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1930s & Earlier1936 Come And Get It Newspaper Ad
check out the plot . .In 1884 lumberman Barney Glasgow leaves his true love, saloon singer Lotta Morgan, to marry Emma Louise, his boss's daughter. His buddy Swan Bostrom marries Lotta instead. Barney becomes a lumber magnate by stripping the Wisconsin forests, without re-planting. After 23 years, Barney finally visits Swan. Lotta has died, but Barney is smitten by their daughter Lotta Bostrom, who looks almost like her mother. His lavish attentions to Lotta create gossip and a rivalry between Barney and his son Richard...sounds like a winner!
Tags: Come And Get It Francis Farmer Edward Arnold Joel McCrea
Added: 13th September 2007
Posted By: Teresa
1990sJean Vander Pyl Grave Marker
Since we've been doing a lot of reminiscing about The Flintstones, I thought I'd post a photo of the grave marker of Jean Vander Pyl (the voice of Wilma Flintstone) at Ascension Cemetery in Lake Forest, California. Notice the small picture of Wilma inset beside the image of the deceased!
Tags: Jean Vander Pyl grave
Added: 19th March 2009
Posted By: Lava1964
1930s & Earlier1929 Wightman Cup Tennis
Here's some great old silent newsreel footage of the 1929 Wightman Cup tennis matches at Forest Hills between the best American and British female players. The focus is on Helen Wills, one of the greatest tennis champions ever.
Tags: tennis Wightman Cup
1970sConnors Vs Borg 1976
Two minutes from the 1976 U.S. Open men's final between Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg. This was the second of only three years when the U.S. Open was played on clay courts at Forest Hills. Personally I like these old matches better than today's tennis. The server wasn't as dominant and the players had to craft the points back then.
Tags: Jimmy Connors Bjorn Borg
Added: 13th January 2008
1970sMargaret Court Wins Grand Slam
Here is a historic sports clip: The last four games of the 1970 U.S. Open women's singles final at Forest Hills. Margaret (Smith) Court thumps Rosie Casals to capture the Grand Slam. Only one other female had achieved the feat previously: Maureen Connolly in 1953. Only one woman has done it since: Steffi Graf in 1988. Bud Collins and Billie Jean King provide the commentary. (Check out Bud's trousers! He was always a flashy dresser.)
Tags: tennis Margaret Court grand slam 1970
Added: 8th December 2008
1930s & EarlierThe Big Parade - Forest Scene
One of the great war movies ever made was The Big Parade (1925) starring John Gilbert. This scene, in which the American doughboys steadfastly march through the enemy-infested forest, is still mesmerizing after all these years.
Tags: The Big Parade forest scene
Added: 11th May 2009
1980sHillsborough Disaster - 1989
One of the world's most senseless sporting disasters took place on Saturday, April 15, 1989 at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England. That afternoon 96 soccer fans were crushed to death before and during the early minutes of an FA Cup semifinal between Liverpool FC and Nottingham Forest FC. The stadium was a neutral site, but Liverpool had thousands more fans than Nottingham Forest who sought tickets. As is the custom, the two teams' fans were segregated. The Liverpool supporters were generally assigned standing-room tickets on the south terraces--enclosures surrounded by security fences. With the Liverpool terraces already dangerously overcrowded, the situation became exponentially worse when the police outside the stadium, fearing trouble, ordered an exit gate to be opened and 2,000 more fans rushed into the enclosures bypassing the turnstiles. The crush of the crowd caused fans already inside to be pushed and squeezed against the heavy metal fences and die of suffocation. Despite the constant pleas from fans for the police to open security gates to alleviate the pressure, the police on the other side of the fences did nothing. Some fans tried to escape by climbing into an upper deck. Others tried to scale the security fences. About six minutes into the match, the fans in the overcrowded terraces spilled over and through the fences causing the game to be stopped. Most of the fatalities died on the pitch without ever getting to a hospital. A coroner's report suggested that perhaps 40 of the fatalities could have been prevented with quick medical attention. Yet only two ambulances ever entered the stadium while others were stuck in a bottleneck outside the venue. Even with injured and dying fans being brought onto the pitch, most police officers were inexplicably more concerned with preventing rival Forest supporters from entering the field than assisting the injured. Initial reports wrongly blamed drunken and unruly fans for the catastrophe while exonerating the police's actions and inactions. Wildly inaccurate stories about fans pickpocketing the dead and interfering with rescue efforts were published in The Sun tabloid--a newspaper which is largely boycotted in Liverpool to this day. Later investigations indicated that a whitewash of the incident was orchestrated by the police, and rightly placed the blame on a paucity of law enforcement outside the stadium and a lack of police action when the situation on the terraces became dangerous. The ages of those killed ranged from 10 to 72. Eighty-nine of the 96 were males. One 10-year-old who died was the cousin of Steven Gerrard, who would later become Liverpool's captain. Terraces disappeared from most large British soccer venues shortly thereafter.
