The Chauvin trial so far: perceptions of guilt and innocence
John Hinderaker of Powerline has written a summary of the Chauvin trial so far; you can find it here. It’s well worth reading.
I’ve followed the trial (mostly Branca’s daily summaries at Legal Insurrection) and watched a bit of it, and a couple of things strike me. The first is that, even though I’ve done more research on the Floyd incident than most people, there are still new things being revealed as the trial goes on. The first is that Floyd had sustained several dangerous overdoses not all that long before his drug ingestion of a fatal level of fentanyl the day of his fateful encounter with Chauvin and the other officers. The second is the fact that the man in the car with him that day was his drug dealer. The third was that there were some clearly visible pills in Floyd’s car and the squad car that were not tested till the defense noticed them on inspecting the cars, pills that were found to contain both fentanyl and Floyd’s DNA. The fourth is that the crowd watching and videotaping that day was also quite threatening to the officers and potentially the EMTs, which is apparently the reason that the EMTs removed Floyd quickly from the scene before treating him (I had long wondered why they hadn’t administered CPR then and there).
This new knowledge introduces a lot of irony. For example, the contributory killer of Floyd may actually have been his drug dealer (and/or the crowd) rather than the police. The dealer may have even encouraged Floyd to ingest the drugs when the police came; after all, dealers ordinarily face higher penalties than users. The dealer was asked to testify in the trial but said he would be taking the Fifth if that happened, and so he won’t be called and the jury will almost certainly not hear his role fully explored, nor will he have to answer for it. He may be tried later, of course, although I doubt it if the state manages to convict Chauvin. In addition, the state seems to have been shockingly negligent (either purposely or accidentally) in not testing those drugs in the car. Also, how long ago did the press know about the multiple previous overdoses? I would guess that the police knew almost from the start, and yet it took a trial for this information to be available to the public – and meanwhile, multiple cities burned.
Would any of this truth have changed anything had it been widely known shortly after Floyd died? At this point, I’m cynical enough that I doubt it. After all, even without those facts being known, enough was known to cast grave doubt on Chauvin’s guilt. I wrote about that this past summer, in particular after the bodycam transcript was released (see this July post, for example). That transcript, which I read very carefully, convinced me that there was a strong likelihood that Chauvin and the others were not guilty (something I had already begun to suspect about three weeks after Floyd’s death, based on my research and readings).
And still another surprise was how few people – even those on the right – were writing about that transcript and how much it favored Chauvin when studied carefully.
One person who was writing was Sharyl Attkisson, and another was George Parry. For a link to some of Parry’s work and a discussion of it – as well as a discussion of my own thought processes in the weeks and months after Floyd died – please see this August post of mine. In it I wrote this:
I want to re-emphasize that all of the research in the above quote was done by about three weeks after Floyd’s death, which is two months ago. And it wasn’t hard to do – it was all readily available online at the time. We know more now, of course – a lot more. And it all falls on the side of the exoneration of Chauvin and the others rather than their guilt.
I forget why I didn’t publish the post at the time it was written. I think it was because it was very long and unorganized (the above is only an excerpt), and so many dramatic events were happening at the time that I think it just got lost in the shuffle. But my point isn’t about me; it’s about how easy it was, early in the proceedings, to find out a lot that was relevant to the guilt or innocence of Chauvin and the others.
Very few people even tried. Their minds were already made up, either because the video convinced them or because it was ideologically necessary for them to spread the word that Chauvin was a cold-blooded murderer.
Does the trial have the power to change those minds? In terms of the jury, if it changes only one person’s mind the result will be a hung jury. Whatever happens, though, I expect that most people will go on believing that Chauvin was indeed a cold-blooded murderer, and a racist one at that.
I am a 17 year veteran cop in North Texas.
What should have happened in my opinion, based upon my experience, training, and everything that has been revealed in public to date, is that when Floyd first complained about his medical … uhhh … drug use … medics should have been called immediately. You can detain with handcuffs as what occurred, but forcing him into the back of a police car was not appropriate.
What this does is indemnify the police officers on scene. It shows, without a doubt, that they were acting in the best interest of Floyd’s health.
Sure, Floyd could have been lying to get out of an arrest, so? A warrant would have been issued at a later date.
It was a non violent offense that the Secret Service normally handles.
TexasDude:
Several problems with what you’ve written.
