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[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

No, "knee on neck," particularly while the suspect is already under control and hasn't resisted arrest, is not an accepted method of taking a person into custody.

The choke out in the Garner case is also not an accepted practice, but I think they had a basis to argue there was a struggle and resistance there, and it occurred alongside other acceptable techniques.

I had a cop draw on me once and then cuff me face down on the ground. It was a fuck up in which a plate from a stolen car had been placed on my rental car, and I was dumb enough to open the door and approach the police car after I was pulled over. (Big no no.)

Nobody choked me (even a suspected white car thief gets the benefit of the doubt), but they did aggressively push me onto the ground and get on top of me. Once your arms are cuffed behind your back, you're subdued. There's no way to do anything. There is no conceivable reason - and every cop alive knows this - to choke a person who is cuffed or otherwise has his arms held behind his back and his face on the ground.

The guy was helpless and choked to death slowly. A good defense lawyer could plead it down to something reckless or heat of passion, but given the cop's experience, training, the fact that other cops had control of the guy's arms and legs and he wasn't resisting, I could see this being a first degree charge. No way that cop is explaining the length of time he sat on Floyd's head while hearing "I can't breathe" and hearing the crowd tell him to get off the guy because he couldn't breathe without realizing he was killing the guy.

If I were his lawyer I'd argue it had to be heat of passion or temporary insanity of a sort because no sane person would openly commit murder on camera the way this cop did.

Eight minutes he had his knee on neck. I know the premeditation has to be before the act but which act? The encounter or the knee on neck?