Tags: Hillsborough disaster England soccer
Added: 12th July 2014
1960sPatsy Cline Plane Crash - 1963
Patsy Cline, one of the most influential female singers in country music history, was tragically killed in an airplane crash in Camden, TN on March 5, 1963. She was 30 years old. Her last performance had occurred two days earlier in Kansas City, KS at a benefit for the family of a popular radio deejay who had died in an automobile mishap in January. Cline's plane was headed towards Nashville, TN. After a stopover in Dyersburg, TN, the plane, a small Piper Comanche, took off for the final leg of the journey at 6:07 p.m. It vanished about 15 minutes later. Three other performers--Cowboy Copas, Hankshaw Hawkins, and Randy Hughes (the pilot)--also perished. The airplane encountered severe storm conditions which almost certainly contributed to the crash. It was later learned that Hughes was not trained for instrument flying and was likely trying to make an emergency landing on a nearby highway. Instead the plane crashed nose-first into a remote forested area. The wreckage was discovered by a Cline fan early the next morning who had searched for it after hearing radio reports that Cline's plane had likely gone down. The crash site has changed very little in the five decades since Cline's untimely death. According to friends, Cline sensed her impending doom, and made comments as early as September 1962 that she didn't expect to live much longer. Shortly before her death, Cline gave away treasured personal belongings and hastily wrote her will.
Tags: singer Patsy Cline airplane crash
Added: 6th May 2012
1960sRod Laver Wins 1969 Grand Slam
Here are a few highlights from the last set of the 1969 men's singles final at the U.S. Open. Rod Laver's four-set victory over fellow left-handed Australian Tony Roche meant Laver won all four major championships (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open) in one calendar year. No other male has achieved that feat in the Open Era of tennis. Laver's backhand is beautiful to behold. Check out how rough the grass courts were at Forest Hills that rainy year! Grass court players often wore spikes then. The score of the final was 7-9, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2. It was the last year at the U.S. Open when tiebreakers weren't played.
Tags: tennis Rod Laver Grand Slam 1969
Added: 25th February 2013
1970sConnors-Rosewall 1974 U.S. Open Final
Twenty-two-year-old Jimmy Connors showed that experience was no match for youth in the 1974 U.S. Open final. He throttled 39-year-old Ken Rosewall 6-1, 6-0, 6-1 in the last men's final ever played on the grass courts at Forest Hills. Here are some moments from the first and last games of the third set. Connors had beaten Rosewall almost as easily in the Wimbledon final two months earlier. The Grand Slam tourney remained at Forest Hills for another three years, but the surface was changed to clay. In 1978 the U.S. Open moved to its present and more spacious venue at Flushing Meadows, NY with its hard courts. Connors earned $22,500 for winning the 1974 event--pocket change by today's lofty standards.
Tags: tennis Connors Rosewall US Open final
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MIGRATING men, women and children in their hundreds desperately tried to move through a blockade of riot police to get into France.
The vast crowd of Eritreans, Ethiopians and Sudanese were met with pepper spray and police in full riot gear, as they attempted to get over the French border from Italy.
Some people in the group can be seen to hold up white towels and wave them at the police, but the forces stand their ground in dramatic footage taken at the Italian border town of Ventimiglia.
About 150 migrants walked to the shore shortly after midnight on Thursday, where they remained for hours before heading for France.
More than 100 people did manage to get through the police blockade, despite attempts to deter them.
Those who did not make it through the line of riot police tried to get round into France by sea - getting swept into the rocky shore.
The people who managed to cross the border stopped on rocks near the port at the French Riviera town of Menton.
Ventimiglia police commander Giorgio Marenco said they were under surveillance of French police.
He said: "Both the Italian and French forces at the border were taken by surprise."
Many of the hundreds of migrants who arrive by boat in Italy every day aim for northern Europe.
Ventimiglia hosted a temporary migrant camp last year, but this was cleared away by police.
Most of the more than 94,000 people who have arrived in Italy by boat this year have travelled from war torn countries, often in unsafe conditions and at risk to their lives.
"The migrants who have reached Ventimiglia over the past three years have one aim: to pass into France," Marenco added.


Here you will find a list of 11 useful tips for tool and machine maintenance for woodworking woodshops.
Machine Equipment - A piece of equipment with moving parts that uses power to do a particular type of work, such as a planer, jointer, circular saw, etc.
Periodically apply a coat of paste on the working surface of the table saw and the rip fence to reduce friction, prevent rust, and improve safety. This also holds true for all wood working machines.
Periodically clean the wood resin from saw blades and bits with mineral spirits. This will help make sharper cuts and prevent chipping and burning.
Periodically inspect equipment drive belts. Replace warn or clacked belts to prevent breakage. Belts tend to stretch with use, so periodic adjustments are necessary to eliminate slippage and to maximize performance.
Use a metal grinder to periodically sharpen and redress hand tools, such as lathe turning tools, chisels, drill bits, screwdrivers, etc. Sharp tools will help prevent personal injury, allow more efficient use of the tools, and reduce wood burn.
Each woodworking machine, whether it is stationary or portable, should be periodically dusted and then lubricated with the appropriate grease or oil. Maintaining equipment this way will reduce wear and increase its useful life. The amount of use will dictate the frequency each piece of equipment should be lubricated.
The miter gauge face should be square with the miter slot. This can be checked by placing a framing square against the miter gauge face and determine if the blade of the square is aligned with the miter slot.
Periodically check your table saw blade to determine if it is rotating true. One way to determine this is to place a combination square in the miter slot of the table and slide the ruler until it touches a tooth of the blade. Next rotate the blade 180 degrees and slide the square in the miter slot to determine if the ruler touches the same tooth. If there is a difference, make appropriate adjustment to the blade.
The splitter on the table saw should be perfectly aligned with the saw blade. To check this, place a straight edge against the saw blade and the splitter to determine if they are parallel to one another. Make adjustments for alignment if necessary.
Be sure the table saw rip fence is perfectly aligned in order to insure accuracy, eliminate binding the lumber, and prevent kickbacks. A simple way to check this is to slide the rip fence to the miter slot and check for gaps. The rip fence should be parallel with the miter slot.