The first is that the initial report stated that Floyd was acting strange, and in fact he acted strange during his interaction with the police from the start. They felt he’d been taking drugs and should not be released to drive and might be a danger to himself or others, even if his car was taken from him (I think that they knew about his long record already when they checked his identity intially, although I’m not 100% certain).
For a while, Floyd strongly denied drug use. Later he said he’d been “hooping.” They actually called for EMTs quite early in the game. Somewhere in an old post I have that information, but don’t have time to look it up. The EMTs got caught in traffic or took a wrong turn or something like that, and that delayed them.
The whole time the police were dealing with him, they were worried he had excited delirium and might die, and a lot of their reluctance to let him go was based on that.
After he was uncooperative in getting into the car, it was Floyd who asked to be allowed to lie on the ground. Their holds were to keep him from hurting them or himself.
I remember being somewhat surprised by the OJ verdict many years ago when I was in college. It was a big lesson for me about the nature of perception and reality, among other things. I learned that just because facts are overwhelmingly on one side, it’s no guarantee that humans (be they jurors or just about anyone else) won’t be very willing to ignore the truth in favor of a false narrative that is more congruent with their own personal biases. It’s amazing the kind of nonsense that people will be willing to believe rather than face an undesirable truth.
All that is bad enough. But add to all that a mainstream media who is fully invested in a particular narrative, and a social media that rewards emotional snap judgements while discourages reasonable thinking, and we have a perfect storm of mob justice and chaos. Our culture has become derranged.
“Would any of this truth have changed anything had it been widely known shortly after Floyd died?”
Not at all. Nationwide race riots were already planned for the summer of 2020 in “Trump’s America” — in the context of COVID-19, the upcoming presidential election, and especially Trump’s alarming inroads into the bloc of black voters. All the plan needed to go live was a pretext. It was not unlike what we saw on November 9, 2016, when thousands of people (including children) “spontaneously” took to the streets in dozens of US cities, carrying professionally preprinted signs and chanting “Not my president.” Color revolution, anyone?
Chauvin = innocent as charged.
“Does the trial have the power to change those minds? In terms of the jury, if it changes only one person’s mind the result will be a hung jury.” Barnes believes no. Witness the OJ Simpson trial. I believe that to be the case too. It takes a super strong personality to ride against the wave.
I don’t follow the trial and just read summaries. I watched the Daily Mail leaked video right afterwards and believed that the worse conviction should be manslaughter. It is the eight minutes vs. four minutes. Plus Chauvin has a history. Minneapolis does seem to have a problem with it’s police force and the use of force.
But remember this. THEY VOTED FOR IT!!!!! From NYC, Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Washington DC, San Fran., LA, Illinois, California, Michigan, New York and so on. The voters chose these leaders.
That is why I am working to be sure that change does come to political units that I live in.
Nope, there are no problems with my opinion.
Excited delirium.
You do not keep someone prone with it.
Period.
The first time I heard about his health complaints was when the video of him sitting against a building wall handcuffed was showed.
Leave him there or stand him up.
Come on. I am not saying Chauvin is guilty of murder, but he was a 17 year vet with officers that were a year or less on the force.
The fact that the ambulance was late is of no consequence. It does not justify the rest.
Liability for the department is the driving factor and Chauvin caused that, no doubt.
Chauvin should, in a sane world, not have been charged with murder. Fired? Yep, without a doubt.
The fact that the ambulance was late is of no consequence. It does not justify the rest.
What ‘rest’ do you have in mind?
What should have happened in my opinion, based upon my experience, training, and everything that has been revealed in public to date, is that when Floyd first complained about his medical … uhhh … drug use … medics should have been called immediately.
The medics were called. Next.
“but forcing him into the back of a police car was not appropriate.”
Isn’t this what cops do!? Pretty sure that’s what that seat in the back of the squad car is for.
TexasDude:
In this post I’m not talking about whether Chauvin should have been fired. I’m talking about the charges in a trial, and also about whether his behavior violated the policies of the Minneapolis police department at the time. Read Branca’s summaries of the trial testimony at Legal Insurrection, and you’ll find a lot that indicates problems with your assertions, including that part about the prone position, as well as problems with the idea that Chauvin’s actions actually violated police policy at the time. They have since thrown him under the bus, but I think that was in order to avoid more crowd violence.
