The Patriot Post® · Chauvin Trial Not Going as MSM Says

Immediately following the death of George Floyd during his arrest by four Minneapolis cops, the ubiquitous and troubling image of Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of Floyd sent not only the city of Minneapolis but the whole country into an uproar. The mainstream media declared Chauvin guilty of murder — a murder that was motivated by racism. He’s now on trial for that murder, and it’s not going quite as well for the prosecution as some might have hoped.

More on that in a minute. Black Lives Matter’s violent and murderous riots, along with widespread looting, ironically did the most damage to minority neighborhoods and took black lives. Nevertheless, the Leftmedia excused the “mostly peaceful protests” because all (white) cops are guilty of “systemic racism.”

No one in the MSM seemed bothered by the fact that, other than the races of Chauvin and Floyd, there was little evidence to support a racism narrative. It was simply enough to conclude based solely on Chauvin’s ethnicity that his actions on that fateful day were motivated by the whiteness of his skin. In short, cops hate blacks, and white cops especially so. In fact, Chauvin was not an individual who happened to be both white and a cop. Rather, he was representative of all white people and all cops. By declaring Chauvin guilty, the Leftmedia indicted all of white America. Never mind getting to the facts — those only get in the way of serving the social justice narrative.

Thus, it’s no surprise that, in the mainstream media coverage of Chauvin’s trial, any question over his guilt has been treated as indisputable. Indeed, one would have the impression that the prosecution has effectively put to bed any reasonable questions over his guilt and that anything other than a guilty verdict would be a miscarriage of justice. Democrats certainly do hope to foment more rage if Chauvin is found guilty of anything less than second-degree murder — that was Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s entire gambit on charges.

However, as has been the case so often with the MSM, there is little reason to trust its reporting. While the prosecution’s case against Chauvin seemed to get off to a compelling start, the progression of the trial has raised serious questions as to whether the state will be able to make its case.

As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy observes, “[This case] has played out in the real court much differently from how it has been related in the court of public opinion. At bottom, this is not a police brutality case. It is a police failure of care case. Even an egregious failure of care, while condemnable, is not the same as an aggressive killing. If one egregiously fails to take measures one is duty-bound to take, and death results, that is manslaughter, not murder.”

McCarthy notes that the prosecution had in some ways spun away from its “he choked him to death” claim and pivoted to a “failure to render obligatory medical assistance.” Again, not murder, but manslaughter. That’s a big turn of events, but you wouldn’t know it by following the MSM coverage.

That said, the prosecution had a big day Thursday. Its expert medical witness testified that it wasn’t the drugs that killed Floyd but the sustained pressure exerted by Chauvin and the three other officers while he was on the ground. “A healthy person subjected to what Mr. Floyd was subjected to would have died,” contended Dr. Martin Tobin, who is a lung and critical care specialist. Dr. Tobin said that Floyd died from a lack of oxygen. There’s one tidbit of information to add here, although it likely does nothing to change Dr. Tobin’s analysis, and it’s the fact that Chauvin weighs only 140 pounds. By the way, for a picture of why such force was employed, compare Chauvin’s size to Floyd’s 6'6" and 240 lb frame.

With its slanted reporting, the MSM is setting this up for a ruling that shocks the public after believing that all the evidence was clearly pointing to Chauvin’s guilt, when that really wasn’t so clear. If Chauvin is acquitted of the murder charges, or even if he is found guilty on the lesser charges of manslaughter, the narrative will be one of the failure of the “systemically racist” justice system. And more rioting, violence, and looting will inevitably follow.