Be sure that the table saw blade is square with the table top. This can be checked by placing a square on the table top and adjusting the arbor until the blade is square. Finally, adjust the 0degree stop if necessary.
Periodically inspect and adjust the band saw guiding system. Minor adjustments can keep the blade running true and prevent wandering. A well adjusted band saw will cut more efficiently and possibly eliminate injury.


I know there are some food folks out there in the Snarkmatrix, so I want to make sure you know about Eat Retreat, an event happening near San Francisco in late October with the enviable tagline: "Summer camp meets the farmers market." My girlfriend Kathryn is one of the co-founders as well as this year's organizer, and I have just been super impressed with the way it's been coming together (across the kitchen table). Honestly I sort of wish I could attend. I'm not sure they'd accept me though.


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The Fourth of July may have just passed, but it's already Halloween in Marblehead.
That's because Adam Sandler is back on the North Shore to film his latest movie, "Hubie Halloween."
Filming for the Netflix original movie started Monday in Marblehead's Old Town historic district. Washington Street was filling in for Salem and was decorated with fake autumn leaves and Halloween decorations.
Casting calls for "Hubie Halloween" posted in May by Casting About describe the film as a story about a "good-natured but eccentric community volunteer" who finds himself "at the center of a real murder case on Halloween night."
Adam Sandler outside of the Old Town Hall in Marblehead, where he's filming "Hubie Halloween."Derrick Mills
According to Patch.com, the synopsis on Netflix's application to film to Danvers officials reads, "Despite his devotion to his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts (and its legendary Halloween celebration), Hubie Dubois is a figure of mockery for kids and adults alike. But this year, something really is going bump in the night, and it's up to Hubie to save Halloween."
Actor Adam Sandler (right) outside of the Old Town Hall in Marblehead.Derrick Mills
Sandler, who grew up in Manchester, N.H., has filmed several movies on the North Shore, including "Grown Ups" and its sequel. "Hubie Halloween" is set in Salem and will also film in neighboring towns, including Danvers.
Sandler was also spotted Friday in Beverly grabbing lunch at the Organic Garden Cafe on Cabot Street.
Martha Merrow can be reached at martha.merrow@globe.com, or on Twitter @martha_merrow.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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You searched for: Talk:Killing of George Floyd/Local FAQ wikipedia We have highlighted matching words that appear in the page below.
Background Check: Investigating George Floyd's Criminal Record
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The question of past arrests often surfaces among people who want to rationalize police officers' actions when Black men are killed in custody.
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Snopes also has in-depth reporting on the background of Derek Chauvin, one of four former police officers charged in the case surrounding George Floyd's death. Read that report here.
As cities worldwide erupted in protests over the death of George Floyd — a Black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for about nine minutes in Minneapolis — the leader of that city's police federation sent the below-displayed email to union members. In it, he criticized journalists' and politicians' portrayal of the man whose death had sparked a global reckoning over racism in policing.
"What is not being told is the violent criminal history of George Floyd," said Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) Lt. Bob Kroll, who represents more than 800 police officers. "The media will not air this."
The June 1, 2020, letter by Kroll, whom Snopes could not reach for this report, inspired a wave of claims online about Floyd's alleged arrests and incarcerations before his death — mostly among people who seemed to be searching for evidence that either the actions by the Minneapolis police officer who choked Floyd were justified, or memorials to honor him were unnecessary.
Among the most popular claims were those by the right-wing commentator Candace Owens, who, in a roughly 18-minute video that's been viewed more than 6 million times, made several accusations about Floyd's past and the events that led to his death. She said:
No one thinks that he should have died in his arrest, but what I find despicable to be is that everyone is pretending that this man lived a heroic lifestyle when he didn't. …I refuse to accept the narrative that this person is a martyr or should be lifted up in the black community. …He has a rap sheet that is long, that is dangerous. He is an example of a violent criminal his entire life — up until the very last moment."
She claimed reporters had wrongly interpreted Floyd's death to the public by purposefully omitting details about his past unlawful behavior, and she falsely and inappropriately called police brutality a "myth" and part of some nefarious scheme by news media to polarize Americans before the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
That video, as well as misleading photographs, memes like the one displayed below, and sensationalized tabloid stories about Floyd's past, prompted numerous inquiries to Snopes from people wondering if he had indeed served time in jail or prison before his death at age 46.
The claims in this meme are a mixture of true and false, as we'll document below. In brief, the alleged crimes and time periods are mostly accurate, with the caveat that Floyd was convicted of theft in 1998, not armed robbery. But the following information makes other aspects of the post misleading: Not all the crimes resulted in prison time, but rather jail sentences; no evidence suggests a woman involved in the 2007 charge was pregnant; it's an exaggeration of toxicology results to claim Floyd "was high on meth" when he was choked by a cop, and there's no proof that Floyd was "getting ready to drive a car" before his fatal encounter with police other than the fact that officers say they approached him as he sat in the driver's seat of a vehicle.
What follows is everything we know about crimes committed by Floyd — who was born in North Carolina, lived most of his life in Houston and moved to Minneapolis in 2014 — based on court records and police accounts to fulfill those requests. Additionally, this report explores the following:
Did Floyd's past arrests and incarcerations have any effect on police officers' actions during the 911 call that led to his death?
Was he "high on meth" when he was choked by the Minneapolis cop and died, like the above-displayed meme claims?
How will Floyd's criminal record and autopsy toxicology results play a role in the murder trials for the police officers charged in his death?
Why do some people draw attention to the criminal histories of non-white people killed by police?