You say you have been a cop in north Texas. I assume, then, that you are aware of the Tony Timpa case, another terrible incident that has some commonalities with the Floyd situation. Prone position, somewhat similar circumstances, but charges ultimately dropped and even the disciplinary action dropped. See this. The officers got reprimands but returned to the force, and I think their behavior was probably worse than Chauvin’s in many ways. Do I agree with the dropping of charges there? I’m not at all sure; I don’t know enough about the details of the case to say. But I’m citing it to show that these issues – for example, about putting people in the prone position – are not as cut and dried as you seem to be saying.
No, not always.
Ask any cop. Go ahead. Do it. Seriously, ask your local cop.
“Ask any cop. Go ahead. Do it. Seriously, ask your local cop.”
LOL
It’s not an either or issue.
One, I don’t work for Dallas PD. I work near Dallas. I don’t follow what the numerous agencies do or don’t do around Dallas or Fort Worth.
Dallas PD is civil service. Surrounding agencies are mostly at will.
Just sayin
Texas Dude,
what is your height and weight.
when I was young most cops I saw were built like Buford Pusser or George Floyd.
when I saw the four munchkins trying to control Floyd, I realized something was rotten in Denmark.
I have been told that rules to allow women cops have led to lower standards and allowed Mort Meeks to take over the force..
Not to question anyone’s bone fides or judgement, “but on the internet no one knows you are a dog.”
Avi said,
“when I was young most cops I saw were built like Buford Pusser or George Floyd. Ann coulter was making fun of the female fire person because she is fat. Wondered how she passed the physical. That’s the way it is now days. Physical standards are gone.
Yep, no one here knows me and an appeal to authority is a logical fallacy.
This is why I stated above, ask your local cop about this.
Betcha he/she will say pretty much the same. At first I was angry at Chauvin for making my job harder, but, as I should have known from my own experiences, this was not the truth.
That said, Chauvin did wrong, just not get in jail wrong.
WRT controlling a suspect:
Cops don’t “fight” a suspect they’re trying to control. It looks like a fight but it’s not.
It’s sort of like judo–wrestling with pajamas. You’re not supposed to hurt the guy seriously. You want to control him with various moves/holds/techniques on the spectrum of escalation. But only at the very last do you use lethal or crippling techniques. The suspect is not so restricted, although for the most part they are seeking to get loose. Still, a lethal or crippling blow must be expected, including losing your weapon.
Unfortunately, the Rodney King footage has put the use of the baton far out of reach for most uses. The cops were striking across the large muscles of the back. It would cause, and did not cause, injury but it hurts enough to subdue the suspect. He could have been killed instantly if he head of the baton had been thrust into his spine . It wasn’t.
Baton to the shin quiets down anybody.
But the public won’t allow it and the cops are restricted in such a way that the middle level of techniques are not allowed and so…we get to the worst because compliance can’t be enforced otherwise.
Jacob Blake managed to defeat seven cops and, when reaching for a knife, was being restrained by one cop who had hold of Blake’s tee shirt with one hand.
There was some footage from about a year ago where two cops spent a quarter of an hour trying to get a guy out of his car. Yelling, dragging, etc. Guy got about three seconds free for one hand to retrieve a gun from under the seat. Killed one cop, wounded the other.
Lots of things could have been done, physically, but were either officially or unofficially restricted.
And so the country is convulsed by a knee on the shoulder. Because…. a lot of folks WANT their cold blooded murderer and they will have him. May as well put the intermediate techniques back in since even the milder ones will get you in trouble.
They let Floyd *out* of the squad car when he complained, incidentally already complaining “I can’t breathe” long before any knee.
Richard Aubrey, I fully agree.
Like you Neo, a have learned a few things from the trial that help connect the dots on what really happened. It’s curious that the new information (Floyd’s history of ODs, the drug dealer in the car with a history of selling drugs with unreliable amounts of Fentanyl etc.) all comes from prosecution witnesses and have all helped the defense. It is now pretty clear what happened and that the state has known this all along and chose to cover it up. What I find a little strange is how incompetent the prosecution has been. Their witnesses have for the most part been a disaster. They would have been better suited to just show the video and rest their case.
“Chauvin did wrong just not get in jail wrong”.
Even if he did that is more than a sidebar. Malicious forces are using this to stoke racial animosity in the US and believe me they are not interested in improving police-community relations.
Sigh. The issue is not whether Chauvin is guilty (of anything) or even whether he acted appropriately. The issue is not even what caused Floyd’s death.
The ‘issue’ is societal. White “oppression” of blacks.
Chauvin is simply the latest representative of that “oppression”.
