as the witness, Dr. Andrew Baker, the Hennepin County medical examiner, refrained from placing the sole blame for Mr. Floyd’s death on the police as he testified in the trial of Derek Chauvin, a former officer charged with murder. In his testimony, Dr. Baker said police restraint was the main cause of Mr. Floyd’s death, but he also cited drug use and heart disease as contributing factors, saying that Mr. Floyd died “in the context of” the actions taken by three police officers as they pinned Mr. Floyd to the street for more than nine minutes.”
In the Pioneer Press, Josh Verges writes: “White Bear Lake Area High School students walked out of school Friday morning after multiple Black students received racist threats from an anonymous Instagram account. Screenshots posted online indicate the sender was a fellow student who used the app’s group chat feature to target members of a school club for Black students. The messages contained death threats and repeated use of the N-word. … The walkout at 10 a.m. Friday had the support of the school, which said students would not be disciplined for demonstrating or protesting.”
For the Star Tribune, Susan Du writes: “Ryan Weyandt, a West St. Paul resident and founder of LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance, commissioned a vibrant ‘Black Lives Matter’ mural for his wooden fence last summer. Now, after it became something of a local landmark, the city of West St. Paul says it must be removed because it violates code. … The city didn’t take action right away because state law allows signs of any size during election season. … Recognizing that it would be difficult to repaint in the winter, the city gave Weyandt an extension until April 15. … Weyandt said he hasn’t yet decided what to do.”
Also in the Pioneer Press, Dave Orrick writes: “Evoking the tragedy of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse, Sen. Amy Klobuchar is making a push for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to prioritize federal funding to repair the nation’s — and Minnesota’s — failing bridges. … Her push comes as fellow Democrat President Joe Biden and his allies seek support for Biden’s $2 trillion ‘American Jobs Plan,’ a massive infrastructure spending proposal that seeks to rebuild some 10,000 bridges across the nation, among other public works ambitions.”
For MPR, Dan Gunderson writes: “Fifteen years ago, 145 members of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe were fluent in the language. As those numbers have dwindled, the impact of each loss compounds. That’s why the numbers of elders lost to the pandemic at Mille Lacs has been devastating to Baabiitaw Boyd. .… Boyd has worked for about 15 years to preserve language and culture among the people of the Mille Lacs Band, where she is the tribal government’s commissioner of administration. Some of the elders lost to COVID-19 carried generations of knowledge about language and culture. Boyd believes transferring that knowledge to future generations is critical to the very survival of the Ojibwe people.”
KSTP-TV’s Kylie Brown writes: “A 25-year-old Hawaiian monk seal who joined the Minnesota Zoo in 2015 has died, the zoo announced Friday. Paki was brought to the Minnesota Zoo as part of a cohort of five rescued, non-releasable Hawaiian monk seals who were already 20 years old, which is considered senior age for their species. … According to the zoo, the Hawaiian monk seal is one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world. It is estimated that there are fewer than 1,400 remaining in the wild.”
Regarding the Chauvin trial:
The prosecution need not prove that the officers’ actions were the sole cause of death, only that they were a substantial factor in causing his death. In addition, the law provides that you take your victim as you find him. In other words, that the victim had a preexisting condition is not a defense in either a civil or criminal manner.
If I recall correctly, the proposed jury instructions offered by the defense do not include these points. The prosecution’s almost certainly will.
I’m not a lawyer, but my reaction to all of this has been something along the lines of “Even with his pre-existing conditions, George Floyd most likely would not have simply dropped dead on his own that day in May. The fact that he died on that day and at that time was a direct result of the actions the police officers took on him. And all for a paltry counterfeit $20 bill and a lousy pack of cigarettes. It should not have been a death sentence.” To me, that has seemed like common sense.
I’m encouraged that – at least according to what you have written here – common sense and the letter of the law appear to go hand-in-hand here – a situation which is not always the case. Hopefully it will lead to a just outcome.
As a graduate of White Bear Lake Sr. High, I am greatly disappointed by the actions of those students who posted racist threats. I am pleased that the administration supported the protest and stands with the majority of the student body.
Unfortunately, many of those on WBL social media groups have chosen to pitch this as a political issue, blaming Democrats, the media, and anyone but the local culture for this act. They need to wake up and understand what’s happening in their community, a community derisively referred to by some as White Boy Lake. There is truth in that label.