We should note at the outset that attorney Ben Crump, who represents Floyd's family, did not respond to Snopes' multiple requests for comment, and when we reached an MPD spokesman by phone for this report, he requested an email interview but did not complete it.
Also, we should make clear that four officers involved in Floyd's death, including the cop who knelt on his neck, were fired from MPD and have been criminally charged (details below).
Police Arrested Floyd a Total of 9 Times, Mostly on Drug and Theft Charges
According to court records in Harris County, which encompasses Floyd's hometown of Houston, authorities arrested him on nine separate occasions between 1997 and 2007, mostly on drug and theft charges that resulted in months-long jail sentences.
But before we get into the specifics of those cases, first, some biographical details, per The Associated Press (AP): Floyd was the son of a single mother, who moved to Houston from North Carolina when he was a toddler so she could find work. They settled in what's called "Cuney Homes," a low-income public housing complex of more than 500 apartments in the city's predominately Black Third Ward. As a teen, Floyd was a star football and basketball player for Jake Yates High School, and later he played basketball for two years at a Florida community college. After that, in 1995, he spent one year at Texas A&M University in Kingsville before returning to his mother's Cuney apartment in Houston to find jobs in construction and security.
Another piece of important context while exploring how, and under what circumstances, police arrested Floyd in the late 1990s and early 2000s when he lived in Cuney Homes: On multiple occasions, police would make sweeps through the complex and end up detaining a large number of men, including Floyd, a neighborhood friend named Tiffany Cofield told the AP. Additionally, Texas has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, per the Prison Policy Initiative, and several studies show authorities are way more likely to target Black Texans for arrests than white residents.
As to the details of Floyd's arrests, the first occurred on Aug. 2, 1997, when he was almost 23 years old. According to prosecutors, police in that case caught him delivering less than one gram of cocaine to someone else, so they sentenced him to about six months in jail. Then, the following year, authorities arrested and charged Floyd with theft on two separate occasions (on Sept. 25, 1998, and Dec. 9, 1998), sentencing him to a total of 10 months and 10 days in jail.
Then, about three years later (on Aug. 29, 2001), Floyd was sentenced to 15 days in jail for "failure to identify to a police officer," court documents say. In other words, he allegedly didn't give his name, address or birth date to a cop who was arresting him for reasons that are unknown (the court records don't say why police were questioning him in the first place) and requesting that personal information.
Between 2002 and 2005, police arrested and charged Floyd for another four crimes: for having less than one gram of cocaine on him (on Oct. 29, 2002); for criminal trespassing (on Jan. 3, 2003); for intending to give less than one gram of cocaine to someone else (on Feb. 6, 2004); and for again having less than one gram of cocaine in his possession (on Dec. 15, 2005). He was sentenced to about 30 months in jail, total, for those crimes.
Lastly, in 2007, authorities arrested and charged Floyd with his most serious crime: aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon.
According to police officers' probable-cause statement, which is often the basis of prosecutors' case against suspects, the incident (on Aug. 9, 2007) unfolded like this: Two adults, Aracely Henriquez and Angel Negrete, and a toddler were in a home when they heard a knock at the front door. When Henriquez looked out the window, she saw a man "dressed in a blue uniform" who said "he was with the water department." But when she opened the door, she realized the man was telling a lie and she tried shutting him out. Then, the statement reads:
However, this male held the door open and prevented her from doing so. At this time, a black Ford Explorer pulled up in front of the Complainants' residence and five other black males exited this vehicle and proceeded to the front door. The largest of these suspects forced his way into the residence, placed a pistol against the complainant's abdomen, and forced her into the living room area of the residence. This large suspect then proceeded to search the residence while another armed suspect guarded the complainant, who was struck in the head and side areas by this second armed suspect with his pistol after she screamed for help. As the suspects looked through the residence, they demanded to know where the drugs and money were and Complaint Henriquez advised them that there were no such things in the residence. The suspects then took some jewelry along with the complainant's cell phone before they fled the scene in the black Ford Explorer.
About three months later, investigators in the Houston Police Department narcotics unit "came across this vehicle during one of the their respective investigations and identified the following subjects as occupants of this vehicle at the time of their investigation: George Floyd (Driver)…," the statement reads.
At 6-foot-7, Floyd was identified as the "the largest" of the six suspects who arrived at the home in the Ford Explorer and had pushed a pistol against Henriquez' abdomen before looking for items to steal. (Nothing in the court documents suggests she was pregnant at the time of the robbery, contrary to what memes and Owens later claimed.) He pleaded guilty in 2009 and was sentenced to five years in prison. He was paroled in January 2013, when he was almost 40 years old.
We Don't Know If MPD Officers Knew of Floyd's Past Arrests and Incarcerations
But to fully explore this, we'll lay out what happened on May 25, 2020. Around 8 p.m., someone inside a South Minneapolis convenience store called police to report that a man had used a $20 counterfeit bill to buy cigarettes, and then he ran outside to a vehicle parked nearby. The caller did not identify Floyd by name, according to the 911 transcript.
But here are some details about that call we learned after Floyd's death: The owner of the store, Mahmoud Abumayyaleh, told NPR that clerks are trained to let management know when someone uses counterfeit money, and the workers try to handle the crime themselves without cops, unless things escalate to violence. But in Floyd's case, Abumayyaleh said a teenage clerk who had only been employed for six months called 911, essentially implying the worker had not fully understood their protocol. Additionally, the owner said Floyd had been a regular customer for about a year, and he never caused any issues.