Chauvin isn’t on trial, the white race is on trial.
Just as it was during the O.J. trial, the Rodney King trial, the Michael Brown trial and the “white hispanic” Zimmerman trial.
It’s the same repeated theme in every case and it’s driven by the Left and neither facts, logic nor reason are relevant to the issue.
Power is the goal and spreading hate the means.
“how much incompetent the prosecution has been” (Greg Harper)
Some of us speculated at the beginning that the prosecution, i . e. Ellison, *wanted* an acquittal because their intent was to use this case to incite racial conflict. After they recruited the “dream team” of high-profile attorneys for the case I figured that was unlikely but maybe not.
FOAF:
Maybe the “dream team” is suffering from hubris. Or maybe they’re not trying to win and they want to lose. Or maybe Chauvin is just not guilty, and making a case for guilt is very hard, so they must rely on emotion and propaganda.
I think the first and last are more likely than the second, but who knows?
The transcripts posted on Legal Insurrection today are most enlightening, especially if you know medicine.
One of prosecutors’ expert medical witness is a man with a 48 year career, a Dr. Martin Tobin, testifying for free, in his first-ever criminal case as an expert. He spews lots of BS on physiology and pathology in an inarticulate matter. Obviously he is not a pathologist, so his pathologic claims have no expert validity. I wonder how jurors much less versed in medicine, or indeed wholly medically ignorant, can distinguish BS from fact from this witness who is pushing 80 years of age (~30 at career start +48).
The other expert medical witness for the prosecution is a long-standing employee of the Louisville, KY police department, a Dr. Bill Smock, also not exactly a spring chicken.
I find their testimonies unpersuasive and full of holes.
Here in the People’s Republic of Puget Sound we are told that all officers carry Narcan and know how to use it. I’m wondering if that’s true in Minneapolis? Narcan apparently doesn’t always save people with Fentanyl overdoses – it works better on normal opioids. Would it have worked with Floyd? Just a question that I’ve been wondering about.
Other than that, I’m of the opinion that Chauvin is being thrown under the bus. The Chief of police knew that the policy about restraint on the ground was changed shortly after the incident. Yet, he said Chauvin violated policy. The fix is in.
The prosecution’s case looks like it’s failing to the sort of person who reasons inductively and solves puzzles. Barnes differs from Branca (and, to a lesser degree, Johnson) in that he is of the view that jurors are motivated by emotion and that the prosecution has been successful at manipulating them emotionally. Many years ago a lawyer with much experience in trial work (criminal and civil) told me ‘you don’t convince a jury. The jury makes up its mind in five minutes. Your job, as a lawyer, is to give your side on the jury the arguments they can use to defeat the other side.’ It’s doubtful that Chauvin has a side. The problem here was the feckless trial judge, who allowed one admittedly biased party after another to be seated, refusing strkes for cause, and who sat on his hands while the prosecution was permitted to use peremptory challenges to prevent the seating of every facially neutral prospect. At the very least, his refusal to grant a change of venue should be reversible error. Chauvin will be save from conviction if there are two people on that jury who say ‘The man had a lethal level of fentanyl in his blood. Piss off the lot of you’.
Ann coulter was making fun of the female fire person because she is fat. Wondered how she passed the physical. That’s the way it is now days. Physical standards are gone.
Again, our vile judiciary insists that discretion in crafting performance standards is reserved to judges and their shallow smart-assed clerks. So, we have to have to gut the performance scores so we can have female firefighters.
Cicero:
I have only a superficial knowledge of medicine. I found today’s testimony, by Tobin and Smock, to be somewhat confusing. I was also put off by what seemed like an obsessive attachment to analyses with carefully crafted blinders.
Despite my uneasiness with both of their testimonies, I came way thinking that Tobin and Smock would provide justification for any juror wanting to convict Chauvin. I’d like to know whether you agree.
Finally, if you have the time to expand your original comment, I’d very much like to read a more detailed critique of Tobin and Smock’s testimony. In fact, the more detail the better.
Thanks very much.
Cornflour. The people who want to convict will say the numbers were a big deal in their decision.
I suspect an honest juror would say he couldn’t keep track of the numbers and which of them meant what.
An expert in the business would look at his notes and perhaps come to a conclusion in accord with reality. Presuming the numbers accord with the facts.