According to court documents, two MPD officers — Thomas Lane and J. A. Kueng — responded to the 911 call and, after talking to people inside the store, went to find Floyd in a parked vehicle nearby.
As Lane began speaking with Floyd, who was sitting in the driver's seat of the vehicle, the officer pulled his gun out and instructed Floyd to show his hands. Floyd complied with the order, whereupon the officer holstered his gun. Then, Lane ordered Floyd out of the car and "put his hands on Floyd, and pulled him out of the car," and handcuffed him, according to prosecutors. Then, charging documents state:
Mr. Floyd walked with Lane to the sidewalk and sat on the ground at Lane's direction. When Mr. Floyd sat down he said "thank you man" and was calm. In a conversation that lasted just under two minutes, Lane asked Mr. Floyd for his name and identification. Lane asked Mr. Floyd if he was "on anything" and noted there was foam at the edges of his mouth. Lane explained that he was arresting Mr. Floyd for passing counterfeit currency.
At 8:14 p.m., Officers Lane and Kueng stood Mr. Floyd up and attempted to walk Mr. Floyd to their squad car. As the officers tried to put Mr. Floyd in their squad car, Mr. Floyd stiffened up and fell to the ground. Mr. Floyd told the officers that he was not resisting but did not want to get in the back seat and was claustrophobic.
At that point, two other officers — Derek Chauvin and Tou Thao — arrived at the scene and tried again to get Floyd into a squad car. While they attempted to do so, he began asserting that he could not breathe. Then, according to criminal charges against Chauvin, the officer pulled Floyd out of the squad car, and "Mr. Floyd went to the ground face down and still handcuffed." The complaint continues:
Officer Kueng held Mr. Floyd's back and Officer Lane held his legs. Officer Chauvin placed his left knee in the area of Mr. Floyd's head and neck. Mr. Floyd said, 'I can't breathe' multiple times and repeatedly said, 'Mama' and 'please,' as well. At one point, Mr. Floyd said 'I'm about to die.'
A Minnesota judge released footage from Lane and Kueng's body cameras in early August 2020 — new evidence that showed their attempts to put Floyd into the squad car, and his repeated requests for the officers to consider his health. The videos also showed Chauvin kept Floyd pinned to the ground and knelt on his neck for about nine minutes, including for nearly three minutes after Floyd became non-responsive.
Then, per emergency medical technicians' and fire department personnel's accounts of the incident, medics loaded Floyd into an ambulance, where they used a mechanical chest compression device on Floyd, though he did not regain a pulse and his condition did not change.
It's unclear whether at any point before or during the call the MPD officers knew of Floyd's past arrests in Texas and, if so, whether that information at all influenced how they acted, consciously or subconsciously. MPD spokespeople did not respond to Snopes' questions about the officers' prior knowledge of Floyd before the call from the convenience store, nor did the department answer whether officers in general adjust their responses to 911 calls, or how they approach suspects, based on the criminal records of people involved.
Charging documents, police records and other court filings that lay out Floyd's criminal history are all publicly available via the Harris County District Clerk online database. Additionally, according to MPD's policy and procedure manual, which outlines everything from how officers should dress on the job to use-of-force guidelines, officers use a computerized dispatch system to handle 911 calls and often rely on computers in their squad cars to look up and document information.
All of that said, MPD Chief Medaria Arradondo said on June 10, 2020: "There is nothing in that call that should have resulted in the outcome with Mr. Floyd's death."
It's an Exaggeration of Toxicology Findings To Claim Floyd Was 'High on Meth' When He Died
In response to one of Owens' claims — "George Floyd at the time of his arrest was high on fentanyl and he was high on methamphetamine" — as well as assertions by social media users who seemed to be in search of proof for why the MPD officers acted the way they did, here we unpack the results of Floyd's autopsy report.
The claim is two-pronged: that Floyd had meth in his system and that he was high on the drug when Chauvin knelt on his neck, choking him.
Firstly, on May 29, 2020, court documents revealed the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's investigation into Floyd's death showed "no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxiation," and that "potential intoxicants" and preexisting cardiovascular disease "likely contributed to his death." (Note: Coronary artery disease and hypertension typically increase patients' risk of stroke and heart attack over years, not minutes, and asphyxia, or suffocation, does not always leave physical signs, according to doctors.)
Two days later, the county released a statement that attributed Floyd's cause of death to "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression" — which essentially means he died because his heart and lungs stopped while he was being restrained by police. That announcement came just hours after Floyd's family released findings of a separate, private autopsy that determined Floyd had indeed died from a combination of Chauvin's knee on his neck and pressure on his back from other the officers. (A copy of that autopsy with all of its details has not been made public.)
According to the county's postmortem toxicology screening, which is summarized below and was performed one day after Floyd's death, he was intoxicated with fentanyl and had recently used methamphetamines (as well as other substances) before Chauvin choked him.
More Specifically, Floyd tested positive for 11 ng/mL of fentanyl — which is a synthetic opioid pain reliever — and 19 ng/mL of methamphetamine, or meth, though it's unclear by what method the intoxicants got into his bloodstream or for what reasons.
But more complex is proving whether "he was high" at the time of his fatal encounter with police. While everyone's reaction to and tolerance for such drugs varies, and the effects of mixing drugs can be totally unpredictable, lab technicians say fentanyl slowly leaves users' systems, mostly via urination, over the course of three days from when they first shot up. Additionally, they consider "the presence of fentanyl above 0.20 ng/mL" — which is significantly less than the amount found in Floyd's system — to be "a strong indicator that the patient has used fentanyl," according to Mayo Clinic Laboratories.
For methamphetamines, which are typically smoked or injected, users feel an instant euphoria, and then the tapering effects of the drug last anywhere from eight to 24 hours. After that initial "rush," the amount of meth reduces in their bloodstreams and tests for the drug can be positive for up to five days. Per the University of Rochester Medical Center, the amount of methamphetamines found in Floyd's bloodstream (19 ng/mL or .019 mg/L) is "within the range" of some patients' "therapeutic or prescribed use" of the drug.
Also, Hennepin County medical examiners stated Floyd's blood levels made it seem like he had "recently" used meth in the past, not that he was peaking on a high from it, and the county investigators did not list the drugs as Floyd's cause of death, but rather as "significant conditions" that influenced how he died. For those reasons and considering the amount of methamphetamines detected in Floyd's toxicology report, it's an exaggeration of the scientific evidence to claim Floyd "was high on meth" before police choked him — though his bloodstream did test positive for the drug.
But while making that analysis, it is important to consider the insight of a group of emergency room doctors and psychiatrists, who in the wake of Floyd's death wrote in the Scientific American: "When Black people are killed by police, their character and even their anatomy is turned into justification for their killer's exoneration. It's a well-honed tactic."
Furthermore, a letter on behalf of thousands of Black doctors and health care workers in America titled "The 'Collective Black Physicians' Statement' on the death of Mr. George Floyd" stated:
Any mention of potential intoxicants of which Mr. Floyd may have been under the influence is meritless at this stage of the physical autopsy examination. In a medicolegal autopsy, the results of a urinary toxicology screen are often inaccurate. All substances must be detected and confirmed in blood and/or particular organs before it can be said that an individual was intoxicated and that death is a complication of that toxicity.
Floyd's Rap Sheet and Toxicology Results Are Likely To Play a Role in Officers' Murder Trials
We can credit history for our conclusion on this point. For example, during the murder trial of George Zimmerman — who, though not a police officer, was eventually acquitted of homicide charges in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager, in 2012 — reports of Martin's alleged truancy and petty crimes made news headlines. Similarly, people called attention to the arrest record of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old Black man who was shot and killed by a white police officer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2016, as his surviving relatives filed a wrongful death lawsuit against police and the city (which remains ongoing as of this writing).
In the latest high-profile case of deadly use of force by police, all four officers — Lane, Kueng, Chauvin and Thao — were fired from MPD the day after Floyd's controversial killing and were criminally charged.
For 19-year MPD veteran Chauvin, 44, who faces the most severe charges of the four men, Hennepin County prosecutors initially charged him with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. But in early June, after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz requested the state's Attorney General Keith Ellison to take over the case, Ellison upgraded those charges so the ex-MPD officer now faces a more severe charge of second-degree murder, in addition to the original charges brought forth by county prosecutors. (Read that latest complaint here.) He made his first court appearance on June 8, 2020, which was mostly procedural, and was held on $1.25 million bail.
Meanwhile, Thao, Kueng and Lane face charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder while committing a felony, and with aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in Floyd's killing. (You can read the full charges against Thao here; Kueng here, and Lane here.) They made their first court appearances on June 4, 2020, where a judge set bail for each of them at $750,000 if they agreed to certain conditions, such as leaving law enforcement work and avoiding contact with Floyd's family. One week later, Lane, 37, posted that amount and was freed from Hennepin County jail, and his attorney told the Star Tribune he was planning to file a motion to dismiss the charges.
As of this report, all four officers were scheduled to make their next court appearance June 29, 2020, and no court proceedings have focused on Floyd's criminal history or drug use, with the exception of the charging documents that mention Hennepin County's autopsy report and toxicology findings.
Why People Draw Attention to Criminal Histories of Black Men Who Die in Police Custody
For decades, corners of the internet and journalists have highlighted the criminal records of non-white people killed by authorities or caught in viral videos, no matter the relevancy of the rap sheets.
One of the uglier examples is the case of Charles Ramsey, a self-described "scary looking black dude" who helped rescue Amanda Berry, a Cleveland woman who had been kidnapped and held hostage for years in a home near Ramsey's, in 2013. His interviews about the rescue spread like wildfire online, but then a local TV station aired a story on his criminal past (it was later removed and the station apologized).
More similar to the case of Floyd are the above-mentioned examples of Sterling and Martin, Black men who died at the hands of police and a neighborhood watch volunteer, respectively, and whose histories were trotted out in news stories after they died, seemingly as part of an effort to deny them martyrdom.
Advocates for police reform say the pattern puts unjust blame on victims of police violence and distracts the public from the most important issue at the center of these incidents: Officers too often resort to violence when dealing with citizens, especially if they are Black, indigenous, or people of color.
Kevin O Cokley, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies police brutality against Black Americans, explained the psychology behind the media pattern in an email to Snopes. Of people calling attention to Floyd's criminal past, specifically, he wrote:
It fits into what psychologists have called the just-world hypothesis, which is a cognitive bias where people believe that the world is just and orderly, and people get what they deserve. It is difficult for people to believe that bad things can happen to good people or to people who don't deserve it. This is because if people know that these things do happen, they have to decide whether they want to do something about it or sit by silently knowing that there is injustice happening around them.
Furthermore, his colleague Richard Reddick, an associate dean in the university's College of Education, told us in a phone interview the claims about Floyd were also a product of the era's highly polarized media environment, compounded by years of problematic storytelling by politicians and reporters that portrays Black men only as "criminal entities" instead of nuanced people. He said:
This is something that Black men are subject to quite a bit — not often seen as complex, whole human beings, who have done wonderful things and not so great things in their lives, but simply a criminal. … This is something that seems to be very specific to Black men who are ex-judiciously murdered; we have to find a rationale, or excuse, or justification for it, no matter what it was.