In my admittedly limited experience as a juror, I think that many people are open to persuasion. I sat on a jury in a criminal case and I was convinced of the defendants guilt, to a large degree because of the contradictions and obvious coaching in the defendant’s own testimony. After we heard the evidence, the jury stood at 9 to 3 for acquittal. I was able to convince 8 of those people to agree to a guilty verdict. The lone holdout said he didn’t care what the evidence was, he just wasn’t going to send another young black man to jail. So in the end it was a hung jury. The last day of deliberations we just sat around and read. Of course this was more than 20 years ago in a case with no publicity and nobody was worried about getting their house burned down if they came out with the wrong verdict.
I’m pretty sure there are people on the Chauvin jury who have had their minds changed by the evidence they have heard so far. Whether they are willing to vote that way is another question. I’m also pretty sure there are people on that jury who cannot be convinced with any evidence. I think the best Chauvin can hope for is a hung jury.
“…The man had a lethal level of fentanyl in his blood….”
Indeed….
…And one might find it rather curious that “Biden” is doing his darnedest to ensure that as much Fentanyl as possible can get across the border and into the US….
(Or perhaps not.)
File under: “If you don’t vote for me you ain’t….”
The most interesting new fact that I’ve learned in the past few days is that Chauvin weighed only 140 lbs and that Floyd outweighed him by nearly 90 lbs.
There are a lot of intelligent comments here, a number it appears from attorneys and perhaps officers of the law. Does anyone have an educated opinion on whether Chauvin testifies?
Cornflour:
Physiology is a long, deep drink, and it is difficult to learn much from just a sip.
But the pharmacology of fentanyl, its duration in the brain, the absurdity of how he allegedly died (“He was breathing for 5 minutes and the next second he was dead”) will all impress unversed jurors, I expect.
I wish I could respond to your request at length, but that would mean taking notes from the trial transcript and commenting on each note. Just don’t have the time!
Chauvin’s lawyer, Nelson, is doing a good job, but I expect the “greater good” will require that Chauvin be convicted, whether guilty or innocent (and I tend to the latter; Floyd was a dead man walking when Chauvin came across him).
“The most interesting new fact…”
If you look at any of the videos, you will see just how imposing, huge and muscular Floyd was—in comparison to any of the police around him.
In addition to Floyd’s erratic and at times uncontrollable behavior—though before he was placed in the police vehicle he appeared, in one video at least, to behave docilely—this factor HAD to have played a role in what transpired.
Also, and ironically, it would appear that once the decision was made that Floyd had to be subdued, the technique used to subdue him was the one intended to cause him the least amount of physical discomfort and distress, all things considered.
Disclaimer: I’m speaking as one with absolutely no knowledge or background of police work.
“…a dead man walking when Chauvin came across him…”
Couldn’t one say, rather, that he was a dead man walking when he decided to ingest all that Fentanyl?
Or was it Chauvin (or Chavin’s arrival) who caused him to do that?
Why was Chauvin there in the first place?
Was it the shop/kiosk owner’s fault? (He has already expressed remorse for calling the police because of the counterfeit $20 bill—all this for $20….)
Or was it the counterfeitor’s fault?
One day someone’ll write an opera about this Greek tragedy.
In the meantime, all the usual suspects (and “lovers of justice”) will be making the most of it, milking it for all it’s worth….and the only “decent” conclusion will be “let crime and chaos ring…”
The 800-pound gorilla in the jury room will be the fact that BLM will burn Minneapolis to the ground if the jury doesn’t convict Chauvin of murder. Justice dies when a jury is terrified to render a verdict based on the evidence.
The larger crime is the destruction of law and order that we have witnessed all across our nation in the past four years. While we still have the ability, we must identify the people and the entities that caused the degradation of our culture, all in their ravenous pursuit of power. We must remove them from any positions of influence. I think we all know who they are.
“While we still have the ability, we must identify the people and the entities that caused the degradation of our culture, all in their ravenous pursuit of power. We must remove them from any positions of influence. I think we all know who they are.” – Cap’n Rusty
Andrea Widburg agrees with you. Her post is a unified argument and should be read in its entirety, but here’s the core of her thesis.
https://www.bookwormroom.com/2021/03/29/my-annual-passover-post-with-biden-in-pharaohs-role-this-year/
@AesopFan:
Slight variation on the theme from Kipling:
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-servant-when-he-reigneth/
“Suspend what you know about BLM for a moment. Imagine if a white guy said the exact same thing about a politically charged case on the other side of the aisle.”
https://notthebee.com/article/this-blm-activist-straight-up-threatens-that-all-hll-will-break-loose-buildings-will-burn-if-derek-chauvin-is-acquitted
Pro-active corporate wokery.
https://babylonbee.com/news/clever-minneapolis-business-owner-disguises-store
Neo wrote: “I expect that most people will go on believing that Chauvin was indeed a cold-blooded murderer, and a racist one at that.”