In other words, he said, shifting the public narrative away from police officers' actions and onto Floyd's criminal history is a reoccurring communication strategy "that's intended to make us not see him as a victim, to dehumanize him, and to make him a caricature." People can subscribe to the "he had it coming" trope so they don't have to feel sorry for the victim of police brutality and can deny police responsibility for their actions, Reddick said. He added:
I don't trust the motivations of the folks bringing this forward. … Of course they're asking, 'Why isn't [Floyd's criminal history] covered in the major media?' And it's because it's not relevant to this kind of story. What happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis has nothing to do with what happened to him, what he did, in 2007.
To that point, Reddick said Floyd's past arrests and incarcerations may justifiably appear in "wholesome portraits" about Floyd's life (such as this AP story), while O Cokley said the news media should not include the background in its stories about Floyd because it "has no relevance to the officer's behavior," and because "there is no standardization of the inclusion of background information on stories involving victims of police misconduct." Reddick summed up the phenomenon like this:
We shouldn't conflate the complexity of a person's life with an event that ended with their life being lost — those moments and that time is relevant, but not a criminal conviction from years prior because this is supposedly a country where, when you've served your sentence, you're now able to go rebuild your life, as what he was trying to do.
In January 2013, after Floyd was paroled for the aggravated robbery, people who knew him said he returned to Houston's Third Ward "with his head on right." He organized events with local pastors, served as a mentor for people living in his public housing complex, and was affectionately called "Big Floyd" or "the O.G." (original gangster) as a title of respect for someone who'd learned from his experiences. Then in 2014, Floyd, a father of five, decided to move to Minneapolis to find a new job and start a new chapter.
"The world knows George Floyd, I know Perry Jr.," said Kathleen McGee, his aunt (in reference to her nickname for Floyd), at his funeral on June 9, 2020. "He was a pesky little rascal, but we all loved him."
Rumors are surging in the wake of George Floyd's death and resulting protests against police violence and racial injustice in the United States. Stay informed. Read our special coverage, contribute to support our mission, and submit any tips or claims you see here.
This report was updated on Aug. 31, 2020, with details from officers' body camera footage recently released to the public.
Crawford-Roberts, Ann, et. al. "George Floyd's Autopsy and the Structural Gaslighting of America".
Scientific American. 11 June 2020.
Henao, Luis Andres, et. al. "For George Floyd, a Complicated Life and a Notorious Death".
The Associated Press. 10 June 2020.
Jany, Libor and Navratil, Liz. "Kroll, Minneapolis Police Union Head, Blasts City's Riot Response in Letter to Officers".
Star Tribune. 1 June 2020.
Fernandez, Manny and Audra D.S. Burch. "After Rocky Start in Houston, George Floyd Came to Minneapolis for a Fresh Start"
The New York Times. 10 June 2020.
Balko, Radley. "There's Overwhelming Evidence That the Criminal-Justice System Is Racist. Here's Proof".
The Washington Post. 10 June 2020.
Texas Justice Initiative. "Explore The Data."
Accessed 11 June 2020.
Minneapolismn.gov. "MPD Policy & Procedure Manual."
Florido, Adrian. "911 Call Fuels Debate About Store's Role In Floyd's Death."
NPR. 2 June 2020.
Mayo Clinic Laboratories. "Fentanyl with Metabolite Confirmation, Random, Urine."
Willis, Haley. "New Footage Shows Delayed Medical Response to George Floyd."
The New York Times. 11 August 2020.
Sepic, Matt, et. al. "Ex-cop's Video Captures Crowd's Horror During Floyd Arrest."
MPRNews. 13 August 2020.
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Swallowtail Games
Gaming Taken Seriously
Rocket League in 2021
I've enjoyed playing Rocket League, on and off, since it's launch in 2015. Rocket League popularity has always been high but has seen expotential growth since the game became free to play, in 2020. It's one of those games that you can just sit down and play. You don't need to learn loads of rules or gameplay tactics. You can play for a few minutes or as long as you like. It's an ideal game to just let off a bit of steam without having to heavily engage your brain. If you want to take it more seriously, that option is available too, so it really does have mass appeal.
If you're unfamiliar with the game, visualise football meets Robot Wars and that's pretty much the essence of it. Set in an arena, you're controlling a car which you aim at a large metallic looking ball, in the hope of directing it into your opponents goal. Get it wrong and hit an opponents car instead of the ball and you're going to suffer damage, which can impact your performance. As the clock hits zero and the carnage stops, the team with the most goals win. Although the base game is free to play, you can pay for extras, such as buying different cars but there really is no need. The car you're supplied by default, is called Octane and is arguably the best car anyway.
Let's delve deeper into the game and what you can do.. starting with the Menu, which contains the Rocket Pass, Garage, Item shop and Profile. The first three options offer a means to customise your vehicle. These are all purely cosmetic and doesn't affect gameplay. A small fee gets you extra rewards for more customisation if you wish, but again it's not necessary. The Profile allows you to see your stats and also offers replays, so you can indulge again in your finest moments.
Rocket League offers various game modes, starting with Casual. Casual mode allows you to drop in and out of games, even midway through. You can play 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4. Competitive mode is where you play 10 matches on a 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 basis. You will then be awarded a rank. This will go up or down as you play further games, depending on your level of success. Tournament mode is mainly for more established players and you don't get to choose the number of players. Training mode is there for you to practise and fine tune your skills. Extra mode offers you a range of skills, attributes and modifications. Custom mode allows you to play with your friends.
I have to admit when I first started playing Rocket League I was pretty bad. It looks easy to play and in many ways it is but to master it, is another issue. Visually the game looks stunning, the music is brilliant, the gameplay excellent and it can be highly addictive. If you intend to play on a PC I would advise getting a game controller. You can play with a mouse and keyboard but it is much more difficult.
Rocket League has a massive online community and you will find dedicated servers on sites, such as Discord. Its concept may be simple, but it's a great game and I don't see its appeal and popularity waning any time soon. It's just a short, free download away, so try it out, if you haven't already.
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Philadephia's New DA Wants Prosecutors To Talk Cost Of Incarceration While In Court
Published April 4, 2018 at 6:58 AM PDT
Emma Lee
Philadelphia district attorney Lawrence Krasner is asking prosecutors to bring up the cost of incarceration with judges.
Every day, judges around the country are deciding the fate of criminal defendants by trying to strike the right balance between public safety and fairness.
In Philadelphia, the new progressive district attorney has launched an experiment. He's asking his prosecutors to raise another factor with judges: the cost of incarceration.
The move has ignited a debate about whether the pricetag of punishment belongs in courtrooms.
Do a little math
"Fiscal responsibility is a justice issue, and it is an urgent justice issue," Larry Krasner said at a press conference recently.
Krasner is a former civil rights lawyer who rode into office on a platform of radically revamping the city's district attorney's office by opposing the death penalty, stepping away from cash bail and seeking shorter prison sentences for offenders.
He sees asking prosecutors and judges to grapple with the cost of locking up a defendant as a stride toward fulfilling his promise of trying to fight mass incarceration.
At sentencing hearings, when prosecutors traditionally talk about the impact on victims and the community and the need for deterrence, they now will also have to do a little math.
Since the average cost of housing a prisoner for a year in Pennsylvania is $42,000, the prosecutor might say something like, judge, we are recommending four years in prison for this person. And that will cost taxpayers more than $160,000.
"A dollar spent on incarceration should be worth it," Krasner said. "Otherwise, that dollar may be better spent on addiction treatment, on public education, on policing and on other types of activity that make us all safer."
Asking prosecutors to tell judges the taxpayer tab of putting someone away is unusual. If cost is mentioned at all, it would far more likely be cited by a defense lawyer. Putting that responsibility of prosecutors has not been tested much in the country.
In 2010, Missouri made a similar proposal, making cost information available to judges, but it was not a mandatory consideration.
University of Pennsylvania law and economics professor David Abrams said whether the move impacted the prison sentences judges handed down in Missouri has never been studied.
In Philadelphia, Abrams said it may just force judges to ponder the societal cost of incarceration a little differently, though he does not expect it to have sway across the city's entire justice system.
"I think there are going to be marginal cases where the judge is somewhat indifferent between harsher and maybe more expensive and slightly lass harsh and maybe vastly less expensive sentences, where this will make a difference," Abrams said.
"Absurd, irrelevant, ridiculous, nonsense and horrific"
Not everyone in Philadelphia's criminal law world is embracing the news. Some prosecutors say privately that they plan to ignore the guidance completely. And one judge recently said he would hold an assistant district attorney in contempt of court if the cost issue was raised again.
Richard Sax, for one, is not surprised. He spent more than 30 years as a homicide prosecutor in the Philadelphia District Attorney's office before retiring last year. Here is his appraisal of Krasner's new policy: "The words that come to mind are absurd, irrelevant, ridiculous, nonsense and horrific," Sax said.
Sax calls the announcement a public relations stunt and said it is insulting to victims of crime.
"It should have no bearing on whether a society, or a community or people who are at risk of being victimized should be protected from a human being, an individual," he said.
And some families of crime victims agree with Sax, saying it is impossible to quantify what it is like to be the victim of crime.
Just ask Celestine Shorts of North Philadelphia. Her brother, Christopher, was fatally shot last year. She said a courtroom debate about money would be upsetting to her.
"When you voluntarily hurt someone, I think you should be accountable for your actions. Was it only set to work if it's in the budget, or was it set with laws or law? Rules are rules, we have a structure," she said.
In Krasner's estimation, that structure has caused America to have more criminals locked up than any other country.
Krasner said input from victims and their families will still be considered, along with public safety, the defendant's criminal background and the gravity of the offense.
The money factor, Krasner said, is just an additional consideration.
Research, he said, has consistently illustrated that shorter sentences for criminal offenders do not cause more crime. Instead, studies indicate that certainty of punishment — not the length of time spent behind bars — has a meaningful impact on deterring crime.
Defense lawyer Michael Diamondstein said prosecutors, in recommending punishment to a judge, have an incredible amount of sway over a defendant's life and liberty.
The cost question will not please everyone, but he said it is about time the criminal justice system experiment with something new.
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," Diamondstein said. "The worst thing that happens is that it makes no difference. But it may. It may make a judge or two stop and think what the actual cost is to sentencing someone."
With the help of money from the MacArthur Foundation, city officials have been working for the past few years to cut the prison population with the goal of a one-third reduction. But individual decisions by a judge are harder to influence. Krasner is hoping to give them a nudge.
And if it does shorten sentences, Krasner said he is confident it will not spike violent crime.
"We are not concerned that this is going to produce a zombie invasion of crime," he said at the press conference earlier this month. "In fact, we consider it highly doubtful that people being arrested will even be aware this policy exists."
Copyright 2018 WHYY