More importantly, they will feel morally superior because of that belief and have absolutely no desire to listen to any facts that will challenge that belief. Ultimately, that is the evil that roams the land.
The intense desire to hate, to slander, to stereotype while simultaneously deriving great satisfaction and feelings of moral superiority because of that very hatred is frightening to watch. It’s not just morally depraved, it’s evil. They enjoy hating. They enjoy their slanders and stereotypes. They revel in them. They marinate themselves in hate.
Evil.
I wonder if Floyd might still be alive had he not resisted arrest and been taken to the police station for booking.
At the very least, he would have been closer to medical help that might have saved his life.
It was his very own drug induced delusions that led to his death. As the officer said in response to Floyd complaining he couldn’t breath said– You couldn’t talk if you were not breathing.
One of the problems with various forms of drugs is separating the physical effects of the drug from the paranoid and delusional effects.
This topic touches upon a matter that has also been in the courts and discussed by one or two legal commentators recently.
It is the evolving and for some of us troubling implications of law enforcement officers as … the precise terminology and 60’s S.C. case escapes me … “care givers” or someting roughly analogous.
This pernicious doctrine has brought all sorts of legal hell down upon our collective heads as the effed-up are now not subject to merely law enforcement but to a principle goddamned “care”. And under this therapeutic approach to law enforcement comes with it the ever shrinking realm of what remains of personal sovereignty (don’t really like that term but can think of none better at the moment).
The effed up are dragging us all down into their personal hells.
Freedom dies sacrificed upon the altar of “mutual care and concern”. We are all then reborn as legal incompetents and wards of the state.
George Floyd died as the inevitable result of being George Floyd.
I think the country is doomed to communist-style rule. Minneapolis will “explode” if Chauvin is acquitted? Are we dealing with another Dreyfus-type event? Yes, but this time there will not come brave prominent people to the rescue.
The CRT crowd has infiltrated and taken control of our institutions. All of them.
I cite this from City Journal as an example:
https://www.city-journal.org/quaker-schools-embrace-critical-race-theory
These used to be academically rigorous institutions.
One of my college classmates went to Westtown, and he was so much better prepared for college (then) than I, a public school product.
” Minneapolis will “explode” if Chauvin is acquitted? ”
If the mayor of Minneapolis and the governor of Minnesota would take charge, tell the citizens that no violence will be tolerated and then back those words up, justice could be carried out in an unbiased fashion. Why are these officials, who swore an oath to protect and defend the citizens of their city and state, not doing their jobs? Because they are part of the Woke Supremacy or cowed by it. The citizens of Minnesota are now getting what they voted for – good and hard.
“The first is that Floyd had sustained several dangerous overdoses not all that long before his drug ingestion of a fatal level of fentanyl the day of his fateful encounter with Chauvin and the other officers.”
Can anyone provide links to information about these previous ODs?
RockMeAle:
I don’t have time to find it now, but one person who testified about it in the trial was his girlfriend Courteney Ross, so if you find her testimony I think some information will be there.
George Floyd died as the inevitable result of being George Floyd.
No, George Floyd died as a consequence of his own bad choices, which were not inevitable.
Dunning-Kreuger in Minneapolis then and now.
Not inevitable. Sure, as long as he was surrounded *hyperbole warning* 24/7 by human bumpers dedicated to pissing their lives away in the service of his.
Thanks, Neo. That’s helpful.
I heard somewhere that the other OD came during Floyd’s 2019 arrest. I’m wondering if he swallowed the evidence during that arrest and if that led to hospitalization. Was that a near fatal overdose?
Sounds like the one his girlfriend described was pretty serious if he was hospitalized for 5 days.
“Slight variation on the theme from Kipling:” – Zaphod
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-servant-when-he-reigneth/
Gives some perspective on Milton’s Satan, who decided it was better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
There is a Grimm’s tale about a poor tailor (who was also a thief) who sat on God’s throne for a while (quite by accident) and what a hash he made of things.
https://genius.com/Brothers-grimm-the-tailor-in-heaven-annotated